Blake Lewis - He Kept Us Hanging On

There's a certain talent that resides inside Blake Lewis that is just flat out interesting, and it was partially that that got him into the final two of this season's American Idol. He captured our interest because of his beatboxing. If for no other reason, it was just different than anything else we had heard on American Idol up until now. And the longer he remained on the show, the more interesting he became.

It was in Seattle that we first saw Blake Lewis with the hair that was standing straight up, even through the pouring rain. He was already a champion in his hometown for his beatboxing and showed Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, and Simon Cowell a little sample. Simon, of course, was unimpressed. He seemed like one of those guys that would be a single talent, but surprisingly, once he started actually singing, he was pretty good. Simon wanted to make a big stink that Blake wasn't as good as he thought he was, but we knew the truth. It didn't matter whether he thought he was or not. He was excitingly different. Even more interesting was the touching relationship between Blake and his father. Simon, of course, found it obnoxious.

The next time we saw him was in the Hollywood round, and after making it to the next step, he appeared on group night with Chris Sligh, Rudy Cardenas, and Thomas Lowe. They did an amazingly good version of How Deep Is Your Love a cappella. Blake did some of is beatboxing in it, and later on it came out that he was hesitant, as he didn't want to be stuck with that label. The other guys talked him into it, though, knowing it just made the song. It wasn't just that, though, but a combination of all the voices. Their harmonizing was unbelievable, and many said it was the best group performance since Kimberley Locke and Frenchie Davis. In the end, all of them but Thomas Lowe made it to the final 24.

During the first week of final 24, he shocked everyone by not doing any beatboxing, and not only did he not do it, he sang Somewhere Only We Know by Keane pretty well. Simon noted that while he didn't have the best vocal ever, he was the first one to come out that night and actually sound like he was singing in 2007, and that would be a recurring theme of Blake's throughout. It was this week he stopped being known as "the beatboxer," and started being known as "Blake Lewis." The following week, after dedicating his performance to his parents, he beatboxed again and threw even more tricks in the bag, giving us a falsetto and some scatting as well.

The interesting thing about Blake was that even when his attempts at changing up a song to suit his needs failed, he was still interesting. Whether the song failed or succeeded you had to always appreciate the talent that got him to that point. He explained how he changed up Diana Ross' You Keep Me Hanging On, and eventually many of the others as well, saying he put it on his computer, put some new beats to it, then would change different things until he came up with the sound he liked. In this case it was slowing it down. It wasn't very successful, but you had to appreciate the artistry. The next week he did the same thing with Time of the Season and was highly successful.

Although Blake always seemed so cool, he had an absolute sweetness to him and even some peculiarities as well. Gwen Stefani told him he sang pretty, and he got very embarrassed. Yet we also heard he didn't like to wear jeans and made his own pants himself. This young guy that was multi-talented actually sewed his own pants. By this time, he had his own group of fans, many of them young girls, but some older ones as well. They called themselves The Blaker Girls.

By the time Blake took on Mack the Knife and ended it with a little scatting, he had long been considered a frontrunner and the word finale was now being tossed around with his name included. It was hard to imagine the competition without him. When Haley Scarnato was having a hard time nailing down the tempo of a song, guest mentor Jennifer Lopez brought in Blake to provide the beat for her. He really struggled during country week singing a Tim McGraw tune, as it clearly wasn't his genre, but he'd been so successful so far, that it wasn't going to affect his votes too much.

During Idol Gives Back he sang Imagine by John Lennon as his inspirational song, and there was some controversy about his performance, whether he sang it well or not. Again, his voice was much better than you would expect a beatboxer to be, but he had some troubles with it. It seemed like when he would do ballads like this, he focused so much on the vocal, that he would forget the emotion of the song, and would stare blankly ahead. On this particular song it seemed somewhat alarming.

What shocked us all was during Bon Jovi week when he sang You Give Love a Bad Name and completely Blake-ized it. It split people pretty much down the middle. Some felt it was almost sacrilegious the change up a Bon Jovi classic, and others felt it was extreme talent and an improvement on the song. It went on to become one of his most popular songs and as of this week is #4 on the iTunes chart, one spot about Jordin Sparks' This Is My Now. Simon called it right; the best part of Blake is that he takes risks and isn't afraid to fail when he makes something his own.

The next week, Blake took on the BeeGees, and it didn't go nearly as well, but as always, you had to appreciate the artistry. It became hard to determine when looking at talent at that point. There were two definite top vocalists in Melinda Doolittle and LaKisha Jones, a younger less experienced Jordin Sparks, and Blake. Either you liked classically good vocals, liked the youth factor, or liked the artistry of Blake. Some thought it was definitely his time to leave, and others knew he was in it for the long haul. He stayed.

Final three week he did a little bit of everything. He did a song with all vocal and no beatboxing, one with just a small bit of beatboxing, and another that was totally unexpected, and one he hadn't done before, while Melinda Doolittle and Jordin Sparks were doing songs that they had don't some of their best work on previously. Simon said it again. Blake took risks. It worked, and got him into the final 2. And while he took this opportunity to repeat his best work with the Bon Jovi tune and took on another Maroon 5 as well, there was no hope with the song he and Jordin were being given for the so-called coronation song. It was so unlike Blake that even he couldn't drop it in the computer and change it up, and frankly if he'd tried he would have been told it was wrong. This was Jordin's song any way you looked at it, and it was at that point we knew she had just won.

You have to look at what you want out of your Idol. With Jordin winning, people assumably weren't looking for something different this year. Jordin is certainly talented, but she wasn't the most talented and wasn't the best entertainer, and she isn't that different from previous Idols. Blake would have fulfilled that role of the best entertainer no matter how you look at it, if that's what America was going for. We all know he's better off, though, coming in second. He will surely get a record contract anyway, and he isn't stuck singing that song. Blake was always so different and wanted to do it his way, he would have never been happy being nailed down to what they wanted. I suspect the show saw that in him as well, As much as they liked him, and knew he'd sell them records, they knew he wouldn't sell the records they wanted him to.

You can contact me at LauraBelle@realityshack.com

For more information on American Idol, see Reality Shack or SirLinksalot: American Idol and for more on Blake Lewis, see SirLinksalot: Blake Lewis.