WHETHER you embrace or scorn American Idol, the most efficient star-making phenomenon in entertainment history, can depend on the day.

Twenty-five-year-old David Cook's lopsided victory over David Archuleta, 17, was an unexpected triumph of poise and maturity over ingenuousness and promise.

It reversed last season's trend, when Jordin Sparks, an unformed talent with a bubbly personality and a big voice, won, and the older, less glamorous but far more talented Melinda Doolittle came in third.

Several days earlier, the Briton had predicted Cook as the winner. His flip-flopping might have been a cunning, ratings-grabbing manoeuvre to generate suspense in a season when American Idol has been suffering some audience slippage (though the results show's broadcast on Fox drew 31.7 million viewers, about a million more than last year's finale).

Cook was chastised for choosing the wrong song, The World I Know by Collective Soul, as his final selection. It was considered a misfire presumably because it was quieter and subtler than the usual belt-it-to-the-rafters war horses that win talent shows. I loved it.

Throughout the season, Archuleta, whose honeyed voice conveys a boyish sincerity, was encouraged to be shameless. He won my affection early with his joyous Shop Around, but lost it by applying to Neil Diamond's grandiose tub-thumper America the same sugar-coated sob he brought to Imagine.

Because Cook refused to follow the unspoken guidelines for the competition, he emerged as the most original and savvy male finalist in the show's history. The cornerstone of his victory was his iconoclastic rock version earlier in the season of Billie Jean, the magic song that catapulted Michael Jackson to new heights of popularity 25 years ago.

Cook has a strong, flexible voice; when he sings rock, its scuffed edges echo Sam Cooke filtered through Steve Perry. Stylistically he occupies the same broad pop-to-rock territory as Bryan Adams, one of several star guests at Wednesday's finale, but Cook is a better singer.

The appearances of older generations of pop performers as coaches and guests - in addition to Adams, the results show's guests included Donna Summer and ZZ Top - is an inspired concept that contributes to the comforting fantasy that there exists what the host Ryan Seacrest has called 'the American Idol family'.

If the two-hour variety show that ended the season illustrated much that is right about American Idol, the earlier showdown between the two Davids was a disheartening spectacle that jokingly (and futilely) tried to portray the singers as engaged in a blood feud.

The two finalists, looking embarrassed and mystified, appeared in prizefighting robes with boxing gloves and half-heartedly struck pugnacious stances.

The term 'heavyweight title' floated in the air.

Cowell advised them with a straight face: 'You've got to hate your opponent.'

Rivalries with threats of violence may be commonplace among rappers. But to portray mild-mannered performers like Cook and Archuleta, even humorously, as enemies plays into the prevailing ethos of pop music as a gladiatorial sporting event. The overall quality of music is much the worse for having been turned into spectator sport.

Except for the two Davids, this season's contestants were an uninspiring group of singers whom comedian Jimmy Kimmel, during his brief, pungent roast of the show and its judges, accurately described as '19 weeks of karaoke'.

What's right about American Idol is the way it holds up a mirror to American mass culture. Not since the heyday of Ed Sullivan has a variety show cast such a wide net.

The show reveals the same deep-seated longing for agreement and consensus that can be felt in electoral politics nowadays, underneath that cynical talking-head level.

Because each show ends with a national election in which the audience can override the judges' opinions, it gives power to the people. It may all be bread and circuses, but it is still democracy in action.

NYT