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American Idol Tuesday, Blake and Jordin battle on stage

By Stone Martindale May 23, 2007, 1:07 GMT

\'American Idol\' contestant Blake Lewis REUTERS/Fred Prouser

The American Idol finale featuring Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis began on Tuesday night with Blake Lewis performing Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name". 

Simon Cowell told an AP reporter earlier that Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis are the most evenly matched "American Idol" finalists yet, and either could win Wednesday.

"You've got the better singer versus the better entertainer," the series judge said, with teen queen Sparks the former and beatboxer Lewis the latter.

Tonight Simon Cowell sussed up Blake and said: "Lewis is not the best singer in the competition but he is the best performer." 

Jordin came on next though Simon found the vocals a tad shrieky in the middle.  He gave round one to Blake. 

Randy gave the entertainment performance to Blake and the singing performance to Jordin in this round.

Blake came into Round 2 doing a Maroon 5 song and was excellent. Simon didn't think it was as good as the first performance. 

Jordin took round two with a Martina McBride song.  Randy Jackson called it "better than the original" and the vocals were "flawless".  Simon Cowell said "Now that was good!"

The final song performed by both Blake and Jordin was "This is My Now" -  the winner of the American Idol song competition. 

Simon says "Jordin, you wiped Blake off the floor with that song".  She did a phenomenal job.

According to Internet statisticians Hitwise, which claims to track the online usage and searches of over 10 million Internet surfers, as of the week ending May 19, Blake had .0045% of all search traffic monitored by Hitwise, versus .0036% for Sparks.

In addition, more searches that included the name "Blake Lewis" also contained references to his music and song choices.