For weeks now on "The Voice," viewers had assumed that Javier Colon--who'd been the frontrunner since before the season even started, when his first audition of "Time After Time" was heavily featured in "Voice" promo teasers--had the competition in the bag. So perhaps it was no surprise when he triumphed over Beverly McClellan, Vicci Martinez, and his most formidable opponent, iTunes chart-topper Dia Frampton (who came in second to Javier, separated by only 2 percent of the votes), on Wednesday's big finale.

As his mentor Adam Levine put it, this was not Javier's first time at the rodeo. He sang with the Derek Trucks Band in the early 2000s, and was signed to Capitol Records after that; the first single off his 2003 self-titled debut album for Capitol, "Crazy," was a minor chart success, reaching number 95 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 42 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. (No wonder he looked like such a pro performing with legend Stevie Nicks on the "Voice" finale!) Javier's

Tuesday night the four finalists competed on "The Voice" for the last time, performing two songs each. They did duets with their respective superstar mentors, during which they all impressively held their own, as equals--no easy feat when one's duet partner is a large-lung'd, larger-than-life character like Christina Aguilera or Cee Lo Green. But even more excitingly, all four contestants sang ORIGINAL songs. Throughout its inaugural season, "The Voice" has set up its contestants for real, viable music careers (for instance, allowing iTunes downloads to count as votes, so that votes mirror the actual marketplace). And having the finalists all perform potential singles--not "coronation songs" about rainbows and unicorns, but songs that presumably reflect the kind of music they'd like to make after the show, whether they win or not--only furthered this cause. This is how a talent search (emphasis on the word "talent") should be done, people!

The talent is so strong on this show, in fact,

Season 7 "American Idol" finalist Brooke White is one of my favorite Idols ever, and although she has found success acting and hosting in various TV projects, her post-"Idol" music has not garnered the attention I feel it should have. Until now. I think Brooke's finally found the ideal vehicle for her folksy talents.

Brooke has just formed a duo amusingly named Jack & White with California singer-songwriter Jack Matranga (formerly of the indie band Self Against City). The two were recently matched up blindly, for a session to co-write a song for what was supposed to be Brooke's new solo album...but they hit off so well during that session that they ended up writing six songs, and decided to release them as the Gemini EP (out this summer) under the name Jack & White.

I am loving the music snippets I hear in the teaser above--it's all reminiscent of great easy-breezy '60s and '70s folk-rockers like the Mamas & The Papas, the Carpenters, and Fleetwood Mac, but the music also brings to

Thursday night was a rough night on "So You Think You Can Dance," as four incredible dancers--ballroom goddess Iveta, tapper Nick, jazz sexpot Missy, and B-boy Wadi--were all sent home at once. In any other season, contestants this excellent might've easily sailed through to the top 10. But Season 8 is so fiercely competitive, it's a whole other game.

It should be pointed out that none of these dancers were up for elimination last week, when the flip-flopping judges decided at the last minute not to cut anyone. Did the fanbases of last week's bottom seven contestants, who were all given another chance, mobilize and vote in droves this Wednesday, leading to an entirely new result this week? Would Iveta, Nick, Missy, and Wadi still be around this week if two dancers HAD gone home last week? Well, at least two of them would be...as for the other two, it could just be that the "SYTYCD" race really is too close to call this year.

Anyway, check out Thursday night's emotional interviews with