Surviving what Simon Cowell said was a knockout, David Cook conquered the seventh season of American Idol.

After pulling in 56% of a whopping 97.5 million votes, the 25-year-old rocker beat out boy wonder David Archuleta, 17, on Idol's finale last night. A frontrunner from the get-go, Cook's stock fell on Tuesday's show after his three performances didn't get half the praise from judges Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul as the younger David's did.

Clearly, America didn't agree with the panel.

Standing before 7,000 fans at L.A.'s Nokia Theatre -- and not to mention, the kajillions of you huddled around your TV screens -- the teary-eyed Blue Springs, Mo., bartender shook his head in disbelief after host Ryan Seacrest delivered the long-anticipated result.

"I'm absolutely speechless right now. This is amazing. Thank you," he said before breaking into this year's winning tune from the American Idol Songwriter contest, Nashville singer-songwriter Regie Hamm's Time of My Life.

A combover-less Cook came out strong and confident on the vital last performance episode (which was overloaded with boxing cliches, complete with Michael Buffer's "let's get ready to rumble!"), but his versions of U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, Emily Shackelton's Dream Big and Collective Soul's The World I Know went over better with the audience than they did with the judges. Murray, Utah, runnerup Archuleta's tunes -- Elton John's Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, Ryan Gillmor's In This Moment and an encore of his touching take on John Lennon's Imagine -- had Jackson raving, Abdul crying and Cowell rubbing his opinions in Cook's face.

"What we have witnessed is a knockout," Cowell said to Archuleta, with Cook undoubtedly cringing somewhere in the wings.

Well, he's laughing now -- especially since Cowell took the time last night to apologize to him for being disrespectful.

The humble songster deserved the apology -- and the title. He's one of few Idol contestants who has made a weekly routine of putting his own spin on other peoples' songs (notably Chris Cornell's version of Billie Jean and Lionel Richie's Hello), and hopefully, will continue to have an active role in his career now that he's won a lucrative recording deal and a contract with Idol-related 19 Management ("hopefully" being the key word here).

The big announcement came less than five minutes before the show's scheduled end time, meaning it was just a fraction of the action Idol's sorta-star-studded two-hour finale brought to our night.

George Michael, The Jonas Brothers, OneRepublic, Seal, Donna Summer, Canada's own Bryan Adams, Graham Nash, ZZ Top and Jimmy Kimmel are among the celebrity acts who took advantage of the heaps of publicity an appearance on the Idol finale offers. Past champs Jordin Sparks and Carrie Underwood also joined the fun, and the rest of

Season 7's Top 12 came back to perform again (and consequently remind us why they didn't pull in enough votes in the first place).

Other bonus goodies? A frenetic Seacrest scurrying around in hyperactive season-finale mode; Mike Myers showing off his new alter-ego Pitka (from forthcoming flick The Love Guru) in an awkward pre-taped scene with the Davids; reruns of those magnificent Ford commercials; live reports from the Davids' hometowns; and last but not least, the glorious return of Idol never-has-been Renaldo Lapuz to perform his infamous audition song I Am Your Brother -- complete with a marching band.

And so ends another season of America's hugely popular karaoke contest. Fortunately those of us north of the border still have much to look forward to, as Canadian Idol kicks off June 3 on CTV. Wouldn't miss it for the world, eh?