'American Idol' Winner: Scotty McCreery Defeats Lauren Alaina for Season 10 Crown

Scotty McCreery, whose deep, syrupy voice has been compared to that of Josh Turner, was crowned Season 10's American Idol on Wednesday night's live finale.Seventeen-year-old McCreery defeated fellow teenage country singer Lauren Alaina, continuing the trend of male victories throughout the show's last four seasons. (Every winner since 2007 -- since Season 6 champ Jordin Sparks -- has been male.)

A record 122.4 million votes were cast following Tuesday's performance show, bringing the total votes for Season 10 up to more than 730 million -- the highest number of votes for any Idol season."It's been a year now since Lauren and I tried out," McCreery told the crowd upon being crowned American Idol, adding that the two have "stuck together." He continued: "I gotta thank the Lord first -- he got me here."

The Garner, N.C., native clinched the Idol title with a performance of his debut single, "I Love You This Big," on Tuesday's show, in addition to renditions of Montgomery Gentry's "Gone" and George Strait's "Check Yes or No." McCreery returned to the Idol stage Wednesday alongside Tim McGraw, as the two performed McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying."

The two-hour American Idol finale was, as usual, jam-packed with all-star performances and duets, including Lady Gaga, Carrie Underwood (dueting with Alaina on "Before He Cheats"), U2's Bono and the Edge, Lil Jon with the surviving members of TLC, Steven Tyler, Marc Anthony with Jennifer Lopez, Tony Bennett, Judas Priest and Tom Jones. Additionally, Beyonce took the stage to debut the piano-driven ballad "1+1," a new song from her forthcoming album, 4.