“American Idol” is a boys club now. The final three, who will sing tonight starting at 8, are all male —front-runner Adam Lambert, fan favorite Danny Gokey and “dark horse” Kris Allen.

This isn’t the first time the gender of the “Idol” winner was decided before the finals—last year, both winner and runner-up were male and both named David—Cook and Archuleta.

But it’s actually been far more one-sided. In Season Three, the top four were all women: Fantasia (the winner), Diana DeGarmo, Jasmine Trias and LaToya London. Not until George Huff, in fifth place, did a male appear. After him was East Amherst’s John Stevens, and just behind him was one Jennifer Hudson, arguably “Idol’s” most successful alum ever.

That’s just the way it goes sometimes on “Idol,” which is much more than, as judge Simon Cowell often says, “a singing competition.” It’s also a popularity contest, with everything from life story to hometown making an impact on votes. And it’s also a national obsession. Last week, 62 million votes were received, the most, host Ryan Seacrest said, except for a finale, in the show’s history.

Tonight, Lambert, Gokey and Allen will each sing two songs, one they choose and one a judge chooses for them. On the Wednesday results show, Katy Perry and Season 6 winner Jordin Sparks will perform, and one of the boys will go home.

With the annual contest nearing its finale next week, it’s time for a look at the final three. While there are some similarities—all three are in their 20s, and Gokey and Allen both work as worship leaders at their churches—the eventual winner’s success will depend on how he sets himself apart.

Three Western New Yorkers, avid watchers of the show, offered their insight into the chances and challenges facing the finalists.

Debbie Bello is a voice coach who runs Bello Voice Studio in Orchard Park and has taken dozens of students to “Idol” auditions for eight years. One of her former students has made it to Hollywood twice, and she was featured encouraging him in a clip from “Idol” seen on her Web site, bellovoicestudio.com.

Joseph and Karen Kwiatkowski of Fredonia have watched “Idol” since they met. She began watching in the third season with her daughter. “My daughter lives in Virginia now, and we still talk about it,” says Karen, who also discussed the show with residents of the nursing home where she worked before marrying Joseph and moving to Fredonia, where he is a network specialist for Fredonia Central Schools.

“Most years, I’ve been able to pick the first-and second-place finishers,” says Karen. And this year, like many others, she picks Lambert to win.

Adam Lambert

Theatrical rocker

Adam Lambert, 27, has consistently wowed the judges — and most of the time, the voters, too — with his star quality. Lambert is a theater actor who was understudy for the role of Fiyero in a touring production of “Wicked.” He has been in the bottom three only once, on April 29, an uncomfortable spot he shared with Kris Allen after the finalists sang songs from the Rat Pack era. But Matt Giraud went home that night.

In his San Francisco audition, Lambert did a segment of Queen’s notoriously difficult “Bohemian Rhapsody,” impressing the judges, although Cowell called him “theatrical” for the first time. Generally a kiss of death, the term has become a definition of Lambert. His strutting semifinals rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” drew more fans. Since then, he has excelled in almost every genre, putting his own high-intensity stamp on such songs as “Ring of Fire,” which Cowell, the lone critic, called “indulgent rubbish.”

Lambert presented a different persona on Motown night, when he wore a suit, brushed back his hair and sang “The Tracks of My Tears.”

“Adam’s range is just insane,” said Bello. “I’d bet he has a good four-or five-octave range. Most guys have a two-to three-octave range. But Adam can reach soprano or first soprano range and have it be effortless.”

“Almost from the beginning, I thought that Adam should be the winner and is the best singer,” said Karen Kwiatkowski. “Personally, I’m not into that type of music, and I don’t think I’ve actually voted for him, but I do think he deserves to win.”

“Historically, ‘American Idol’ has never gone for the theatrical Adam type,” said Joseph Kwiatkowski. In Season 5, he noted, voters “turned down Chris Daughtry and kept Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee. Last year, you wound up with the nice guys Dave [Cook] and Dave [Archuleta]. Danny and Kris both seem to fall into that nice-guy kind of mold.”

Blogs say Lambert was assigned to sing “One” by U2 tonight.

Danny Gokey

Nice guy, sad story

Danny Gokey, 29, auditioned in Kansas City with his best friend, Jamar Rogers, just a few weeks after the shocking death of Gokey’s young wife, Sophia, who suffered complications from heart surgery.

Gokey sang, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” and Randy Jackson called him “one of the best we’ve seen.”

Rogers also made it to Hollywood but was cut before the final 13 were named.

Gokey, who works as the worship director at his Milwaukee church, looks a bit like Robert Downey Jr. and shows off an ever-changing collection of fashionable eyeglasses.

Gokey sang Mariah Carey’s “Hero” in the semifinals, which Jackson called “blazing hot!” Gokey has sung everything from “P. Y. T.” by Michael Jackson to Howard Arlen’s “Come Rain or Come Shine” and has never been in the bottom three.

“I think Danny has always had a strong following, a lot of which has to do with his background and the story about his wife dying,” said Karen Kwiatkowski. “I’ve never forgotten that, and I think probably a lot of viewers are like me.”

“I pegged him from the beginning,” said Bello. “You just can’t look away when he’s singing. The final two, I think, will be Danny and Adam. I see Adam winning, even though I would prefer Danny to win.”

Danny has reportedly been given “Dance Little Sister” by Terence Trent D’Arby to sing tonight.

Kris Allen

The dark horse

Kris Allen, 23, of Conway, Ark., is the youngest remaining contestant. A worship leader at his church, Allen auditioned in Louisville with “A Song for You” by Leon Russell.

Allen has been married for less than a year to Katie O’Connell Allen. Allen plays several instruments and has been praised for his artistic rearrangements of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” and Donna Summer’s “She Works Hard for the Money.”

Allen’s vocals got him into the top 13, but the judges didn’t seem to think he would last long. When the top 11 sang songs from the Grand Ole Opry, Allen took on Garth Brooks’ “To Make You Feel My Love,” and Cowell said, “I am genuinely beginning to think you have a shot of doing well in this competition.”

After singing “The Way You Look Tonight” on Rat Pack week, Allen took a bottom three spot for the first time, next to Lambert.

Blogs say a judge has picked Allen to sing “Apologize” by Timbaland and One Republic tonight.

Karen Kwiatkowski said she expected Allen to go home last week, when Allison Iraheta was eliminated. “I thought it would be Kris, mostly based on his performance last week,” she said. She said she thinks his fan base is “younger girls, preteens through late teens.”

Debbie Bello said, “Kris is a really good singer, and I keep hearing the term ‘dark horse.’ I think he’s got an amazing voice, but I just don’t see the ‘it factor’ in him.”

Joseph Kwiatkowski is lukewarm on all three remaining singers but probably likes Kris the best. While Lambert’s theatrical renditions “are not going to make a CD I would buy or a concert I would like to attend,” he considers the others “sort of OK, but perhaps that’s damning with faint praise.” Between Allen and Gokey, he prefers Allen but thinks that both “have just avoided failure without really sparkling. I don’t see them as having star power or being American Idols.”

And yet one of the three will be. Tonight, voters will select the final two.