Strangely Socialised

No way was I forgetting to watch this week, not knowing ahead of time what Haley’s going to sing. Get it, girl!

Shaking things up a bit with my ratings this week, because it didn’t seem productive to slot three performances by three singers in between each other. Also, it was really hard—there was a fat middle this week with no disasters and very little standout. So singers are ranked in order with all of their three performances grouped together in the order that I preferred them.

3. Scotty McCreery

“She Believes In Me” by Kenny Rogers (Judges’ Choice)

So many times I’ve wanted to go up to Scotty and beg him to sit up straight. Seriously. As for the vocals, his voice sounds pretty weak and the song is so dated. Which would have been fine if he’d updated it in some way, but he does nothing interesting with it at all. It’s fine, but that’s not good enough at this point.

“Amazed” by Lonestar (Contestant’s Choice)

I like his choice of song, but I actually hate how he sounds in his rehearsal footage for this so I’m wary. I honestly just don’t really care for Scotty’s upper register, and think he would be better off using it for occasional punctuation that trying to carry off entire songs in it. He sounds better in performance than in rehearsal, but the staging is way too cocky for this song, and his final notes were noticeably off.

“Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not” by Thompson Square (Jimmy Iovine’s Choice)

I think this was a good choice of song for him too (I think all of Jimmy Iovine’s choices were well thought out), but again there’s nothing that makes this special. I feel the same way about this as Scotty’s last song—I’m not a fan of Scotty’s upper range. It’s not bad by any means but it’s not special in any way (which his lower register is) and he tends to go off-pitch more often than in his comfort zone.

Here’s the thing about Scotty this week. I know that he needed to show some range, and he did—some vocal range. But there was a different kind of range that he needed to show more, and that was musical range. He could have done interesting things with tempo or phrasing or performance and he didn’t; in those areas, we saw no growth at all throughout the entire season, and that was Scotty’s biggest weakness tonight. That, and when he stays in his upper range, which he does have, he just starts to sound average and forgettable. I think he needed to step up this week and never quite figured out how to do that.

2. Lauren Alaina

“Wild One” by Faith Hill (Contestant’s Choice)

I have no idea how she sounds out of breath already when she’s hardly started singing, but that’s something she’s going to seriously have to work on. The performance has a few moments I really like, and it picks up a lot more about halfway through, but I never get excited about it. Definitely not one of her best.

“I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack (Judges’ Choice)

Do the judges all just have bad and dated musical taste? Or are they deliberately choosing difficult and/or inappropriate and/or dated songs just to see what the contestants do with them? Lauren’s a little breathy on this one too, and it doesn’t break that wall from competent to special. Until Lauren has a stronger style and sense of self, I think she’s going to stay that way. (Also, I had a gut feeling this was an Idol-overplayed song only to look it up and find out that Lauren’s the first Idol who’s performed it, so I guess I just have bad karaoke feelings about this one just from the song itself.)

“If I Die Young” by The Band Perry (Jimmy Iovine’s Choice)

Okay, I just have to say, I found it wholly inappropriate that they felt the need to cut to Lauren and her ripped pantyhose. Inappropriate. And it was a deliberate choice, the could have easily just had Ryan intro her video while she got prepped for stage. Jimmy makes another good choice with this song. It’s subdued but she nails most of it, though there’s a lack of emotional connection and I don’t feel like she has a frame of reference for what she’s singing. This is the performance she invests the most of herself in, though.

Lauren’s biggest weakness has always been her lack of connection to her songs, and that comes down to age and maturity. You can dress her up in way-too-adult outfits all you want (and I’m not sure anyone has had as many really questionable outfits as Lauren) but when she performs she’s still a young, pageanty girl. I still feel like Lauren needs to grow into herself more before she can give us a really great performance.

3. Haley Reinhart

“You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette (Judges’ Choice)

Okay, I’ve got to face facts here—the low-pitched verses on this one were a hot mess. Just a slightly higher key and she could have nailed those, I think. Or at least hit them. The choruses, though, the choruses were hardcore. I get the sense that this one was less rehearsed than the other two, and I also wonder if the contestants thought they’d be closing with their own choices, which I think is how they’ve done it before.

“Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac (Jimmy Iovine’s Choice)

And Jimmy makes three good picks for the contestants. I’ve had really mixed feelings about him over the course of the season, but this task he does to perfection. The opening to this is lovely and ethereal, but I hate that drumbeat when it kicks in, it’s just weird. Haley sounds great, and the wind machine is actually tasteful and lovely, but the drums are distracting. What really does it for me, though, is that her closing phrases and notes were absolutely, brilliantly dead on.

“What Is And What Should Never Be” by Led Zeppelin (Contestant’s Choice)

How awesome is it that Haley’s dad plays guitar for her on stage? But Haley, please, stop using the stairs in your performances—you’re getting better on them but it’s still awk. That said, she rips into this song after a very precise and delicate start. There is a moment near the beginning when I felt like she maybe wasn’t going to pull this off, but then she got going and never looked back. This performance is probably always going to be remembered for Haley taking a fall onstage and then getting back up and keeping going, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. It shows her grit, and honestly the song was even better after the fall. She’s loving this, and we’re loving it with her. (And a big hell yeah on the musical taste, Haley.)

Nobody was flawless tonight, but even if they had been we’ve reached the point of the competition where most people aren’t really voting for someone new anymore. It becomes a question of whether James Durbin’s fans voted and where those votes fell, and how much vote splitting Scotty and Lauren are doing between their probably-similar fanbases. I have a feeling that it’s going to be one of Scotty and Lauren; based on this week’s performances my choice would be Scotty but I’m pretty sure it’ll be Lauren. And I can’t be upset about that because I don’t think Lauren is nearly ready for winning this thing or for what comes after. Like so many people, I wish she’d waited just a couple more years because she’s got the voice. At this point it could really be anyone, though.

But wouldn’t it be cool, after everything that’s gone down, to end season ten with an all-girl finale?

I missed the live broadcast of this past week’s episode (entirely my own fault) and the upload was delayed enough that I couldn’t get my hands on it before the elimination show, so I thought about skipping the rankings again. But really, since when has knowing how things all turn out ever impeded my ability to judge people? And the glory of watching late is that I can skip both the commercials and the judges.

We experience the dual themes of “Leiber & Stoller Songbook” and “Songs That Inspire” and, frankly, I can’t think of a theme or combination of themes that I’ve looked forward to less.

And oh Lady Gaga, you so crazy. You and I, we have such a love-indifference relationship. But I have such respect for her fearlessness.

8. Scotty McCreery : “Young Blood” by The Coasters

Scotty, did you just kiss your cross after working with Gaga? Because you needed me to hate you more, tonight. You should have listened to her, because she was giving you some solid advice. I like this even less than his last performance, and I know he’s better than this. I may not like him even a little bit right now, but usually he’s vocally and musically a lot better than this. This was just…uncomfortable and unpleasant.

7. James Durbin : “Love Potion No. 9″ by The Clovers

Honestly, Lady Gaga’s advice is really informed and useful and unrestrained. It was really interesting. Now I like the arrangement of this, I like the rock edge on this song because it can be a bit twee, but his vocal needed to be stronger to hold up to it. He’s all over the place again and it’s not pleasant.

6. Scotty McCreery : “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” by Alan Jackson

I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I’m making in just listening to this song. The pandering makes me a little bit ill, NGL. And trying to set aside any bias on that count, Scotty doesn’t try very hard with this. I guess he knows he doesn’t have to. No egregious vocal errors, but nothing special.

5. Lauren Alaina : “Anyway” by Martina McBride

I appreciate songs that start quietly and build, but this sounds a little too thin and wavering in the first couple of lines. I kind of like that dress, though. Oh my fashion sense, so questionable. There’s something about this that doesn’t quite work. I wonder if it’s not right for Lauren’s voice? Or if I just don’t like the song? Overall the entire first round—Songs That Inspire—wasn’t bad, just underwhelming.

4. Haley Reinhart : “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson

I kind of feel about this song the same way I feel about Man in the Mirror. Yes, I’m still that asshole. Sorry! I don’t know why I have such an issue with overt message songs. By Michael Jackson. Right from the start, I feel like this saps the personality out of Haley’s voice. She still sounds good, and I enjoy this, but it’s missing that Haley spark that we’ve been seeing for weeks now. It gets a little too shouty/growly, but when she gets her groove it’s awesome. Still better than average, but not what we know we can get from Haley.

3. James Durbin : “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey

This song has had such an insane renaissance these past couple of years. Here’s my confession: I love this song. I always have. So I was actually looking forward to James singing this one. And it’s rousing and he knows how to work an audience better than any of them, but vocally it’s average. I’ll take average, though, because despite starting the competition with a grasp of pitch that eluded most of the rest of them, these past two or three weeks he’s been all over the place. Enjoyable, but not standout.

2. Lauren Alaina : “Trouble” by Elvis Presley

I have trouble envisioning Lauren singing this one, and it seems like a weird choice considering how uncomfortable she seems with it. It seems very much like this was not her choice, but another choice made for her. When she hits the stage, though, she completely embraces the song and the performance. Much more enjoyable than her earlier performance.

1. Haley Reinhart : “I (Who Have Nothing)” by Shirley Bassey

I like Gaga’s advice for her here, to bring the drama, because Haley’s weakness has always been her staging. Now this, this performance was captivating. She wrung every possible moment out of that song and it was glorious. I don’t know what else to say. Number one with a bullet.

So no prediction on this one, for obvious reasons, but wow did Scotty deserve to go home this week. By far. I’m not disappointed by James’s ouster at this point, though—I like James and am willing to (and plan to) pay money for his music, but he stopped growing as a performer and musician on this show a few weeks back and without that, it was time to go.

Out of town last week, so I just decided to give the show a miss and pick things up again this week. When I finally did catch it, I feel like I didn’t really miss much anyway. Casey will be missed, and I think Jacob should have gone first, but otherwise I feel like he’d come as far as he could in this group.

The judges are generally so full of crap at this point that I rarely even listen to them anymore. My rankings, ladies and gentlemen.

10. Jacob Lusk (current) : “No Air” by Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown
Singing both parts of a duet is a risky move, and frankly, this can only end in tears. His tone is grating right from the start, and it sounded like he was in a completely different key from his backup singers. This was not good, in any way–the key is too high to start with and he searches for the right pitch the whole time without ever really finding it.

9. James Durbin (current) : “Closer to the Edge” by 30 Seconds to Mars
Even when I’m not that impressed with him, James always had a strong voice with near perfect pitch. He loses both those things here. He sounds weak and off-pitch, and when he hits his upper range at least it’s got more power but the whole thing is just a huge mess. Probably the worst I’ve ever heard him. Which is unfortunate, because I think he has a real shot at winning this thing, but not with this performance.

8. James Durbin (classic) : “Without You” by Harry Nilsson
This is a sharp contrast to his first song, slowed down and stripped back, but it’s not much better. Tears aren’t actually an indicator of a good performance. I’m glad he made an emotional connection, but when his singing is wobbly and his pitch is a shade off the entire time, it doesn’t mean that much. This is not a good night for James.

7. Jacob Lusk (classic) : “Love Hurts” by Nazareth
I was WTF when I heard Jacob was singing Nazareth, then I realized what song it was obviously going to be. I don’t hate it as much as I could have, because it’s much closer to being on pitch, but it has zero bite or edge. Mostly it just sounds kind of sad, and not in an emotionally relevant kind of way.

6. Scotty McCreery (classic) : “Always on my Mind” by Elvis Presley (and many others)
The back half of the show is almost entirely ballads, and Scotty is no exception. This performance is…fine, but not even close to his first one. It’s disconnected and vocally inferior to most of what he’s done.

5. Lauren Alaina (current) : “Flat on the Floor” by Carrie Underwood
At first I’m not sure if Lauren sounds really good, or the two singers before her just sounded so bad I’m relieved to hear someone on pitch. She does swallow some of her words, and she sounds a little breathless, but some training should take care of that. It’s certainly not the best of the night, or the best that she’s done, but it’s serviceable with no egregious flaws. Every week her performances sound a little more natural to me, a little less calculated, which doesn’t mean that they are, necessarily, but she’s developing her stage presence. That look is just way too old for her age, though.

4. Lauren Alaina (classic) : “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers
And if I thought her styling in her last performances was too old, this one actually manages to top it. I like it vocally, though. She sounds really lovely, and doesn’t do too much with the melody but gives it just the right touches. Like Scotty, she’s generally very consistent, which means no disasters but also no breakout moments.

3. Scotty McCreery (current) : “Gone” by Montgomery Gentry
Though if I was going to call a breakout moment for one of them, it would be this performance from Scotty. He sounds great and he has tremendous energy. I feel like Scotty slacked a bit through the middle rounds of the competition, but he came back and gave it his all with this one. Nice job.

2. Haley Reinhart (current) : “You and I” by Lady Gaga (unreleased)
Jimmy Iovine brought this song to Haley, and I’m not sure whether it’s brilliance or sabotage? It’s not a terrific song, and it’s unfamiliar to the audience, but Haley sounds great on it. I can’t even imagine Lady Gaga singing this–it’s a Haley Reinhart song from this point forward. She was just great.

1. Haley Reinhart (classic) : “The House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals
But even Haley’s super solid performance on her first song didn’t prepare me for her to bring down the house with the closing number of the night. When I heard what song she was doing I was already excited, because I knew she could do justice to this one. I didn’t even take notes as I listened, I just sat back and let it hit me. I got goosebumps, for maybe the first and only time this season. She was amazing.

Bottom three prediction: It should be Jacob, James and Scotty, but that’s not likely to happen. As for who goes, it’s got to be Jacob. It would be a shocker if it was James, even with two bad performances. If it’s Haley, there is no God, because girl should win this thing.

Please don’t do that to me, American Idol voters, because I’ve had enough infuriating real life voting results to deal with already this week.

Whoops! Totally forgot to jot down last week’s results. Well, they were disappointing but not surprising. Bye, Paul. If it hadn’t been this week, it would’ve been in the next couple, but damn I wish it had been Stefano instead.

So Glory Hallelujah! Modern songs! And we start with…the eliminated contestants singing a (fairly terrible) group number. I have no idea who thought this was a good idea, and I have no idea what’s happening here, but…they’re having a great time? Certainly a better time than I am.

We’re down to the top seven now. When everyone’s singing at the same level, it comes down more than ever to what I actually like.

7. Stefano Langone : “Closer” by NeYo
This whole segment makes me feel a little dirty, NGL. I’m kind of glad the performance is a hot mess because I really didn’t want to like it but I have too much integrity to put a performance I genuinely thought was good at the bottom of the heap. But wow this is a disaster, shouty and offkey and just generally off-putting.

6. Scotty McCreery : “Swingin’” by LeAnn Rimes
Something about this is just…not great. I mean, It’s Scotty, so his voice is fine, but overall the whole thing is kind of forgettable, really. And I don’t care how deep Scotty’s voice is, I don’t want him singing to me about his lover. I mean, I know I was having sex when I was sixteen, but still. (And the judges actually agree with me, which I was not expecting.)

5. James Durbin : “Uprising” by Muse
Oh dear. Here’s the problem with this performance: the original is fresh in my memory, and it’s better, and there was nothing that James did that made it at least different. I do love the theatricality of his performance, and I think he absolutely gets in the spirit of it all, but the actually song needed to be better. He doesn’t have Matt Bellamy’s voice, and he should have changed the arrangement to showcase his own style to avoid straight-up comparisons. I enjoyed this an awful lot, as a performance, but I’m not running out to buy his cover of the song.

4. Jacob Lusk : “Dance With My Father” by Luther Vandross
This is going to sound strange, but I feel like this performance was vocally emotionless. Which is probably easier to say because I listened to most of it rather than watched it, and I know that the stage performance is important too, but while he was visually going through the motions of an emotional connection I didn’t hear it in the song. What it needed was for him to let go a little, but let go well and not let go off the rails, which is always a danger when Jacob sings.

3. Casey Abrams : “Harder to Breathe” by Maroon 5
This is totally solid when it starts out, vocally dead on and interesting, but I hate it when the guitar looks mostly like a prop. This is contemporary in a way that tonight’s performance really needed to be for Casey, but the backup singers didn’t really do him any favours and the vocals in the second half were a little more dodgy. Solid, but not a home run.

2. Lauren Alaina : “Born to Fly” by Sara Evans
This performance seemed very genuine in a way that Lauren’s performances seldom are for me, and that’s really what I needed from it. It feels almost like she’s settling into the kind of artist she’s interested in being, that she’s finding her own style a little. People who like Lauren are going to like this, and people who are on the fence (like me) might find themselves leaning her way, so it was a solid choice and a solid performance.

1. Haley Reinhart : “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele
Now this is the performance that blew me away tonight. Starting out sitting down like that was a good choice because Haley still hasn’t gotten over her performance awkwardness and it made her look confident. I realised in the middle of this song that I actually want Haley to win this thing (which means I’ve probably doomed her to be eliminated immediately). Her voice was fantastic on this, and it was the most contemporary of all of the song choices tonight—a risky move, but one that tends to pay off if you pull it off.

Bottom three prediction: Stefano, Jacob, Casey, with Stefano going home. Actually, I have no idea who is going to be in the bottom three at this point, but if Stefano doesn’t go home for that one I don’t know what people are thinking.

I tried to listen to the French-language leaders’ debate and AI at the same time. That didn’t work out for me. So I decided to catch the rebroadcast of the debate (since it wasn’t interactive anyway) and watch AI live. Oh, my life choices.

Voting for AI has become such a political act. There was always strategic voting, voting for your favourite contestant even when they sucked, voting for someone you didn’t like as much just so that someone you really didn’t like would go home. But this is something different. Voting for your favourite might mean voting a sixth woman in a row out of the competition, and that’s a pretty heavy burden on what should be a frivolous vote-in competition.

You’d better believe I’m grateful I’m a non-voter, but if I were able to vote there’s a very good likelihood I’d be voting for someone who didn’t do great (Haley) over my favourite tonight (Casey), and I have very mixed feelings about that.

In general I was pleased with the song choice, in that many of them were new choices and the ones that weren’t at least weren’t the songs that have been done a half dozen times before. These rankings were hard for me, partly because of the way the voting has gone down this season and my own deep-seated guilt that I genuinely enjoy some of the performers that most of my twitter list hates and blames for the girls’ repeated ousters, and partly because they’re largely one big lump in the middle of the pack this week.

8. Stefano Langone : “End of the Road” by Boys II Men (Boomerang)
I have no idea why someone would choose a song known for its harmonies to sing as a solo piece, especially when they clearly had a lot of options. The backup singers take care of that part, but the song is definitely lacking because it’s just not meant to be heard this way. Stefano gives it his everything, but with the tide very likely against him this week, he needed to pull out a killer performance, not something as lifeless as this.

7. Scotty McCreery : “I Cross My Heart” by George Strait (Pure Country)
Scotty’s original choice was a much more interesting song and would have done him a lot more favours than this one did. On top of my disappointment that he didn’t take more of a chance, this wasn’t a great performance vocally. It’s Scotty, so it’s still pretty solid and it’s not going to disappoint his fans, but this was not great. (And seriously, does every one of Scotty’s performances look the same? I swear I could mute this and playback the audio of one of his performances and I wouldn’t even be able to tell.)

6. Haley Reinhart : “Call Me” by Blondie (American Gigolo)
Oh, Haley. God, I just want you to slay the competition and this didn’t do it. I think it would have served her better if she’d changed up the arrangement more, because I like what her voice could have brought to this and you only get to hear it here and there. Mostly this feels like a lost opportunity, because there was nothing wrong with this song choice, and nothing wrong with her voice, but it didn’t add up to anything special and it should have. (I generally don’t listen to the judges anymore, which probably has an effect on my overall appreciation and rankings of the contestants, but I hear enough to know that this was the only performance they actual criticized tonight, and…what? Not okay, Idol.)

5. Jacob Lusk : “Bridge Over Trouble Water” by Simon and Garfunkel (The Pursuit of Happyness)
You’d better believe I was all “Oh, honey, no” over this song choice, partly because the Claymates are going to eat him alive and partly because I didn’t think it was going to work for him at all. But he genuinely sounds pretty good for the first half of the song, and when the second half falls sort of that at least the performance doesn’t ever derail. I was surprised how much I enjoyed parts of this one, though the parts I didn’t enjoy outweighed that somewhat.

4. Paul McDonald : “Old Time Rock n Roll” by Bob Seger (Risky Business)
There was nothing wrong with this performance, and Paul was actually less awkward than he usually is without his guitar (it probably helped that he was running around the stage and had a tambourine in hand half the time). The sax made it sound very 80s, though, and whether or not that was what he was going for, Paul does better when he sounds more contemporary, and he sounds more contemporary when he sticks to his usual style, like it or hate it.

3. Lauren Alaina : “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus (The Hannah Montana Movie)
I have no idea how much it’s going to help or hurt her that they actually aired Jimmy Iovine’s comments about what she has to perform to get the votes that Pia would have gotten. That’s just cold. (And entertaining as hell, but fucking cold.) As much as I do not like this song, or Miley in general, I have to admit this is a really appropriate and probably smart choice for Lauren, even if she still seems like a producerbot. That said, I think this might have been her weakest performance. She’s frequently drowned out by the backup singers, and she sounds like she’s having some pitch issues throughout the song. It’s still pretty solid, because Lauren is a very good performer, but I found it underwhelming. I’m actually surprised it ended up settling this high in my rankings, but I guess that’s just how the chips fell this week.

2. James Durbin : “Heavy Metal” by Sammy Hagar (Heavy Metal)
It’s really a testament to how average tonight was overall that James ended up in the number two spot. Because the strength of James’s performance was in song choice and in Zakk Wylde’s guitar solo, and not in his vocals. (Despite the title of the song, this is actually a fairly obscure choice.) But because he managed to do what few vocals he had well (one of James’s strengths in the competition—if not in Hollywood week—is his ability to actually stay on pitch) and he did something different and performed it well, he lands up here. This song needed more singing. We all know it’s more than just a singing competition, despite what they say, but you’ve still got to sing.

1. Casey Abrams : “Nature Boy” by Nat King Cole (Moulin Rouge)
Now this was a polarizing performance. I’ve seen people call this the worst performance on Idol ever (seriously, though, did you see Camile Velasco’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”?), and I’ve seen people call it the best. I love this song, and I love what he did with it. I like the arrangement, I like the easy tempo, I like the way he shaped it. I don’t even mind the weird serial killer faces anymore; it would be uncomfortable for me if we started turning him into something more generic now. This is a fantastic, slightly eerie song, and I think he made the most of it. I don’t think he can win the competition with this kind of performance and with this kind of music, but I sure as hell want to hear more of it.

Bottom three prediction: Stefano, Jacob, Haley. With a decent chance Paul will replace one of those. Stefano should go home this week, but I have this sick feeling of dread that it’s going to be Haley. And then there’s going to be a shitstorm, you’d better believe.

I had to sit with this verdict for a while, because I was completely blindsided by it. I wasn’t watching the episode live, so I actually thought it had to be a joke at first. Pia in the bottom three? Almost unimaginable. And even after hearing that, not once did it occur to me that she would be going home.

Instead of just laying out the winners and the losers this week, I wanted to talk about this a little, because I have some serious problems with the rhetoric surrounding the voting in the competition this year. And, frankly, in past years too. Yeah, it really sucks that the women are getting picked off one by one while even the weakest male competitors are getting a pass, and yes, I think it’s a societal issue and not a result of any perception of lack of talent. But blaming women, as a gender, and saying really hideous things like “stop voting with your vaginas” is just not okay. Reducing women to their genitalia and accusing them of voting solely because of their sexual interest because they happen to like someone you don’t is is not okay. It doesn’t matter that some of them are, that doesn’t make it okay to make such broad and, frankly, misogynistic statements, as if women could not possibly have different ideas, and if they disagree with you it must be because they are completely irrational. And clearly, it’s all their fault. The fact that it’s mostly women making these statements is sad.

I’m angry that the talented women are getting picked off one by one. I’m angry that it’s likely in part because they’re women. But I’m angry at the conversation too.

Bottom three: Pia, Stefano, Jacob
Eliminated: Pia

And I think I’ve said enough about that.

I didn’t even try to predict tonight’s song choices, at least partly I wasn’t even clear on the parameters of the theme and how wide open it was. And even if I was, their list of preapproved options is always appallingly brief. So I was stunningly pleased with many of the choices tonight. It was actually a competition for the top spot this week, when I’ve usually just been pulling from the best of the middle. I would say only the bottom two performances were once I didn’t really care for, and even those were certainly competent and probably the favourites of some people. It’s hard when there are no train wrecks.

9. Stefano Langone : “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge
I don’t like his falsetto in the opening, which starts this song off on the wrong note for me. So to speak. People talk about Pia being stuck in a rut, but Stefano is the one who can’t seem to get away from one very specific type of song. He has a really good voice, but he’s consistently having trouble making good song choices. There are some good notes in there, cause god knows Stefano Langone can nail a glory note, but I needed something more interesting and consistently good than this.

8. Scotty McCreery : “That’s All Right, Mama” by Elvis Presley
I had no doubt that Scotty was going to sing Elvis tonight. Did anyone? I’m not sure how I feel about this performance overall, but as always he knows what to do with his voice. This did seem very…Scotty playing dress-up. Not genuine. I have this feeling Scotty is always going to be somewhere in the middle of the pack for me, never crashing and burning, but never doing anything that busts out either. And that faked-up thing of girls rushing the stage at the end? That pissed me off. I mean, what the hell.

7. Jacob Lusk : “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson
You know, I was actually looking forward to “Let’s Get It On” from him, so of course he changed it to this song. I’m one of those assholes who doesn’t really like “Man in the Mirror”, but I have to admit that it was a good choice for him. It’s probably dangerous territory for me to suggest that Jacob go somewhere interesting with this song, with Jacob’s tendency to fly off pitch when he does, but he handles the key change well this time. I love it when Jacob does his thing, but it’s important to know how to shape the song and know when to use his gift, and I think we’re starting to get there with his performances. His attitude, though…

6. Lauren Alaina : “Natural Woman” by Aretha Franklin
This turns out to actually be a really good song choice for Lauren, despite my initial, instinctive response of “oh, Lauren, no”. Vocally, this actually might be my favourite of what she’s done, including last week which I know other people thought was more heartfelt than I did. It’s this week that I felt some kind of connection to the song from her that I haven’t before, something that makes it feel more genuine and not just playing to her audience. And then I felt really inappropriate that this was the song it seemed like she connected to.

5. James Durbin : “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” by George Harrison
At least James has the good sense to know that he needs to try different things and show different sides of himself on stage. This song both works and doesn’t work for him—it does show off some weaknesses in his voice, and he sounds thin and a little flat in some places, but he’s connecting to this performance in a way that we need to for it to work. Not his best vocal performance, but one of his best performances. And you know, I’m not one for big dramatic gestures, but that note at the end worked for me because it was controlled and on pitch.

I moved James and Lauren so many times between 5th and 6th place, and in the end James got the upper spot because it was a stellar song choice.

4. Haley Reinhart : “Piece of my Heart” by Janis Joplin
Oh yeah, I am so excite Haley’s doing Janis. I don’t care if it was a predictable choice, because it’s the right one. I was going to say at first that it could use some more actual intensity and not just going through the motions, but then Haley just brings it. I kind of motherfucking loved it. She’s still not comfortable on stage, but it’s clearly improving so I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

3. Casey Abrams : “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” by CCR
I love this song, and so between the song choice and seeing that Casey was breaking out the upright bass again, I was primed to either love this or hate it. It was exactly what he needed to do, though. The performance was simple and stripped back and Casey showcased his musicality again. I acknowledge that I’ve consistently rated Casey pretty high, even when he was having a weak night, and looking back it was partly because I’ve been letting him ride on his Hollywood performances (a mistake, and my bad), but it was mostly because what I’m looking for in my musicians is a musicality and a connection with the song and a style that I enjoy. I’m not sorry that I don’t rate people purely on their vocals, because that’s not all there is to this game. Sure, when the vocals are a train wreck, they’re still in the basement, but there are a lot of other things that come into play in a performance and, for me, Casey has all of them. But tonight he both sounds good, and reminds us of how he got here.

2. Paul McDonald : “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash
I actually couldn’t believe it when I heard he was doing this song. You have to understand, this song is one my top ten list of “Songs I’d Fucking Love to Hear on Idol But Never In a Million Years Will”. I can’t believe he sang this song. And he rocked it out on stage, man, he definitely did not hold back on this one. He was going big or going home. I would have been so disappointed if he’d blown this, but fortunately I loved it. I still have issues with Paul smiling though most of his performances (last week excepted, which was magical), but more than anyone else this season I think he’s already entrenched in his performance style from being a working musician so it’s not likely to change much. In the past few years I’ve really become a fan of alt country, so Paul fits into my tastes. And if you’re thinking he’s in second place ahead of a couple of other people because of his song choice, you’d be right. It matters.

1. Pia Toscano : “River Deep — Mountain High” by Tina Turner
Yes, finally Pia is on top! I really wanted her to kill this week, because she has such a stellar voice, but she’d been lacking that something more to push her forward. Not only does she sound good, but there’s actually something interesting about her voice when she sings this type of song, a little rough edge that really works for it. Everything about it just works for me (other than the outfit, yikes), from the vocals to the performance to the song interpretation. This is so what I was waiting for from her.

Bottom three prediction : Stefano, Haley, Paul. IDEK. Obviously these aren’t my choices. I should probably give up on trying to predict America!

Much to my surprise, this week I discovered that I genuinely care who gets voted off every week. This wasn’t really a problem I had last year, when I felt like I was by default cheering on the least of all evils. But this year, when we hit the bottom three it was clear I’d be losing someone I genuinely like.

I was dead wrong about most of tonight’s episode, but I was dead right about the fact that they’d be changing up how they do eliminations, and having a number of smaller performances and dividing out the contestants after each was so much preferable to one (usually bad) group performance and Ryan drawing out the drama of separating the groups.

Bottom three: Thia, Naima and Paul, so I knew that either Naima or Paul would be going. Thia was never going to win, she has a gorgeous voice but she needed a couple more years of seasoning before she could really compete, but Paul and Naima both brought some variety to the finals, in terms of song choice and interpretation.
Eliminated: Thia and Naima.

Happy about Paul. Very sad about Naima. She could have done so much awesome and crazy shit.

Elton John week and none of the contestants played piano? Really? There were some painfully predictable song choices, but some interesting ones too. All in all, not a bad week. (I mean, other than my computer being a bastard and me having to wait till the next day to see the last two performances, but I can’t blame that on Idol.)

11. Stefano Langone : “Tiny Dancer”
Hold me closer, Tony Danzaaa… This is a deceptively tricky song, and Stefano isn’t quite up for the challenge. It’s not the train wreck it could have been, but the phrasing doesn’t work for the song, and when he starts to riff it just sounds incongruous. He’s got a good voice, but his lack of musical sensibility is going to be his downfall.

10. Thia Megia : “Daniel”
She gets the exact advice that she needs, which is essentially to “stop being pageant”, but she doesn’t seem to know how. When she sings “Daniel”, she looks for a place to bring understanding and emotion to the song from, but she just doesn’t have it. She smiles in incredibly inappropriate places and just does not connect with the lyrics. (Doing a literal interpretation of them does not count.)

9. Jacob Lusk : “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word”
I’m not sure how Jacob ended up this low since I kind of liked him this week, but I guess I just liked everyone else more. There’s something off about the beginning of the song, not just the notes but the tone. I really like what he does when the accompaniment kicks in, though; his voice sounds better and he’s really connecting with the song. But then I feel like he kicks it up too far, and his pitch always flies away from him when he does that. So for me it begins and ends weak, but there’s a part right in the middle somewhere that gets it just right, both vocally and emotionally.

8. Scotty McCreery : “Country Comfort”
This was a savvy choice for Scotty, and he does a serviceable job, but I would have been more impressed if he’d gone with a different song. It wouldn’t take much to take one of Elton John’s melodies in a more country direction. He does put this song right in his sweet spot, vocally, but it doesn’t stand out any more than anything else he’s done. In the end, for Scotty, it’s going to come down to song choice and interpretation.

7. Lauren Alaina : “Candle in the Wind”
Lauren says she can relate to this song. Really? In what way, Lauren? Mostly it’s a lack of connection that I see when I watch her sing it. She sounds okay, but it’s not her best vocal performance either. An actual connection with the song would have done wonders for this, but I never got that from her.

6. Pia Toscano : “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”
I can’t believe she seriously sang this song. It’s not even just that nobody should sing this song on Idol anymore, but this was maybe the most predictable song choice for her. If she was determined to go slow again, I actually kind of hoped that she’d do “Mona Lisas & Mad Hatters”, but that was definitely a pipe dream. I found this performance marginally more interesting that I usually find her, but marginally less vocally perfect at the same time. She really needs to do something different, even if just for one week.

5. James Durbin : “Saturday Night’s All Right”
I honestly don’t know when James Durbin grew on me this much. I’m sad when I don’t put him at the top now. I was pretty sure he’d do either this song or “Pinball Wizard” (I was kind of hoping for the latter), and he does pretty well with it. It’s hard to sing when you’re running around like that, and there was a piano on fire. But there was something lacking too. I think the biggest downfall of contestants tonight was lack of connection with the song. I’m still just really glad James has learned to pitch his wails.

And here we get to the four most polarizing contestants, who I’ve slotted into the four top slots this week. Maybe because I find them all the most interesting.

4. Naima Adedapo : “I’m Still Standing”
Naima’s reggae adaptation is weakened by her adoption of a Jamaican accent, but what can I say? I enjoyed the hell out of that song, and though she lost her way a couple of times, she always managed to pull it back. As for the judges’ comments, allow me to quote my twitter feed:

@j_tak: American Idol: Where girls rearranging songs is a sin and guys changing one note in a melody is God’s gift.

3. Casey Abrams : “Your Song”
Casey got hammered for last week’s performance, which I don’t actually agree with because there were a lot of things about last week I did like, but no doubt he needed a big change this week to stay in the competition. So he gets a makeover and dials it back and sings this one straight, but without losing everything that makes him Casey. It was nice to really get to hear his voice and his phrasing again, though I think there’s more of a middle ground to be found. I still want Hollywood Casey back.

2. Paul McDonald : “Rocket Man”
I’ve been worried about Paul, because he can’t seem to resist flashing that bright smile of his no matter what he’s singing. But then he comes out with this one and you can hear him singing pain into this song, you can see it on his face. Here is the kind of connection that I’ve been looking for tonight, and it so good to see that he has it in him. The song is a little bit whimsical and a little bit heartbreaking and it’s just an excellent choice for him. I do like Paul and his voice in general, which helps, but I loved him tonight.

1. Haley Reinhart : “Bennie and the Jets”
Believe me, I didn’t ever expect to find myself putting Haley in the top slot. And when I watch her on stage I still find her awkward and kind of uncomfortable to watch, which is something that’s going to be a real problem for her. But when I listen to this, she just owns it. The arrangement is so suited to her voice, and she dug deep for parts of that performance. I maybe should be dinging her more for stage presence, but with a vocal performance like that one I just can’t.

Bottom three prediction : Since this is a double elimination, I’m not even sure they’re going to do a bottom three. Thia, Stefano, and Jacob, I guess. I think Thia and Stefano are going to go. I wasn’t sure about Stefano at first, because after a near miss the fans usually rally, but I’m just not sure he has the fans to rally, especially for a double elimination. Naima’s very likely in danger, too. I’ve been trying to play out possible scenarios for how they’re going to handle the eliminations tonight, because they’ve been changing that kind of thing up this season. If they go down to two pairs, with one of each pair going home, I think it’s going to be Thia-Naima with Thia going, and Stefano-Jacob with Stefano going.

But what do I know?

I don’t even care, you guys, that was probably the best results show ever. I only muted it, like, three times. That might be a record for me! I mean, it would have been slightly better if someone I didn’t want to hear any more from was eliminated, but other than that one minor detail.

I’ve never hidden the fact that I enjoy Casey Abrams, though he hasn’t yet quite lived up to what we saw in Hollywood. So of course I’m glad he was saved—and really, once he was announced as the eliminated contestant, we all knew he would be despite the fact that it’s so early in the competition—but what made fantastic television was Casey’s reaction to the news. I mean, it was totally genuine and totally over the top and truly amazing to watch.

But even more than that, the best part of the episode was Hulk Hogan. Okay, see, when I was a kid in the early 80s, Hulk Hogan was basically the most awesome thing ever. Yes, I was a wee wrestling geek in my early years and swear to god, I probably would have reacted just like James Durbin did when his idol showed up. Okay, maybe not that blown away, but like. Hulk Hogan just randomly showed up on an Idol results show. How do you even top that?

(Oh, and Stevie Wonder showed up too, who is much bigger and more musically relevant, and whaaaaat? That’s huge. But I wasn’t a Stevie Wonder geek when I was six.)

So now the save is out of the way, and I might curse that later on when someone I really like is eliminated before their time, but I can’t be sorry tonight went down the way it did.

Bottom three: Thia, Stefano and Casey
Eliminated (but saved): Casey

So next week we lose two people, and like most of the sane internet I have the sinking feeling that we’re going to lose two girls next week, which would be kind of rage-inducing, but I guess we won’t know till we know. It is, as always, out of my hands.