American Idol 9: Finals Week 7 Performances, Tuesday April 27, 2010

For the first time, Shania Twain joins the festivities at American Idol to serve as guest mentor and to lend her songbook to the contestants.  Who made the grade?  Read on...

(1) Lee DeWyze sang "You're Still the One" (1997).  Lee started off lower than he should have and had to make a rather abrupt course correction in the middle of the first verse.  Overall, however, we didn't feel this song suited his voice at all, and thought it was one of his weaker performances in recent weeks.  Grade: B-

(2) Michael Lynche sang "It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing" (2002).  Michael did a great job on this song and injected a soulful vibe into this country hit.  We did feel the emotion come through from him as the judges mentioned, and he successfully made this song his own.  Grade: A-

(3) Casey James sang "Don't!" (2004).  Best Casey performance for us in several weeks, and we agree that it was a much needed change from previous weeks where he was just there doing his same old same old.  We don't know if it was as magnificent as the judges made it seem, but it was quite good.  Grade: B+

(4) Crystal Bowersox sang "No One Needs to Know" (1995).  Not a great song choice from Crystal as much of this song was extremely low key and never rose above mid-level in its energy.  Cute and sing-songy, but we expect much more from Crystal.  By far her least notable performance for us.  Grade: B-

(5) Aaron Kelly sang "You've Got a Way" (1997).  Great comeback for Aaron, who had underwhelmed us for several weeks running.  This song suited his voice quite well, and he was able to do a lot with it.  He said he sang the song for his mom, which will earn him untold brownie points with the audience.  Grade: A-

(6) Siobhan Magnus sang "Any Man of Mine" (1995).  This song really demands a bombastic, sassy performance, and Siobhan delivered that at the end as she often does.  We would have liked to have seen even more attitude during the bulk of the song, but this was a more arena performance, which is somewhat outside of Siobhan's comfort zone, and we think she pulled it off convincingly.  Grade: A-

We were all set to write Aaron Kelly off after the last few weeks, but he really redeemed himself in spades this week.  However, at this point in the competition, it's all about the size of one's fanbase, so if Aaron does end up in the bottom 3, we can't be too shocked.

With that being said, we do want to make our picks for the three that deserve to be in the bottom 3 this week, and for us that would be Lee DeWyze, Crystal Bowersox, and Casey James.  Of course, we realize that the chances are slim-to-none that Crystal will end up in the bottom 3, much less go home.  On the other hand, we thought the same thing about Chris Daughtry back in Season 5.

If we were to guess the bottom 3 based on size of perceived fanbases, we would choose: Lee DeWyze, Michael Lynche, and Aaron Kelly.

Overall, we'd probably pick Lee DeWyze to go home in either scenario.

Who will be going home tomorrow?  It promises to be quite a surprising show.

AMERICAN IDOL 9: Finals Week 7 Results, Wednesday April 28, 2010

Wow!  When we said that tonight's show would be surprising, we didn't know just how right we would be.  Our pick to win the entire season, Siobhan Magnus, was sent home tonight.  Much like other surprise eliminations in Idol history such as Tamayra Gray and Melinda Doolittle, Siobhan went home on her very first trip to the bottom 3, leaving Crystal Bowersox as the sole female left in the competition.  Given that Crystal has been an audience favorite from the beginning, this only increases her odds of taking the entire competition because anyone who would be inclined to vote for a female contestant now only has one choice.

On getting the news, Siobhan kept it together and gave a rousing reprise of her semi-finals performance of Aretha Franklin's "Think."  It was a great way to go out, and we hope this isn't the last we hear of her.  However, being eliminated mid-finals does stack the odds against her because we still have another month to go in the show where the audience will begin to forget her.  Also, we didn't hear any big shocked reaction from the audience the way we did when Tamyra, Melinda, and Chris Daughtry were eliminated, so maybe we were alone in our admiration for her talent.

For us, even though the judges didn't always seem to "get" Siobhan, we understood her appeal right away.  She brings a great Irish mezzo-soprano and sensibility to her vocals and can vary her moods from belting out a number to going for something a bit softer -- even a little darker and somewhat melancholy.  We loved seeing her switch it up week after week, and think she has a voice that can stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the other great leading ladies in the music scene with similar vocal stylings such as Sarah McLachlan, Paula Cole, Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries, and Amy Lee of Evanescence to name a few.

Quite frankly, of the remaining contestants, only Crystal Bowersox is really doing anything even remotely original or noteworthy on the Idol stage.  If Crystal didn't even get into the bottom 3 after last night's just-ok performance, this season is truly hers to lose. 

Given that all of the remaining guys are good some weeks and not so good in others, there is no clear frontrunner from among the males.  The real contest for the remainder of the season will be to see who gets to stand next to Crystal in the final two.