American Idol 9: Finals Week 6 Performances, Tuesday April 20, 2010

Tonight's celebrity mentor was Alicia Keyes, and in honor of tomorrow night's broadcast of "Idol Gives Back," the theme for tonight's performances was inspirational songs.  With only 2 females left in the competition, it's more important than ever that neither makes a misstep tonight.  Let's take a look at just how inspiring the remaining top 7 contestants were:

(1) Casey James sang "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac (1977).  Casey was all smiles during this competent performance that had a few bright moments, but was just ok overall.  Still, we feel that Casey is popular enough to make it through another week as evidenced by the crowd reaction.  Grade: B

(2) Lee DeWyze sang "The Boxer" by Simon & Garfunkel (1969).  For us, the clean harmonies of Simon & Garfunkel were at odds with Lee's more raspy voice, and Lee suffered in comparison to the quite memorable original.  Lee's one of our favorite male performers, but this song did him no favors at all.  Grade: B

(3) Tim Urban sang "Better Days" by The Goo Goo Dolls (2005).  Like Casey, Tim sang this song competently enough, but he didn't make it soar the way an inspirational song should.  Tim didn't embarass himself, but he didn't create a moment either.  Grade: B

(4) Aaron Kelly sang "I Believe I Can Fly" by R. Kelly (1996).  It's been quite a few weeks since Aaron has impressed us, and tonight continued the unfortunate trend of Aaron underwhelming us.  Even though he belted out the end and wrapped it up with a power note, it wasn't great, and some notes were just a touch off-key.  Grade: B

(5) Siobhan Magnus sang "When You Believe" by Whitney Houston & Mariah Carey (1998).  More often than not, Siobhan impresses us, and she did so again tonight.  Clearly, the judges aren't getting her, but we do.  She was an early favorite for us, and has remained so.  We think Siobhan has one of the most commercial voices among this season's contestants.  We still want to see Siobhan and Crystal in the finale as no other combo would be as interesting.  Grade: A-

(6) Michael Lynche sang "Hero" by Chad Kroeger of Nickelback (2002).  Michael delivered the best performance by the men tonight, although that wasn't saying much.  This song, from the soundtrack of the film Spider-Man, wasn't very well known, but we can see that, stylistically speaking, Lynche and Kroeger are worlds apart.  In spite of what Simon said, we did feel that Michael made this song feel inspirational and delivered an interesting take on it.  Grade: A-

(7) Crystal Bowersox sang "People Get Ready" by The Impressions (1965).  Crystal stepped way out of her comfort zone and sang without an instrument and performed the first verse a capella.  Crystal did magic with this song, and finished off the night with a bang, giving the best performance of the evening.  Grade: A

The two ladies plus Michael Lynche clearly outshone the rest of the contestants tonight.  No one was out-and-out terrible, but many of the guys were just okay and did not make a memorable impression.

Our picks for tomorrow's bottom 3 are: Lee DeWyze, Tim Urban, and Aaron Kelly.  Our pick for the person to go home tomorrow is Aaron Kelly.  Results will be announced at the end of tomorrow's extended episode which includes this year's "Idol Gives Back" charity concert.

American Idol 9: Finals Weeks 6 Results, Wednesday April 21, 2010

This week's results came at the tail end of the two hour "Idol Gives Back" concert that raises money for charity work around the globe.  Ryan Seacrest hosted from the Idol Stage, while Queen Latifah (who coincidentally has a new movie coming up whose commerical aired during the show) hosted many of the musical performances from a second location in Pasadena.  Among the performers tonight were The Black Eyed Peas, Alicia Keyes, Annie Lennox, Carrie Underwood, Mary J. Blige, and Elton John.  There were also comedy bits that fell flat (as comedy bits often do) starring Russell Brand and Jonah Hill (who coincidentally have a new movie coming up whose commercial aired during the show).  George Lopez and Wanda Sykes also did a little Idol-related standup.  George's bit, where he read America's vote regarding which Idol judge should be voted off was mostly a miss, but Sykes fared better with her material riffing about how the Idol castoffs are required to look at a video package of themselves when "they thought they were going somewhere" and then forced to sing "to remind America why we voted them off."

The bottom 3 contained one unexpected surprise: the presence of Casey James.  We were not bowled over by his performance last night, but we did think his fanbase was vast enough to let him slide through.  No such luck.  However, as expected, Aaron Kelly and Tim Urban rounded out the bottom 3.  First, Aaron Kelly was sent back to safety, leaving Casey and Tim.

When the final results were announced, Tim Urban was sent packing, finally.  This is the point in the season when the moderately talented tween heartthrobs of the show usually get voted off (see Sanjaya and Ace Young), and now it was Tim's turn, right on schedule -- although about a month too late for our tastes.

Next week, Shania Twain will be the guest mentor, and the theme will be, coincidentally, Shania's songbook.  Seems like a lock for the two ladies left in the competition to hit it out of the park.  We shall see.