So, OK. There was no blog of Wednesday night’s Top 4 performance episode because my machine did not tape a single second of it. I don’t know. So, sorry for that. But here’s the thing: if I was going to miss a week, this was the week to miss. Because anyone paying attention to the number of contestants and the number of weeks leading up to the finale knew that it would be pointless anyway.
Before we got to that, we had the usual results-night shenanigans. A group sing (to “This Girl is on Fire”; surprisingly good). Silly “personality” segments with the contestants. A Ford Fiesta bit that was all about stroking Ryan Seacrest’s ego, and which ended with a dig about how he doesn’t have an Emmy. Poor Ryan! I guess you’ll have to cry yourself to sleep at night on your PILES AND PILES OF MONEY. Also, you brought the Kardashian plague on the world, so I don’t care to hear it. It ended with a CGI’d scene in which there were four Ryan Seacrests. There you have it: This! Is the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Results: Amber Holcomb was up first. On Wednesday night Amber sang “The Power of Love” by Celine Dion and “Macarthur Park” by Donna Summer. Jimmy Iovine called her “Power of Love” an A+, but Jimmy hated the song choice of “Macarthur Park” because he had no idea what it was about -- and neither did Amber. He expects that Amber will be in trouble.
Kree Harrison got blasted by the judges Wednesday. Jimmy agreed with Keith Urban, who felt that the mid-tempo blues number and “A Whiter Shade of Pale” both screwed Kree. Jimmy basically said that you will not win this show singing songs with stupid lyrics. Oh, I don’t know about that. I’d like to introduce you to a gentleman called Taylor Hicks and the song “Do I Make Your Proud?”
Then Stefano Langone from Season 10 was back again. This is the second time that Stefano has performed on the show after his stint, and given the fact that he has had basically no appreciable post-show success I find that baffling. In his interview Stefano was playing the horndog card, and also rocking the hipster glasses. Pick one overdone style box and run with it, Stefano. His prior single was an up-tempo party song that I thought fit his strengths better than his new one, a mid-tempo ballad. Stefano can obviously sing, and I believe he writes his own music. I’m not entirely sure why he’s not connecting with America, but there you have it. The song itself was fairly forgettable, but Stefano’s vocal got better as it went on.
More results: Candice Glover was critiqued for oversinging her first number, and Jimmy expressed concern over Candice protecting her voice. There was a bizarre on-stage fight between the judges and Jimmy on Wednesday, and then Jimmy completely forgot to critique Candice. Poor Candice. Jimmy did say that now is not the time for her back off; now is the time for her to move forward. And then Drake, whose song she sang Wednesday night, came out to talk with Candice. It was a very sweet moment.
And then…Lee DeWyze. God. I have been criticized on this blog for crapping on Lee here. I don’t know his life. I’m sure he is a lovely human being. But the fact remains that he is the poorest-performing winner of this show, and the man who won EASILY the worst season. So forgive me if I just don’t care to see or hear from him again. It brings back awful memories of Ellen Degeneres and Kara DioGuardi on the judging panel. Remember that? Lord. Lee performed his new single, “Silver Lining,” which was clearly influenced by the old-timey jangly renaissance that’s currently all over the radio. If that’s your cup of tea, you’ll probably like it.
Angie Miller was the last to get her results, and she got glowing praise from the judges for both of her numbers. Jimmy said that he believed that Angie won the night hands down, with two great songs and two great performances.
And at 8:53 p.m. Ryan separated the girls into groups of two: Amber and Candice, Angie and Kree. At 8:58 p.m. Ryan came back to tell us which was the Bottom 2 -- it was Candice and Amber. Not overly surprising, given Angie’s great night and Kree’s terrible one, both of which would spur people to pick up the phone. And then Ryan announced exactly what we all knew was coming for weeks now: nobody was going home.
This was a foregone conclusion as soon as “Idol” announced May 16 as the finale date and the judges didn’t use The Save because -- frankly -- all of the eliminated contestants went in the order that the should have (except Lazaro). They had to build a non-elimination week into it somehow.
The twist is that the votes from Wednesday night AND the votes from next week will be combined, and that will determine who gets eliminated before Top 3. That’s interesting, and could potentially upset the natural order of things. Candice and Amber will both get bumps from their contingents after being in danger this week (Candice in particular should benefit from this), while Kree and Angie’s fans might just assume that they’re safe.