Thoughts on the American Idol Top 3 Performances

You know, that was a pretty good show last night. Probably one of the better American Idol episodes this season.

Taylor Hicks rocked all-around, as usual. His last two songs were both awesome. It’ll be weird to see someone so talented and so in love with music win American Idol, but it looks like that’s what he’s going to be doing next week. He’s had a strangle-hold on the top spot on DialIdol, meaning his phone line has consistently been the busiest, week after week. When they give out multiple phone numbers to each contestant, the first number is always busier than the others. Well, last night the busiest number was Taylor’s first number, and the second busiest was his second number. Katharine and Elliott were below both of those.

I’m not sure why DialIdol isn’t showing the contestant’s third number, though.

Elliott Yamin had some really good performances last night also. He just has an amazing voice, but he doesn’t really have much stage persona. I’m hoping he pulls through to the finals, but according to DialIdol it’s really close between him and Kat over who goes home tonight. Elliott is actually a little more likely to go tonight, according to the busy signal percentages, which is pretty surprising.

Because, well, Katharine McPhee just didn’t do well. I guess the votes are all based on “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which really was amazing. I think her problem is she tries to put too much power behind her voice sometimes, and it doesn’t sound that great. Her vocal tone isn’t very good when she’s singing that loud, and her control isn’t very good. But singing something more subdued like this, well, that’s just perfect for her voice. She really does have an amazing voice, and I’m not sure why she’s been trying to hide it from us for the past few weeks.

But her other two performances were pretty bad, and the past few weeks’ performances have been pretty bad as well. That’s why I’m really surprised that DialIdol says Elliott’s phone line was less busy that Kat’s.

I guess we’ll see what happens. Either way, I can’t imagine Taylor losing next week. Which will be pretty funny in and of itself, because he’s so not American Idol material. But he does rock.

Oh, and can I just say one thing that’s been bugging me every week? If I was Simon Cowell, I’d have punched Randy Jackson in the face halfway through the season. Booing every single time Seacrest introduces Simon? What an asshole. Just because Simon can hear what’s going on during the performance better than Randy or Paula doesn’t mean you have to act like an asshole to him.

Ok, I’m done.