Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Rayvon Owen turned in one of his best performances in weeks and earned the first Twitter save on American Idol. (FOX Photo)

And you won’t find me complaining one little bit.

Especially not after viewers used that new power to execute the long overdue jettisoning of Daniel Seavey.

Look, I sorta feel sorry for the guy. He’s just 15. He seems like a great guy.

But talent-wise, he was in over his head among an unusually talented American Idol cast. And it was never more evident than during the save-me performances at the end of Wednesday’s show.

For song by song grades from the show, head here.

On with the recap …

Best of the night: Clark Beckham is putting some distance between himself and the other front-runners. He just turned in the show’s best vocal for the second straight week, singing “The Trouble with Love Is.” Check out this tweet from Clay Aiken: “Tuned into #Idol for the first time n years to watch my friend @kelly_clarkson tear it up, and was impressed by @ClarkBeckham. Boy can sing!” Yes, he can.

Runners-up: Quentin Alexander and Jax both turned in fine performances that fell just a bit shy of hitting the mark. But if I had to name the most deserving Top 3 from this year’s live performance shows, they’d be there, along with Clark. Jax performed “Beautiful Disaster;” Quentin took on “Dark Side.” Neither was satisfied to merely mimic Kelly Clarkson’s original version of the tune.

Worst of the Night: There’s no sense putting Daniel here, because he’s “Already Gone.” But Qaasim Middleton’s version of “Stronger” made me want to “Walk Away” from my TV. Sorry, couldn’t help throwing some Kelly song titles in there. But on a night of strong performances, Qaasim’s was nowhere close to good enough.

Please keep her: Gee, Joey Cook lands here again. Her jazz arrangement of “Miss Independent” was a judge pleaser. I doubt very much it was much of a crowd pleaser. And Harry’s right, the staging made the performance seem even more dated.

Comeback kid: Rayvon Owen had two off weeks in a row, so I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see him standing next to Daniel Seavey when it was time for the instant save. I’ll be disappointed if he’s there again next week, though, because he did a really splendid job with “Since You’ve Been Gone,” perhaps delivering the best vocal we’ve heard from him all season.

Prediction for next week: Despite that, I predict a bottom two next week of Tyanna Jones and Rayvon, with Rayvon going home.