Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Allison Iraheta in the bottom three? Are you kidding me?

Had Allison been eliminated Wednesday night, you would be reading a rant of majestic proportions. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been the only Idol watcher to look back and question the judges’ wisdom in using their save on Matt Giraud last week.

Let’s see, who’s more deserving?

The 16-year-old who has been a consistent overachiever … who has turned into the top female contestant this year … whose stage presence is incredible in spite of her youth?

Or the dueling piano player, who has yet to turn in that one memorable performance that would justify why he was a wild card pick instead of so many other very, very talented singers who never got a chance to perform in this year’s finals?

Not that I thought Matt should have gone home Wednesday.

In fact, I had his performance scored as the second best Tuesday night.

Which means, in the end, voters did get it right.

But I still can’t say the same for the decision the judges made at the end of last week’s show.

And it nearly came back to demonstrate their folly.

On with the recap from the disco week results show …

Deserved their fate: Lil Rounds and Anoop Desai got the lowest grades I doled out on disco night, so I wasn’t surprised to see either in the bottom three. Lil Rounds will go down in Idol history as one of the great underachievers. She went into the semifinals as the most highly touted of all this year’s female singers. I seriously cannot remember a performance she turned in that I’d want to hear again. Anoop’s problem was inconsistency. He turned in some memorable performances — like last week’s “Everything I Do, I Do for You.” But I’m still not sure how he got such good feedback from Randy, Kara and Paula this week. Really, his was the worst performance on disco night.

Very, very lucky: Gee, I guess Allison. Funny, Idol voters seem to embrace male rockers (Bo Bice back in season three; Chris Daughtry in season five, David Cook last year). Females with a rock edge. That seems to be a different story.

Stock rising: Hey, I don’t care what the voters think, I’m putting Allison here. If I could pick who I want to see in the finale right now, it would be Miss Iraheta and Mr. Adam Lambert. Allison did precisely what she needed to do on disco night. She took a disco song, gave it a rock edge and turned in another sparkling vocal. She will be moving up again when I post my next set of Idol rankings.

Stock sinking: This will anger a lot of Idol watchers, but Danny Gokey goes here. I’ve stopped listening to anything Kara and Paula say about Danny, because they clearly cannot be objective when he takes the stage. His performance this week was no better than Lil’s. Heck, he shouted more than he sang.

On the bubble: Matt Giraud turned in his best performance of the finals Tuesday night. I don’t think he can pull that off two weeks in a row. And he has already made three trips to the stools that represent the bottom three.

Coming tomorrow: Interviews with the departing finalists, Anoop Desai and Lil Rounds.

Coming Friday: An interview with Ruben Studdard, who will be in York next week as part of the cast of “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”

Also coming later this week: An interview with Kendall Beard, who will talk about her time as a semifinalist on Idol and her future.