Haley Reinhart got to travel back to the Chicago area and belt out “Piece of My Heart,” accompanied by the parents who taught her a love of music.
Scotty McCreery got to travel back to Garner, N.C., where one of his Idols, Josh Turner, joined him on stage in a hometown concert.
And Lauren Alaina got to don a pink baseball cap, a jersey emblazoned with her last name (which would be Suddeth, not Alaina) and deliver a stirring rendition of “God Bless America” at a minor league game in Tennessee.
But as inspiring and as fun as those hometown visits must have been for the final three, they’ll return to the pressure cooker that is the American Idol stage Wednesday night.
Each contestant will sing three songs — one chosen by the judges, one by mentor Jimmy Iovine and one of their own choosing — with a spot in next week’s Idol finale on the line.
Follow along Wednesday night. I’ll be live blogging during the show (8 to 9:30 p.m. EST), grading each performance as it happens.
The Idol Chatter rankings, with last week’s in parenthesis:
1. Scotty McCreery (1): He earns this spot based on consistency over the past 10 weeks. Sure, his performances sometimes come off as a little boring. Sure, he sometimes seems a little corny when he tries not to be boring. But he’s pitch-perfect nearly every week. He’s just 17, but looks so comfortable on stage you’d think he’d been performing for 17 years. He’s shrewd. I mean, he sang a Sept. 11 anthem in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death. He’s got a sense of humor. After receiving Lady Gaga’s rather lascivious advice on microphone management, he joked that he felt like he needed to kiss his cross. Oh, and most of all, he’s the best male country singer Idol has found in 10 years of searching.
2. Haley Reinhart (2): I’ll grudgingly admit Scotty McCreery deserves to be the Idol, but I’ll be rooting for Haley this week. If you listened to the oddsmakers, she shouldn’t have survived two weeks on this show. But she parlayed soulful, sass, sultriness and an occasional growl into one of the most dramatic turnarounds we’ve seen on Idol in years. She’s fearless on stage and packed more passion into her much-maligned performance of “The Earth Song” last week than we’ve seen from Scotty and Lauren all season. And her list of admirers among former Idol contestants keeps growing. Guest blogging for The Hollywood Reporter last week, Allison Iraheta called Haley underappreciated and “(insert Steven Tyler’s cuss stick here) amazing.”
3. Lauren Alaina (4): Bottom line, she doesn’t belong. In fact, she should have finished behind James Durbin, Casey Abrams and Pia Toscano. She has the potential. She showed that when she went note-for-note with Haley during the “Gunpowder and Lead” duet last week. And for a high school sophomore, she’s done very, very well. She just hasn’t been special. Not the type of Carrie Underwood or Kelly Clarkson special we were told to expect. Nor has she been able to recapture the carefree, fun-loving spark we saw from her in Hollywood and Las Vegas. What’s been her most memorable moment since the finals began? Taking a tumble down a flight of stairs as the Idols rushed to escape their water-logged mansion. That’s not Idol worthy.
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6 Comments
Haley all the way. Vote Hales, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Haley, Haley.
Haley all the way. Vote Hales, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote, Haley, Haley.
I simply do not get the Scotty love from everyone. I don’t hear talent or see confidence … and most of what is chalked up as a “sense of humor” seem like unintentional gaffs to me. Clearly I’m in the minority, though.
I would be pleasantly surprised if the Top 2 was Lauren and Haley. I don’t think that is going to happen, but I am so bored with Scotty. I appricate his talent and consistency, but I cannot tell one performance from the other. And if you’re baising on consistency Haley should have gone home weeks ago. The first few weeks of this competition she was a trainwreck. I think she is really talented but Lauren deserves to win, hands down.
You say that Lauren “deserves” to win, but you strangely don’t give any explanation as to why. What special performances by Lauren can you point to that blew you away this year that you can’t get out your head? At 16 Lauren does not have the performing experience to sing songs that are currently too big for her (see Unchained Melody) and she doesn’t have the life experience to interpret the necessary emotional connection to deliver the lyrics home in many songs (also see Unchained Melody). The judges have been handling Lauren with kid gloves all year, and the same performances by a 20 year old would have resulted in harsh criticism in many instances. I think it is sad that Haley and even Pia have had a higher bar set for them by the judges than Lauren has had to face from them this year.
I’m tired of people saying that Scotty’s singing is boring in horrible, ok? People have their own genres to sing, and Scotty’s is country music. Stop saying that its boring.. Its getting annoying. All these people made it this far because they have talent (and not just because little girls are voting for them). Scotty HAS talent, but you just can’t find it because you’re too blinded by the fact that you keep telling yourself he doesn’t have it all. He doesn’t have what it takes to be the next American Idol. In my opinion, I do. I believe in Scotty and so does his fans. Stop trashing him. I bet that he’d be really hurt by this, I mean what would you do if you were trashed by other people because… they just didn’t like you. I think you guys should just accept the fact that Scotty sings this type of music.. That is all I have to say. Go scotty!