Idol Chatter & Voice Views

American Idol’s Top 10 includes (back, from left) La’Porsha Renae, MacKenzie Bourg, Tristan McIntosh, Trent Harmon, Olivia Rox, Gianna Isabella, Sonika Vaid, (front, from left) Dalton Rapattoni, Avalon Young and Lee Jean. (FOX Photo)

First, a friendly reminder: American Idol is done with Wednesday night shows until finale week.

The Top 10 will return to the stage Thursday at 8 p.m.

That night, two contestants will be eliminated .

I’m still not sure whether there will be a Twitter save opportunity as in Season 14; the judges’ save has apparently been shelved for Season 15.

The Top 8 will perform. And we’ll be treated to special performances by Harry Connick Jr. and Demi Lovato.

With all that out of the way, let’s get down to ranking the 10 singers who remain. Last week’s rank will appear in parenthesis.

1. La’Porsha Renae (1): With last week’s cover of “Diamonds,” La’Porsha Renae proved once again she’s in a vocal league all her own among the Season 15 finalists. This word of caution from one who knows a little about Idol. Constantine Maroulis tweeted: “Well that was a moment #Laporsha, but no she won’t win imo.”

2. MacKenzie Bourg (2): He enjoyed another solid week, though the cover of Ed Sheeran’s “I See Fire” was a bit of a letdown after he performed his own original (“Roses”) on wild card night. He’s the show’s best at flipping songs. Now he just needs to find songs that will make an impact every week.

3. Sonika Vaid (3): In the course of 24 hours, she went from pure-voiced pageant pretty to impassioned rocker. If she can capture that passion in her performances on a regular basis, she’ll be the true Season 15 dark horse. Following La’Porsha to the stage and still impressing was quite a feat.

4. Dalton Rapattoni (5): Vocally, I’m still not sold. But Dalton certainly has charisma, and his energetic cover of “Hey There Delilah” pumped some life into the first night of finals just when it was desperately needed. I won’t be surprised if Dalton and his blue eyes and his eyeliner finishes higher than this.

5. Trent Harmon (4): Given the final performance spot among the Top 10, he failed to deliver a moment. Instead, he was forgettable performing between show-stealing performances by La’Porsha and Sonika and followed by Kelly Clarkson’s awe-inspiring show-closer. But I still think he’s one of Season 15’s best singers.

6. Avalon Young (6): I fear Avalon might be in danger this week. She performed early in the show, got middling critiques for her cover of “Stitches” and hasn’t been as highly-pimped as some of the singers below her on this list. Here’s hoping the talented young woman gets another week to make a better impression.

7. Olivia Rox (8): Just 16 when she auditioned, Olivia is clearly better prepared for this competition than Idol’s other minors. Years and years of performing will do that. She looked perfectly at home on Idol’s bigger stage when the finals began, even if “Unconditionally” wasn’t her best vocal to date.

And in one of the more dumb-founding moments of last Thursday’s show, Jennifer Lopez said she “just realized” how young this year’s Top 10 is.

Then she followed that up by saying the teens still seemed to be “figuring things out and finding yourselves.”

Dah!

Hey Jennifer, you, Keith and Harry made it a very young Top 10 by continuing to advance singers like Tristan McIntosh, Lee Jean and Gianna Isabella over more experienced and more prepared performers like C.J. Johnson, Jenna Renae, Stephany Negrete, Adam Lasher, Kory Wheeler and, most of all, Shelbie Z.

Her comment came after Gianna, Lee and Tristan took the stage and looked oh-so-ill-prepared for the Idol finals, which is exactly what any judge of a talent competition should have expected after similar performances in the first round of the semifinals.

Look, Tristan seems to have all the makings of a star; she just needs experience. Gianna has a huge voice; she just needs experience. Lee has a beautiful tone when he’s singing a song that fits his voice; he just needs experience learning what those songs are.

In the meantime, there’s a huge gap between number seven in these rankings and the bottom three of …

8. Lee Jean (12)

10. Tristan McIntosh (11)

Check back Thursday night. I’ll be blogging live as usual with song-by-song grades for the Top 8.