Idol Chatter & Voice Views

The second half of American Idol’s Top 24 will perform tonight, hoping to be one of the 10 contestants to advance to the next round.

Whether that means one or two of tonight’s singers will be eliminated depends on the status of platinum ticket recipient Kenedi Anderson.

IdolForums.com has reported that she dropped out of the show after the taping of the Top 24 round performances.

That hasn’t been confirmed, but Kenedi has been strangely silent about the show on social media, neither celebrating her selection to the Top 24 or promoting tonight’s show.

And American Idol didn’t post either of her performances that aired last week to YouTube, an unusual move considering nearly every aired performance is available there.

Kenedi clearly competed with the Top 24. There are photos of her doing so on the Idol press site. But if she’s off the show, I’m wondering if Idol will even air her performance.

Any performance that do air will be graded here in a live blog once tonight’s show starts.

To see the grades for last night’s performances, head here.

1. Cadence Baker, “Something’s Got A Hold On Me” by Etta James — Nice upbeat number to start the night off with. Cadence seemed confident on that opening. Not sure such a soulful song choice was a great pick on a night when the show’s top two female soul singers are performer. Cadence showed off some vocal firepower, but didn’t quite nail all those big notes. Grade: B–

2. Sir Blayke, “Breakeven (Falling To Pieces)” by The Script — Sir Blayke shows off a really nice tone from the opening note. But his vocals stray a bit when he hits the chorus. And I’m not sure Sir Blayke followed Bebe’s best advice, which was to pour a ton of emotion into the song. Grade: C+

3. Allegra Miles, “Adore You” by Harry Styles — Love Allegra’s tone. But she’s one of the contestants who hasn’t gotten tons of airtime before tonight’s show, so I was hoping for more of an attention-grabbing performance. Allegra was performing without an instrument for the first time, but seemed quite comfortable on stage. The judges praised her unique style. Grade: B

4. Kenedi Anderson, “Human” by Christina Perry — Interesting. All signs point toward there being truth behind reports that Kenedi dropped out of Idol. But the show is airing her performance, though I believe this was originally slated as the show-closer. Great opening from Kenedi. And she’s doing a really nice job of pouring her emotion into the song and building the drama in the performance. And the judges respond with a standing ovation. Ryan now delivers the news, Kenedi has withdrawn from Idol, so fans won’t be able to vote for her. Grade: B+

5. Lady K, “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood — Torn between songs by Fantasia and Carrie Underwood, Lady K ultimately decides to go with the latter. It’s an unexpected song choice for Lady K. But it allows her to show off her stage presence. I might the angry girlfriend act a little more if Lady K wasn’t wearing flowers in her hair and Mickie Mouse ears. The judges are right, Lady K needed to get even a little grittier with that performance. Grade: B–

6. Ava Maybee, “Tell Me Something Good” by Rufus & Chaka Khan — Ava says she picked the song because she had a dream about singing a Chaka Khan song on Idol. Not loving this vocal. And I actually expected Ava to go a little more wild on stage. She also kept her eyes closed nearly the entire performance. Grade: C–

7. Noah Thompson, “Blue Side Of The Mountain” by The SteelDrivers — Noah, who has very little experience, starts impressively. He has a nice, raspy country voice. The biggest problem with that performance is that there wasn’t much to it in terms of dramatics. Katy Perry hits the same point in her critique — it was a performance lacking “wow” moments. Grade: B–

8. Leah Marlene, “Call Me” by Blondie — Love this song choice. Love Leah’s announcement right out of the box that she’s going to put her own spin on the song. And she delivers. On a night short of wow performances, she delivers one. That just kept getting better. Easily the night’s best. I love some of the choices Leah made on that arrangement. Grade: A–

9. Cameron Whitcomb, “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival — Cameron starts the performance with a backflip, then begins to go a bit crazy on stage. This is a fun performance that’s going to get Cameron into the Top 20, even if the vocal isn’t on par with Idol’s best singers. And he concludes with another backflip. Big points for performance style on that one. Grade: B

10. Christian Guardino, “Leave the Door Open” by Silk Sonic — Christian has been one of the most consistently solid male singers on the show. He shows off great range on this and seems to have shaken off whatever nerves he was feeling during his rehearsal with Bebe. That included lots of frills, too many for my liking. But the judges seemed to love it. Grade: B–

11. Katyrah Love, “Blame It On The Boogie” by The Jackson 5 — And Katyrah’s experience as a performer immediately shines through. She’s dancing all over the stage and still delivering a fine vocal. And she delivers a nice growl as a closing statement. Luke compliments her on a “great, great job.” That isn’t a performance that will shake up the competition, but it should certainly be enough to get Katyrah into the Top 20. Grade: B+

12. Fritz Hager, “Waves” by Dean Lewis — Two lines in, this is already my favorite vocal to date from Fritz. He’s delivering a very solid singer-songwriter performance. And you can almost see his confidence growing over the course of the performance as he gets more committed. The judges jump to their feet at the end of that performance. Luke Bryan was right: The vocal wasn’t perfect; the performance was still very good. Grade: A–