American Idol-May 13, 2008

Last week saw the exit of Jason Castro which was a long time coming. He wasn’t bad early on, but had been slipping for many weeks and even forgot words to a Dylan song.
It just became very painful to watch and it was nice to see him put out of his misery.

This week was very typical when it reaches the final three: The contestants pick a song, the producers pick one and the judges pick the other.

David A started the show singing Paula’s pick for him, Billy Joel’s “And So it Goes.” He started it a cappela and then light strings came in. It was a bit sappy but the strongest vocal of the night. It was probably the best song selection, too. He followed up with his choice, some crappy Chris Brown song and it was terrible. The lyrics were too mature for him and he sang it like some giddy kid trying to reenact High School Musical in a talent show. His last song was the producers pick, Dan Fogelberg’s “Longer.” Another bad song selection and pretty boring overall.

Syesha was up next and killed Randy’s pick for her, “If I Aint Got You” by Alicia Keys. She’s been looking like a hotter Alicia lately so I guess it makes she sing one of her songs. She followed it up with her pick, “Fever,” probably the most predictable choice of the night. It wasn’t bad, though, at least compared to some song from the movie Happy Feet chosen for her by the producers which was terrible. I’ve been saying all season that the producers want a David’s finale and this song selection seems like they deliberately tanked her.

David Cook was the last singer. Simon’s pick for him, Roberta Flack’s “First Time I Ever Saw Your Face,” was a good song choice but is a tough song and he struggled vocally at times. He followed with Switchfoot’s “Dare You to Move,” which was a smart song choice on his part but was just ok. The producers pick for him was Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” and was a very obvious set up to end the show on a bang and seal the deal for him in the finals: The band was louder and there were more lights, etc.

So it looks like Syesha will be going home this week and just like I predicted it seems it will be a battle of the David’s in the finale. I’m still not sure who will win that battle but will have a good idea before the results show next week.