Diane Warren proved herself to be the least competent of all the celebrity judges so far last night. And given how boring the rest of them have been, that’s saying a lot. “I’ve watched you grow over the past few weeks.” “You made that song your own.” “You picked the right song.” Mix and match those three AI cliches and you’ll have everything she said to everyone on the show last night.

Trenyce sang another song that I just didn’t like. Her voice sounded fine, but the song was so wretched that it was hard to appreciate it on any level. That could hurt her in the voting.

Clay was amazing, but they needed to ditch the flat background singer who undermined him everytime she opened her mouth. That was horrible, but he was clearly the best of the night.

Josh picked the wrong song and sounded horrible. He was all over the place with it. The high notes aren’t his thing, and Simon was right when he said he lost his country thing again. He was OK in the last three lines when the song dropped back into his range and he could add a minor twang, but otherwise it was awful.

Carmen had the good luck to follow that performance and sounded great for it. I thought it was one of her better performances, even though it sounded like she was shouting the song once or twice. Can she win it all? Of course she can. The judges shouldn’t be so quick to put down that idea. Tamyra Gray went out early last year, remember. This is a popular vote and not one of value or strength. If the American teenie boppers want to vote her through, she’ll keep going through.

Granted, I don’t think she deserves to win based on pure talent, tho she does deserve a special prize for putting up with the weekly beating she takes from the judges. I wouldn’t blame her if she just wanted to go home and hide underneath her bed for a week after this is all said and done.

Ruben didn’t do it for me this week. Were there any lyrics to that song? All he did was “oh whoa oh” through the whole song, with the occasional smattering of words. Very odd. Again, the song is a big part of the blame, but I don’t think he sounded “on” this week, either. The pre-taped bit at the beginning made it sound like he had a cold, though. That might have affected him.

Kimberley Locke I had picked early one to be a Top 3 finisher. This week, again, she proved me right. She should make the top 3. She’s that good. Don’t know if she’s popular enough with the voters, but she’s definitely got the talent and ability. She sounded perfect last night.

Who should be in the bottom three? Carmen, Trenyce, Josh.

Who will be in the bottom three? Carmen, Kimberly, and Trenyce.

I think Trenyce might be done this week. She didn’t get a big enough pounding from the judges to spur on the crazed voters like Josh and Carmen did. Carmen’s fan base is big enough to put her through each week, but not big enough to put her past the bottom three. I think Josh’s is. Kimberly will be bottom 3, but she’ll be declared safe first.

We’re getting to the very interesting point in the competition now where less choices can mean major shifts in the voting patterns. Nikki got through so far last year because everyone who didn’t want to hear another diva balladeer had only her to vote for. She stood out as something different - a rocker. That meant that she was the only one to vote for. Kelly and Tamyra were too similar, and split the votes, with Kelly getting more of them in the end for whatever reason. After Tamyra was gone, all her votes went to Kelly, who triumphed over Justin.

As it stands this year, you’ve got six different singers with six different styles and ranges. But I think Ruben picks up Rickey Smith’s votes, and Kimberly Caldwell’s votes go to Carmen and Kimberley Locke. If Trenyce were to go this week, I would think her votes spread out towards Ruben, Clay, and Kimberley Locke.

This isn’t as easy to figure out this year, because this model would boot Carmen out next. But I think that will happen anyway. I don’t think her fanbase is increasing. With less choices for the same voters to go to, I don’t think Carmen picks any up. With the recent bad performances he’s had, I don’t see Josh picking up any, either.

Still, I think we see a bit of an upset with Trenyce out tonight, Carmen next week, and Josh the week after. After that, it’s a toss-up.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2003 at 9:44 am and is filed under American Idol. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.