American Idol Commentary - Guys' Last Chance to Wow Us

Do we really need to spend another week talking about song choice? Oy vay. This is the final week of the semi-finals; do these guys not understand? Pick something to wow us, to make us understand why you deserve to be there over all others. Only a few guys seem to get that. And those guys get it to the point of singing songs we aren't too tired of.

Chris Sligh. He gets my top award again. Not only is he witty, and the best vocalist as far as staying on key, he's sincere. He manages each week to pick a song that is A) very fitting for his voice, B) hasn't been asked by the viewers to be placed on permanent ban, and C) has meaningful lyrics that make you think, and you can tell they mean something to him. Bravo. He gets it. He knows the rules of performing on American Idol, despite the fact he continually takes little jabs here and there at the show. He's a thinker. He spends time thinking of exactly what song to sing, and said his goal is to build every week. Can we clone him five times to make up the top six guys?

Blake Lewis. How can you be more unique? Is beat boxing unique? No, but beat boxing in the competition is, and not only that, the ability to totally remove the beat boxing from the formula and still come out with winning performances. Even the judges didn't know his song this week, but he had us all going with it. And part of the charm with it, is we sit and wait wondering what he'll do next. That right there, is what it's all about. He gets it. How is he going to work it all in if they do a 50s theme? Don't know. But I can't wait to find out.

Chris Richardson, known in some circles as the other Chris. He's not the type of performer I would listen to. Yeah, I get it that he's like Justin Timberlake, but I don't listen to him either. However, I understand the talent level of both of him. Chris does have talent, despite the fact that I don't particularly enjoy it. However, tonight, on a night when it really mattered, he picked a song that was done last year be someone else, and wasn't better. Ace Young performed it much better, and I just can't chalk it up to different musical stylings. I thought Chris was pitchy tonight. However, all things considered, he deserves a final 12 spot.

Sundance Head. He can't hide from us. We saw it last week. We saw those emotions he has, both when talking about his son and when watching his friends get eliminated. We know what's lurking inside of him, and we're not going to rest, or let him go, until he shows us all of it. If he can find a way to perform a song with his unique bluesy input, and emote the hell out of it, showing us everything that he's hiding away in that secretly thing body of his, I personally think he'll blow them all out of the water with it. And I think finally, Simon will be jumping out of his chair.

Phil Stacy. We connected with him emotionally from the auditions after finding out he missed the birth of his daughter because of his audition. And, he's shown he can be funny and witty, too, like Chris S. and Sundance. However, what the hell is with the song choices? LeeAnn Rimes? What was that? And at least if you're going to sing something that is so ill-fitting, sing the freaking crap out of it. We know he's better than that. Way better. We want to see it, but I'm afraid too many of us gave up last night.

Brandon Rogers. Alright, you're getting it. We don't want to here Steve, or some hokey boring thing. Wow us, and you came close. We've been told so many times you may have the best voice there, but you don't sing anything to show it to us. We certainly didn't see anything incredible in the Rare Earth song. However, it was refreshingly different, and for that, we know you're starting to get a clue. I hope he'll stay long enough for us to hear that awesome voice we've been told he has.

Jared Cotter. I think a ton of bricks would need to fall on this guy's head to get it. He's too worried about doing what he thinks are sexy moves for the ladies, than to spend time picking a song that shows what he can do and will entertain us. No more Stevie! And his voice only sounds really good when he forgets about trying to look cool and sexy, and really lets it loose. Otherwise it's just blah, because he cares more about how he looks. He may have gotten further in American Idol than he would with the NBA, but I don't think he'll get much further.

Sanjaya Malakar. He still might be totally out of his league, but most 17 year old guys are, both in this competition and in life. He's been told his whole life that he is cute and can sing, and can't understand why the judges say differently. He changed up his hair and his song choices this week, and while the song was better, the hair wasn't. Sanjaya is getting closer to his own generation with John Mayer, but needs to dig way deep down and find something he can connect to to sing the hell out of it, but at 17, I don't know if he can. That's why young guys never last too far here. They're not deep enough yet at their age to show the emotion. They just want to get into all the girls' pants.

Thursday night, I look to see these first four guys sitting over in the chairs of the people that are moving on. As for which of these two will be joining the, I'm not sure. I thought Jared was definite to go home, but Simon said he knows he has a lot of fans, so I wonder if his voting numbers are real high. Had Phil had a stronger song choice, he would have waltzed right over to sit with the first four guys. But now it's anybody's guess who's going out of those last four.

As for tonight, I have high hopes. But if Antonella Barba sings a Mariah song, I'm gonna blow.

For more on American Idol, see Reality Shack and My HubPage

For more American Idol information, see SirLinksalot: American Idol