American Idol- Top 9

Last week on American Idol, Chris Sligh's quest to bring chubby back, came to an end, as the former Bob Jones University student was eliminated. While he had been someone I pegged from the audition rounds as someone who might go very far in the competition, he simply had a poor week vocally and paid the price for it.

This week, none of the contestants were awful. Not even Sanjaya, who at least came across as somewhat credible as a singer. The music was really not the favorites of people remotely in my age bracket, although I was grateful, it was not all Tony Bennett music, and while many viewers may not have been too familiar with many of the songs, the contestants all performed nicely.

Still though, there were three contenders this week, who were far and above the person I ranked number four and everyone else. It was the difference between excellence and goodness. Differentiating between one and three was certainly not an easy task.

Here is how I ranked them:

1. LaKisha Jones
2. Jordin Sparks
3. Melinda Doolittle
4. Haley Scarnato
5. Blake Lewis
6. Gina Glockson
7. Phil Stacey
8. Chris Richardson
9. Sanjaya Malakar

Wouldn't it be a great time for Sanjaya to finally be eliminated from the show, now that he did not completely embarass himself and could maybe leave on a high note? Don't count on it. The dude does not even make it to the bottom three at this point in the competition based on past weeks.

So, who will be leaving? While Gina Glockson may have reason for concern based on the sort of boring nature of the song she did and the possibility that her key demographic of rocker-chick fans may have decided to skip the Tony Bennett episode this week, I think that Phil Stacey is probably going to be the one to get eliminated.

We will find out tomorrow night. Is next week the one with Bon Jovi? Let's hope so, despite the fact that JBJ and Tony Bennett are both supporters of the Democrat Party.