American Idol Final 6- Take 2

During last week's "Idol Gives Back" charity fest performance show, I had a bit of a hunch that this would be a special week where nobody would be voted off. However, I was not sure.

However, on Wednesday night, as soon as they said, "get ready for the most shocking results ever", I started becoming more convinced that indeed, nobody could get voted off on such an emotional feel good self-congratulatory night and I said, "well, it's going to be that the votes will carry over to next week and two people will be voted off." And indeed, I was an American Idol prophet. I also think that based on how the contestants were acting during the faux "safe/not safe" portion of the show, that they were told that in advance as well, or at the very least had come to that conclusion amongst themselves. Nobody really seemed surprised.

So, at long last, this week was the Bon Jovi episode, which I had been looking forward to. We saw three really good peformances tonight and at this stage in the competition, there are also three definite possibilities to win the whole thing (not necessarily the same people though based on tonight's performances).

Since the votes will carry over, it is important to remember how they all did last week. I had forgotten what a few them had sung myself actually. Tonight's performances were a lot more interesting to me.

So, based on tonight only, here is how I ranked them:

1. George W. and Laura Bush (perfection and true American Idols personified)

Oh, just among the singers? Ok, then.

1. LaKisha Jones
2. Phil Stacey
3. Melinda Doolittle
4. Jordin Sparks
5. Chris Richardson
6. Blake Lewis

I will not repeat my rankings from last week's post, but those performances are going to be worth about half of the value of the results as to which two get eliminated.

In order to take that into account, and as will be necessary to do, once the candidates start performing two or more songs every week, is to add the two ranking numbers together, and like in golf, the lowest score is best. What often happens though, is that there are ties. Since I go all out for this ranking business, I thought extra hard in order to break the ties, which I had two this week.

So, here is my two week ranking conclusion with the culmulative score in parantheses.

1. LaKisha Jones - 3
2. Jordin Sparks- 5
3. Melinda Doolittle- 6
4. Phil Stacey- 6
5. Blake Lewis- 11
6. Chris Richardson- 11

To be honest, any one of them could be at risk at this point, but all in all, the three girls are still just much better than the three guys.

I do think Chris Richardson will be leaving for sure. The slot for elimination is most likely to come down to either Phil or Blake.

Conventional wisdom says that Blake has a lot more fans (despite Vote for the Worst adopting Phil) and that Phil will be leaving.

It's a tough call, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that Blake will be the second one eliminated tomorrow night, in an upset that will surely have Paula Abdul looking quite shocked.

For one, Phil has really improved the last two weeks. He may have been pretty inconsistent this season but of the three remaining males, he has the best vocal chops, which was important on Bon Jovi week.

Blake is different and is very good at the beatboxing, but that is not exactly the same thing as singing. I am sure a lot of people loved it, but I just did not really find his revamped rendition of "You Give Love a Bad Name" that good. Original perhaps, but when he actually tried to sing the chorus as it was supposed to be sung, I thought he was off. He took a risk and perhaps it will pay off, but I guess being a conservative includes my taste in '80s rock songs.

I believe that a lot of additional Bon Jovi and rock fans may have tuned in to see the performances tonight and they will be most likely to not have appreciated Blake's tinkering with the song, while at the same time, finding a lot more to respect about Phil's vocals on "Blaze of Glory." If you add to the potential factor of Blake ticking off religious people by singing "Imagine", an ode to atheism, during the show devoted to "songs of hope and inspiration", he may have made some tactical errors.

In any event, regardless of what happens tomorrow night, or what happens in the next few weeks, I actually do think that all three ladies are going to have the opportunity to have careers in the music business, while all three guys are sort of going to see their 15 minutes of fame clock start ticking down.