On Wednesday night’s episode of American Idol, the theme was “Now and Then,” giving each Idol hopeful the opportunity to perform a song that was popular back in the 60’s and 70’s and one that has been a recent chart topper.
Idol fave, Scotty McCreery managed fantastic performances in both categories, choosing Montgomery Gentry’s “Gone” and Elvis Presley’s “Always on My Mind” which caused an excited Steven Tyler to exclaim that Scotty – the sweetest of country boys – had “danced with the devil!” Good job Scotty – and of course, as long as teenage girls in America have access to phones, Scotty isn’t going anywhere! Despite Scotty’s successes, it was underdog Haley Reinhart who stole the show with a performance of The Animals’ “Houses of the Rising Sun” that resulted in a standing ovation from the judges and Randy Jackson declaring it the best performance of the night.
Thursday night’s results show began with J. Lo debuting an ill-advised gold lame pouf skirt she wore to her prom in 1985 as she walked out on stage and Steven debuting his new autobiography: Walk This Way to Sweet Misery: How Bad Plastic Surgery Ruined My Life. Just kidding! It’s actually called Does the Noise in my Head Bother You?: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Memoir.
With 60 million votes cast determining who would move forward to the final four, Idol decided to drag out the suspense by not revealing which side of the stage featured the safe contestants; Ryan Seacrest asked Haley and James Durbin to stand on one side and Lauren Alaina and Jacob Lusk to stand on the other, with Scotty receiving the last critique from mentor Jimmy Lovine. Since, of course, Scotty was moving forward – even if his performance consisted of yodeling – Ryan unfairly asked him to choose the side of the stage he felt featured the safe contestants. Scotty chose wisely, opting to stand with Haley and James, who as it turned out turned were the other members of the top three, leaving Lauren and Jacob as the bottom two.
In the middle of all this drama of who’s safe, who’s not, we were treated to a performance of Jennifer Lopez’s new song: “On The Floor” featuring Pittbull. I couldn’t even pay attention to the song because I was so distracted by J. Lo’s second unfortunate outfit of the night which featured silver sequined harem pants (oh so terrible) and a fringed – yes FRINGED! – sequined, crop-top with Dynasty pouffed sleeves. Oh the nightmare… Isn’t J. Lo supposed to be a fashion icon?
After a rocky performance of Jordin Sparks’ and Chris Brown’s “No Air”, Jacob was eliminated. Jacob has an amazing voice and I am excited to see where his talent will take him. The man who Randy thought had one of the best performances ever on Idol and who Steven Tyler decided had been brought to Idol by “divine intervention” went home with a beautiful and fun performance of “A House Is Not A Home.” Good Luck Jacob!
Next week – the final four! Who do you think will go home next?
