Bogus Gold

David "Don't Call Me Archie" Archuleta lead us off with "When You Believe." And would you believe David A. went with a straight up syrupy ballad on Mariah week? Not much of a stretch is it? And yet in the spirit of dancing with the partner who brung ya', David belted the socks off this one. A very nice and classic male-diva performance here. Even though is voice broke at one point, he managed to sing through it professionally rather than collapse in a bundle of nerves this time. Remembering that this kid is still just 17 years old makes it hard not to smile hearing him sing as well as he does. He is exactly the kind of singer American Idol was designed to discover - showy, likable, marketable, and not terribly original. I'm growing bored with him, but he has a whole legion of teen and tween fans already downloading and listening to him obsessively on iTunes. No stumble this week, so he must remain the front runner. The judges were as transparently protective of him as ever, which should be no surprise by now.

Carly "Pay Attention To Me" Smithson was up next with, "Without You." Carly is having a rough go of it, as I read around the Idol-sphere. Some people will just never like the girl no matter how great she sings. In her defense, singing loud is not "shouting", even though you might have giggled once or twice when Simon used the phrase in the past. Carly is one of the most professional and controlled singers in Idol history, but... she has this strange tendency to reign herself in when she should show off, and show off when it's least fitting. Mariah night should have been a natural fit for her. And, while she sang well, that "reign it in" tendency happened in yet another ill-suited place - that place being this performance. Yah... she hit her power notes. But that was a given. The fact that most of her performance was dominated by restraint on a theme night that screamed "show off" was the problem. The judges semi sort-of made this point to her, with Simon coming the closest to the mark.

Sayesha "Wannabe Whitney" Mercado followed with "Vanishing." Yes, yes... one wants to make the easy joke about "vanishing from the show" just on the name alone. Yet, considering we're having one of the most baldly "diva" themes in Idol history, I have to note that this was the best classic "diva" performance of the night. Yes, that means it was better than David Archuleta. So if you like that sort of thing (and it wouldn't be so popular if a lot of people didn't) this was the one to watch. My take on Sayesha has been, and remains, that she can't win as nothing more than a diva. She's a great singer. But she's not even as good in that regard as fellow contestant Carly Smithson, let alone Mariah Carey. However she knows more than Carly when the theme calls for showing off - and she delivered. She looked great. She sounded great. What's more she chose a lesser-known early Mariah song to just barely wink at those of us who always thought she might take a stab at originality rather than run-of-the-mill diva copycat. Wish it were true. To the extent playing the diva role is going to be her thing, it was a great week for her. I'll be picking her for the bottom three again and continuing to ponder what might have been with just a slight change of her direction, just so we're clear.

Brooke "Cry You A River" White next took on "Hero." It was good to hear one of the most distinctive re-arrangers on the show take on one of the Mariah classics, rather than one of the imitators. Still, I'm getting a little annoyed by all the judges describing her as a "singer-songwriter" type, when she's not singing any songs she's written. There are other ways to describe her style better. She reminds people of Carole King, Carly Simon, or Joni Mitchell (okay I just tossed that last one in myself, because I love Joni Mitchell, and I'm starting to admit I like Brooke), not because she writes songs like they do, but because she has a deeply soulful, introspective, and honest tone. You can almost listen to how each lyric feels to her, personally, as she ponders what it means. It's compelling. And off key and kind of a mess in places. This week I mean, for that last comment. The arrangement was perfect. Finally she let the band take a break and deliver a performance with just herself and the piano. The execution was inconsistent and seemed to catch her unprepared about half way through. A shame, because she was on the verge of one of the night's breakout performances. But she missed it.

Kristy "Lee" Cook went with "Forever" next. As Paula Abdul is usually quick to note when a vocal performance stinks, she looked fabulous. And no, this vocal performance didn't stink. It was just back to Kristy showing she's out-of-her-depth at this point. She can't sing as well as Syesha or Carly. She's not as compelling as Brooke. She's not as original as Jason. And she's not going to win like one of the Davids. So where does that leave her? Well tonight it left her showing us about what we might expect. A very solid country-twanged arrangement of a Mariah song which exposed too many of her vocal weaknesses despite her best effort. She's a good singer. She's not a star-quality singer. She's the only one left in this amazingly talented top seven who could get lost in the crowd of prior Idol top tens.

David "Don't Call Me Daughtry" Cook went next with "Always Be My Baby." Does he HAVE to steal the show every week? Is it some kind of compulsive disorder with him? You realize this is only going to make for more mass bitterness when David Archuleta wins anyway, right? We're all just being set up for a massive Idol meltdown. But anyway... once again David Cook made the rest of the contestants (save one, but we hadn't seen him yet) look like they were playing karaoke while he was making music. Can we just let the "who did the arrangement" question aside while agreeing it sounded really terrific and original and everything one could BEST hope for when the alt-rock force that is David Cook met the Diva wall that is Mariah? I would not in a million years think I would hit the replay button on a Mariah Carey song as often as I have with David Cook's version of this one. Oddly, it was Paula "Meds" Abdul who probably hit the weirdest and most accurate button when she talked about how this sounded like it could be on a movie soundtrack. It does sound like that. I have no idea what the movie would be, but I suspect Mandy Moore is in it and this song comes during the part where she finally leaves the jerk and goes to the one who loved her all along and would be especially popular with the under-21 crowd. Hollywood call for a treatment.

And finally, Jason "Put The Lime in the Coconut" Castro closed us out with "I Don't Want to Cry." It's a really nice sign when the show closes with not one, but two performances you feel immediately compelled to replay. I'll have to give David Cook the edge here, but other than that Jason gave the performance of the night. Is this because no diva could hope to out-diva Mariah, so the best bets were the least diva-style singers who had to try something else? I think that has to play a factor. But also note, Jason stepped his game onto another level last week as well, re-finding his ability to intimately connect with the audience while making things sound original and new. So in another sense, this was more of the same from him this week. It sounded totally unlike something Mariah Carey wrote, and very much like something Jason Castro sang, if that makes any sense. For reasons I cannot understand, Randy "Dawg-Lover" Jackson "didn't get" the arrangement at all. I'm guessing for all his boasting about working with Mariah in the past, hearing different arrangements than hers blows his mind a little bit. Simon didn't agree with him anyway.

So to sum up the night, as Simon "Nipples" Cowell noted, the boys ruled. And that's not to say the girls sucked. Really the weakest performance of the night was probably Brooke's, and even that was pretty great in places. We just have a lot of talent left on the board and it's letting things like originality and inventiveness stand out against merely good singing.

Tops of the night was, once again, David Cook. Once again he gave a performance that sounded like it could be a hit single now rather than the best on a talent show. And if you didn't tell people, not many would even realize it was a song by Mariah Carey. They'd just remember David Cook.

Next in line was Jason Castro who sounded like he had at least the demo version of something that might become a hit single, and also didn't sound much like the original Mariah version.

After that you have to note David Archuleta hit all the notes he needed to in order to remain the favorite. It was a perfect theme for him, and he didn't stumble.

The girls are a little harder to sort out, but I have to think they all place below the guys this week.

Sayesha gave my favorite performance among them. Carly was once again talented, but out-of sync. Brooke was the most original but probably performed the worst. And Kristy is simply out of her depth no matter how well she does now.

My picks for the bottom three - I think it's got to be all girls. So which one isn't among the bottom is the real question. Based purely on performance the safe one should be Sayesha. But these things are never based purely on that.

I think the bottom three will be Sayesha, Carly, and Kristy. And the one going home will be... Carly. I know. It's wrong. It ought to be Kristy. But Country is popular, and she's the only one left selling that brand. Carly got out-diva'd by Sayesha, and has been on the bubble due to an inability to find herself for some time. I think this is the end of the road for her.

UPDATE: THE RESULTS

I'm falling into a pattern here of picking only two of the bottom three, and over-thinking the one being sent home. The good news was - I think we have the right Top Six. The sequencing of the dismissals was perhaps a bit off. But we're down to the three best girls and three best guys and all of them, in my humble opinion, deserve to be there. Which is going to make the remaining eliminations extra painful.

Cute gimmick with the elimination, making us think either Jason Castro or David Cook was in the bottom three. But in the end David Cook switched places with Sayesha Mercado producing the expected all-girl bottom three. Unexpectedly to me, as I'd picked her for elimination, Carly Smithson was safe.

Sayesha was the one who least deserved to be there based on last night's performance and she was laudably sent to safety next. That left only Brooke and Kristy, who respectively gave last night's worst performance, and was most out of her depth overall compared to the others remaining. So who would stay?

Brook White got the reprieve, thankfully. Kristy was very gracious in her exit, acting like she fully expected it and was sincerely happy to make it so far. I came to like her much more over the past few weeks, but in the end she simply wasn't as good as the ones still remaining and that had to catch her eventually. Being in the top ten, she'll make plenty of money on the Idol tour to buy back that horse too.

Not sure what next week's Idol theme is, but it's going to be pretty intense as now we really get down to pitting the heavyweights against one another. I'm still thinking Carly and Sayesha are most at risk, so if either of them has a breakout performance in them, next week is the time to pull it out.