American Idol: Where’s My Pillow?

I’ve officially reached the point in the season where I’m bored.

Bored? With this talent-heavy cast of competitors, how in the world could you be bored? No, you must be crazy to be bored!

Here’s why I’m bored. Do the math: Six singers + 90 minutes = BORING!

Jacob Lusk: I guess I fell for the swerve in the video package because I thought Jacob was going to have problems singing this song and wind up butchering it to little bloody bits of unrecognizable songwriting genius. I’m happy I was wrong! I liked Jacob’s performance and I didn’t see anything wrong with it that couldn’t be fixed with a new wardrobe designer. Easily the best performance of the night to this point!

Lauren Alaina: My favorite Carole King song and I was really hoping no one would sing it. Lauren did alright if you like bland karaoke vocals, but I don’t. I thought this simple love song was too over-produced and over-choreographed and I didn’t like that by turning it into a bouncy pop song the message of the soulful love song was totally lost.

Haley and Casey’s duet: It was alright. They obviously have good chemistry and were having fun together. Too bad I wasn’t having fun with them. Why is this six-singer show 90 minutes? Oh, so we can have duets. Happy joy!

Scotty McCreery: I thought Carole King night would be Scotty’s downfall, but I was wrong. I thought this was a great arrangement and an even greater performance and I loved how Scotty was still able to tweak this song just enough to stay true to his genre while basically keeping the melody of the song the same. This performance did nothing to sway me from my belief that Scotty will be the next American Idol. I keep saying that I don’t like Country, but I can’t help liking Scotty.

James Durbin: Did I speak too soon and should I have waited for James Durbin to blow me away with a beautiful rock ballad? At this point, I can’t see James losing this competition. Wait, I already said that… I don’t know what I can say about this performance other than I thought it was brilliant. It’s really too bad that there’s only one winner to this contest because I think there’re four singers who deserve the title.

Lauren and Scotty’s duet: I thought this was boring. Why is this six-singer show 90 minutes? Oh, so we can have duets. Yay!

Casey Abrams: I love hats and would like nothing more than to see hats make a comeback for men everywhere, but that was the best black hat Casey could find? It looked like one of the cheapo Target hats to me but it was still cool that he tried. I’m on the fence on this one. There was a lot I liked here: I liked Casey playing the piano and I liked him interacting with the band and I really liked him throwing that hat away and I loved the arrangement and probably most important, I liked the song. This was A-1, top notch Jazz Casey. However, there was just a little too much Growly Casey and Overacting Casey for me to put him up there with James and Scotty as highlights of the night. For me, this would have been much better had Casey just sung the silly song and not tried to act while he was singing. This was a great performance that I think will go unappreciated by the majority of American Idol fans.

Haley Reinhart: My second favorite Carole King song and I was really hoping no one would sing it. However, unlike Lauren, I thought Haley nailed it. On any other night I’d name this the best performance of the night, but for last night I’ll put it at #2 right between Scotty and James.

Jacob and James duet: What a mess. Why do we need duets? Why is this show so long? Why is it snowing outside at the end of April? Haley’s in the bottom three every week and now she finally hits the American Idol trifecta: a great song choice, an even greater performance, and the coveted last slot of the show and what do they do? They screw her over by not letting us go right to the phones to vote for her, but they make our last memory of this frustratingly overlong show this Jacob/James duet nonsense? Thanks, American Idol.

My Bottom Three (are they still doing a bottom three with only six left?):

Lauren
Jacob
Casey

America’s Bottom Three:
Haley
Jacob
Casey

Going Home:
I’m going out on a limb here because I don’t see how Haley can keep surviving elimination every week so she’s the likely choice, but my pick is for trouble ahead, the lady in red, Casey Abrams, you’d better watch your speed.