American Idol season 7 - Top 12 finalists

Syesha Mercado - "Got to Get You Into My Life" - good performance, even though the start was a little rocky, but the rest of the song settled into a nice groove. A negative is that she didn't really make me want to hum that song over and over like a sparkling performance will do, so I didn't feel a lot of inspiration emanating from her performance, overall.

Chikezie - "She's a Woman" - His manic performance was offset by his wardrobe, so it looked a little strange at times, but he provided a solid vocal performance, and had some fun with it.

Ramiele Malubay - "In My Life" - Though I wish she had sung in a higher key, her vocals had a nice lilt and melodic tone, very controlled, almost too controlled since it went into a monotonous place where she never was able to get out of a rut, and rendered the song inert.

Jason Castro - "If I Fell" - The more I hear him sing, the more I'm convinced he's a one-trick-pony, and his falsetto is weak, and his singing is labored on even the soft notes, and brings nothing to the song. His "labored" singing makes it seem like he's connecting with the song, but to me, it's just pandering for the votes.

Carly Smithson - "Come Together" - I thought her voice got stuffed in some strange place which resulted in her singing in her higher registers, but I wanted some mid-bass to her voice, and she only displayed the mid-bass tone in 2 lines, so I wasn't blown away by it, and it just sounded thin overall.

David Cook - "Eleanor Rigby" - I kinda hated how little of melody of the song remained after it got filtered through his rock-style vocals. The start was shaky, like he was uninterested in the song, but by the time he hits the chorus hard, his just went for it and committed to the performance and finished strong.

Brooke White - "Let It Be" - Now I would call that a safe performance, and I would have rather that she not play the piano while singing because she was distracted vocally in spots, and never got into a falsetto when she could have and just had to press on with the piano playing. Plus, the song is so repetitive most of the time. But, overall, still an earnest effort.

David Hernandez - "Saw Her Standing There" - I didn't like the arrangement, and it was too slow-sounding (like a 45 rpm single record played at 33 1/3 rpm on the record player), and lost that snap and urgency of the song itself. So, he tried something new, but it just didn't do the song justice.

Amanda Overmeyer - "You Can't Do That" - Well, she rebounded with a performance that totally made that song her own because I would not have ever believed McCarthy/Lennon wrote it. It was a-melodic, but she made it work, and gave a solid performance on stage, but it'd sound pretty average on the radio. Also liked how her pants almost matched her hair.

Michael Johns - "Across the Universe" - a really strong vocal performance, bolstered by the acoustic sound (he sounds better with acoustic backing, as the amp'd instruments tended to drown him out). His vocals made for a nice melodic expression of the song. I liked it.

Kristy Lee Cook - "Eight Days a Week" - Wow, that was a manic-country-fried version of a classic that just didn't quite work, and she really needs to work on not looking a little bored during the performance. It might have sounded better if Alvin, Simon and Theodore joined her on stage.

David Archuleta - "We Can Work It Out" - Holy Crash and Burn! He dropped words and had no confidence, and just sort of stumbled through the song, and it was a below average performance. Yikes.

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Rankings

Enjoyable
Michael Johns
Brooke White
David Cook
Chikezie

Middling
Amanda Overmeyer
Syesha Mercado
Carly Smithson
Ramiele Malubay

Under-performed
David Hernandez
David Archuleta

Once was enough
Jason Castro
Kristy Lee Cook

I think Chikezie or Kristy Lee Cook is going home (simply due to Chikezie barely registering with the voting viewers).