Simon put it very well last night on American Idol when he said that he feels like the competition has finally started. I would have to completely agree. I’m not sure what it was (Sanjaya) that was taking away from it and making it more of a high school talent show (Sanjaya) than your typical American Idol season. I guess we’ll never know (Sanjaya). Last night’s performances focused on themes of compassion, support, and changing things for the better. While everyone did a great job there were, of course, the stand outs as well a few under-performers.

Before I get to my predictions, a few notes regarding tonight’s show. Tonight will be a 2 hour special episode featuring guests (likely to be more than just these): Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Bono, Celine Dion, Earth, Wind & Fire, Il Divo, Keira Knightley, Hugh Grant, Josh Groban, Jack Black, Helen Mirren, Rascal Flatts, Quincy Jones, and Annie Lennox. Last night Seacrest specifically picked out Bono as a lead role, which I thought meant he was going to end up being the musical coach, but we didn’t see anything of him all night, so they must be saving him for today. So be ready to block off a full 2 hours to catch all of the American Idol: Idol Gives Back charity event.

Best Male Performer again for me was Phil Stacey with “The Change”. I really feel like he’s getting better each week and working incredibly hard at it. I got comments last week that Phil “looked like someone’s dad” as though that should keep him from winning. That’s absurd. He wouldn’t be the first parent to win the show. Now do I really think he’ll win the whole thing? No, but I do think he has established himself the best male performer. I was thrilled to see him out of the bottom three last week and hopefully he’ll do the same thing this time around. I’m predicting Phil Stacey to be safe this week.

Best Female Performer: As much as I’d like to say Melinda Doolittle I think I’ll have to give it to Jordin Sparks this time around with her performance of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. It was very close this time week for me between these two, but Jordin deserves a lot of recognition for how well she’s doing. Jordin is in a strong, strong running to win this whole thing and should Melinda slip up at the wrong time I think it’ll be Miss Sparks that takes home the trophy.

Worst Overall Performer would have to be Chris Richardson with “Change the World”. This was a tough call as it was close between who I think will be in the bottom three tonight. I’m just not getting anything out of Chris’ performances. I know he says nasal singing is a style, but that doesn’t make it one I want to hear each week or on a cd. He’s clearly done well enough to get this far, but I don’t see him carrying on much further amongst the remaining talent.

My Prediction: For the bottom three tonight I believe we’ll see LaKisha Jones, Chris Richardson, and Blake Lewis. LaKisha’s performance of “I Believe” was another cover of another previous American Idol winner, Fantasia. Although Paula, perhaps improperly, compared Fantasia to Whitney and Mariah as part of the do-not-attempt list, I think it was just another weak performance. If you saw last week’s Results Show and how LaKisha looked like she was already dead then you might suspect that she has given up altogether. Then there was Blake Lewis and his song “Imagine”, which was a great song, when done by John Lennon. It’s a powerful, emotionally stirring song, but not in the “rally the troops to vote” kind of way. Like Walt said the other week, get me excited and I will vote for you. Blake Lewis did not get me excited. Finally there is Chris Richardson and I covered the reasons above as why he had the worst performance overall. The judges all liked it, but it didn’t work at all for me. So my vote off prediction for tonight is that we’ll see Chris Richardson sing his swan song and be done.

Top 6 for American Idol 2007 Season 6:
• Jordin Sparks
• Lakisha Jones
• Melinda Doolittle
• Blake Lewis
• Chris Richardson
• Phil Stacey

Come back tonight after the show for our American Idol Results Show recap.

Check out the rest of our American Idol coverage.

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