Because the commemorative-postage-stamp format of our American Idol reviews (scroll down for them) does not lend itself to general thoughts or predictions, here are mine:
* The guest. I love Smokey Robinson the singer. I love Smokey Robinson the songwriter. I’m sure Smokey Robinson the person is delightful. Smokey Robinson the mentor / color commentator? Not so much. Perhaps he was more helpful to the contestants than what we saw on camera. But his comments elucidating the song choices—well, let’s just say that there’s a reason some genius songwriters write beautiful music instead of talk about it. “Ain’t To Proud to Beg,” it turns out, is a song about a man who is begging his lover. Because he ain’t too proud. And the inspiration for “Tracks of My Tears”? What if a man cried so much that, when you took a good look at his face, you could see the tracks of his tears? Ah, well, the guy is a musical genius. We can’t expect Miracles.
* So who’s going home? Interesting question this week. (I have not peeked at dialidol.com, though I will the second I post this, and the wrongness of my predictions will probably serve as proof.) On the merits the bottom three should be Scott, Megan and Michael. And I’ll make them my prediction. The trick is: these are the three singers who have proved to have loyal fan bases willing to vote them through even when they’ve had off nights. (Megan directly referenced her legions of fans and more or less asked them to give her a mulligan.) So the question is—whose fan base is weakest? I’m going to guess Michael finally goes home, but I’m not so confident of any of these picks, given how many people had iffy-to-awful performances.
[Update: By the way, assuming it’s Michael on the bottom this week, no drama in the save, yes? The judges told him he wasn’t worth saving last week, and he hasn’t gotten any better, has he?]