American Idol: The Final Three [Audio]

And then there were three!  Last night on American Idol, Amber was sent home leaving us with just three contenders for the title: Kree Harrison, Candice Glover and Angie Miller.  WBKR's Idol expert Steve Thompson called in this morning to chat with Moon and me about the final stretch . . . and that awesome Twitter feud between Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey!

From Steve Thompson:

In his classic film The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, director Sergio Leone staged a three man showdown with more tension than any modern day blockbuster movie just with cuts in editing and a powerful Ennio Morricone film score. While I can't expect the brain donor trust at Idol to be able to match that, I do think this is one of the more evenly matched final threes in the history of this show.

Angie Miller has been the de facto leader in votes over the last few weeks even though she hasn't always hit the mark she's been aiming for.  To her credit, knowing that she was in the top two last week helped her to take a chance with the Rhianna song-- there was just no payoff.

Candice Glover has had the two best vocal performances of the season and was probably the girl most likely to place second for most of the season.  Why?  My gut feeling is that the tweens are not really enamored of Candice.  According to the inevitable unnamed source, Mariah suggested Idol hire a personality coach for Candice because the girl's talent just does not seem to translate to the voters.  Eventually, the source went on, other contestants resented the special help.

Kree Harrison has probably been the most consistent of all the girls.  Sometimes she seems to have trouble connecting with the tween voters as well-- but her consistency has always helped keep her in contention.  While I doubt any tweens got anything out of any Standard that was sung Wednesday night, my best bet is that Kree covering Carrie Underwood paid off for her in spades.

So what now?  Well, buddy, I'm glad you asked...

It's our usual final three show.  Jimmy gets to choose a song for each girl (much like Clive Davis used to do under the old Arista regime.)  The judges get to choose a song that potentially could cause a problem for any of the contestants.  And, the old standby...  Free choice.  Hopefully that means no repeats and very few ballads.

As much as it pains me to agree with Nicki, song choice will probably determine next week's show.  Fortunately for the viewers, these three have had very little problem with any of their source material.  (An educated guess-- Angie may choose to do another original song.)

We'll see, won't we?

@May 2, 2013   Stephen W Thompson