'American Idol' Top 7: Crystal Bowersox-Lee Dewyze finale inevitable?

Crystal Bowersox and Lee Dewyze ran away with Inspirational Songs week on "American Idol."

Crystal is just straight-up talented, while Lee sounds ready to be on the radio. He also performed one of our favorite songs yet made it sound completely different from the original. Hats off to them both. The rest of the field? Eh.

Here's our list from best to worst:

No. 1 Crystal Bowersox, "People Get Ready" by The Impressions

Crystal on stage: We don't have a single note written down for her -- that's how good it was. What we do have are two tear splotches from when we got choked up by her getting choked up at the end of her song. It was captivating from note one of the a capella first verse.

Crystal on TV: Soulful, from the heart, pitch-perfect. We don't have enough adjectives. It may be her best performance, and we loved seeing her out from behind her guitar.  

No. 2 Lee Dewyze, "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel

Lee on stage: The melody switches were fabulous. Lee took a classic song that everyone knows and made it sound brand new. The last note, when he brought it down, was particularly gorgeous. We also liked seeing Lee show some personality. 

Lee on TV: This was even more gorgeous on TV because his voice came through over the accompaniment better. This is what Lee was going for on "Hey Jude" two weeks ago. This actually made us mad that when they're down to seven, they cram it into an hour-long show. We wanted to hear the entire song from start to finish, and that's quite a compliment on a night when most of the performances had us looking at our watch. 

[big gap]

Everyone Else

No. 3 Tim Urban, "Better Days" by The Goo Goo Dolls

Tim on stage: The song started at a very fuzzy spot in his range. At least that's what it sounded like live -- too low and therefore unsupported and breathy. When he finally kicked it up, it got much better. Definitely a million times better than most of his past performances, but not as good as "Hallelujah" or "Can't Help Falling in Love With You."

Tim on TV: We don't have a lot to add. The beginning was too low for Tim's voice, but at "everyone is for giving now. Tonight's the night the world begins again," it hit the nice middle part of his range and the tone got much clearer. He also was able to show some emotion. He just needed to make the final note a tad stronger but on the Sliding Scale of Tim, this was pretty good.

Big Mike and Casey now tie because while neither were bad, neither were great. There wasn't a lot of "there" there to their performances.

No. 4 (tie) Michael Lynche, "Hero" by Nickelback

Michael on stage: Not his best night. Nickelback is too far removed from R&B for Mike to pull this off. It wasn't bad -- he hit all the notes (all five of them; it's not a hard song). But this is a growly rocker song, and it fell flat with Mike's smooth tone. He didn't implode or anything; Mike just picked the wrong song this week. We really think he could have had a moment with "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong.

Michael on TV: The song took a dive for us once we heard it on TV. There were some bum notes, and the smooth timbre to his voice was just all wrong for the song. He didn't grab the song and kill it, he just sang it. Even the one big note seemed like it was stuck in there just to have it in there -- just to artificially create a "moment."

No. 4 (tie) Casey James, "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac

Casey on stage: This was a cover band performing in a bar. OK, a good cover band -- there were no bum notes, and Casey is a great guitarist. But it's a repetitive song with about four notes to it, so it was a bit boring. 

Casey on TV: The changes in the melody he made to the verses were jarring in a way that made him sound off-key, but once you got used to that, it was fine. But that's it. Fine. Meh. Nothing special. 

No. 6 Siobhan Magnus, "When You Believe" by Mariah Carey

Siobhan on stage: She gets high marks for degree of difficulty -- this song is not for the faint of heart. We also thought there were some really beautiful moments, and the judges whipping out the "it's Mariah, it's Whitney, don't even try" crap was really annoying. Critique Siobhan's performance, not how it stacks up to the original artist. If the judges did that for everyone, the critiques would be a lot more negative. To quote Shania Twain, Siobhan had a nice bottom end on her low notes and the really high notes were gorgeous. It was the in-between notes that got a little muddy.

Siobhan on TV: The playback did her no favors. On TV, you could hear every little mistake. It actually sounded pretty nice live, but on TV it was pretty rough until the high note and the end.

No. 7 Aaron Kelly, "I Believe I Can Fly" by R. Kelly

Aaron on stage: The beginning of this song had more bum notes than good ones. It's like Aaron has a stallion he hasn't tamed yet in his voice. He doesn't know how to control it. The ending got better, but we would still call this the worst of the night if we absolutely had to choose one.

Aaron on TV: This was even worse on TV. Oh dear. What were the judges listening to?  The final note was nice, and that's pretty much it. Aaron has nice tone, but he cannot cannot cannot stay on key. Aaron just makes us sad sometimes -- he needed to wait a couple years and then try "Idol."

Who's going home?
Probably Siobhan. Was she the worst? No. But the women have been taking it on the chin this season. As Adam Lambert says, girls don't vote for other girls as much as the boy they think is cute.

Thoughts & Tidbits

• Did you notice how Casey didn't use the strings on stage but everyone else did? The speed with which the crew assembled those two platforms and got all the backing string instruments set up during the first commercial break was darn impressive.
• Aaron Kelly's stage presence is frightening. He does that weird rocking-back-and-forth thing with his hand in the air like he's at a big-tent revival, yet he also kind of thrusts his pelvis out. It's disconcerting and we don't like it.
• The back-up singer with the bouffant hair-do was wearing the highest, strappiest, sparkliest purple shoes we have ever seen. You go, girl.

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Photo credit: FOX