Emily is Smiling

So American Idol tonight wasn't as good as I hoped.  Many of the contestants let me down.

Tonight's highs...
- Pia Toscano has not yet failed to impress.  She has a phenomenal voice and pulled off the Whitney Houston song with skill.  She was one of the best of the night.
- Lauren Alaina made a huge improvement from last week, despite the fact that she had the flu.  This song was a great choice for her range.
- Scotty McCreery had a better performance this week as well.  I'll admit that his style of music is not what I like, but he is talented at what he sings.
- I can't stand Stefano Langone.  I'm not sure why, but his voice just grates in my mind.  I don't like him at all.  However, he seemed to be the guy who brought a night of lousy performances up to a higher standard.  He did well, I'll admit. 

Some were just meh...
- Poor Paul McDonald.  He's sick, so he was a bit hoarse and you could tell.  I loved his rendition of Elton John's song... but I wasn't loving his squeaky voice tonight.
- I didn't love Haley Reinhart's performance, but I didn't hate it either.  I did feel bad for her when she realized she'd had a lipstick smear on her chin for most of the performance.  Poor girl.
- James Durbin didn't impress me much tonight.
- Karen Rodriguez was okay, but she still strains too much when she tries to sing very high.  And did anyone notice that she was saying in the interview that she wants to stray away from singing in Spanish... and then she sang part of the song in Spanish?  Hmm... Overall, she has a nice voice, but she doesn't have the "it" factor.  There isn't anything about her that stands out.  She did look like she came from Star Trek tonight though.
- I feel bad for Thia Megia, to be honest.  I think she auditioned for American Idol much too young.  She hasn't found herself yet, so none of her songs have been very impressive so far.

And the lows...
- I usually love Casey Abrams.  He's a true artist who knows how to shake things up.  However, I couldn't stand this performance.  He screamed the whole song and hardly sang a note.  He didn't come close to the original.
- Jacob Lusk seems like one of the sweetest contestant and his mom is awesome, but his song choice was awful tonight.  Jacob needs to stick with gospel music.  His performance was incredibly pitchy.  It made me cringe a few times.
- Naima Adedapo has not impressed me so far.  Her vocal range is incredibly limited.  I felt like she was singing karaoke while listening to her performance, not like she was a contestant on American Idol.  Come on, Naima.  You can do better than that.

I voted for...
- Lauren Alaina
- Paul McDonald... he deserves another chance.
- Pia Toscano
- Scotty McCreery
- Casey Abrams

I predict the bottom three will be...
- Naima Adedapo
- Thia Megia
- Haley Reinhart

And going home...
I predict that Naima will go home.  Her performances haven't been too impressive lately.