Idol Recap 5/15

So here we are, down to 3. This is one of the toughest calls I've had to make. Last week was a relatively easy prediction so I can't take too much credit for nailing it. But here's how I see things shaking down...

Blake
He's in. He's got enough of the teenage and preteen girl vote to push him through. He was in the bottom last week, but I think he's got a strong enough block behind him to get him to the championship. I thought his Roxanne performance was miserable, but I really liked his last two performances. I also liked that all-Idol long I've been waiting for him to bust out with some Maroon 5 and he came out with it tonight. And it was pretty damn good. He's actually better without the beat boxing. Still the weakest talent out of the 3, and I'm still not sure I forgive him for shredding Bon Jovi, but I think he's in.

Melinda
She's consistently good, gave another rendition of I'm a Woman tonight and both with her performance and with her choreography showed us that she really is no back-up singer anymore. Her Whitney was fantastic and Whitney is pretty damn hard to pull off. But most importantly, I think that the millions of Lakisha votes have to go someplace. I think they're most likely to go to Melinda. I am slightly troubled by many of Melinda's songs sounding oddly alike. It's like a Tina Turner cover of everything she sings. However, due to the residual votes, and due to some great performances, I see Melinda squaring off in the finals against Blake.

Which leaves...

poor, poor Jordin Sparks
Her performance of I Who Have Nothing actually gave me goosebumps. The first and only performance this entire season to do that to me. However, she showed off some ignorance trying to fight with Simon by saying that a Rolls Royce was a car from the 1970s and therefore I Who Have Nothing could not have been 60 years old. Her first two songs were totally forgettable. The producers screwed her over with the arrangment on the first song. And I thought she pretty much walked through She Works Hard for the Money. I think without a doubt she's got the most commercial pop appeal of any of these three, including Blake. I also think that she's tremendously talented, and has the biggest Broadway-type voice out of the three competitors. But I think that it's going to be a girl versus a guy in the finals because I just see of the two women left, only one making it through.

So there you have it... a prediction for a Blake/Melinda final, with your next Idol champion being Melinda Doolittle (before I even hear a single championship song). And did anybody else notice how 2 of the first 4 performances tonight involved songs about prostitution? Oddly ironic given how Idol prostitutes itself out to corporate America. Sorry to sound like Bono.