'American Idol' Top 8 Night: The Road Not Taken

At the start of Wednesday’s American Idol top eight show, Ryan Seacrest confirmed that there will indeed be an Idol concert tour this summer… while oh-so casually glossing over the fact that this year’s tour will, for the first time in the series’ history, only feature the top five contestants, not the usual top 10. (Ryan gave no reason for this, but I can only assume it’s a cost-cutting measure. I mean, last year, the tour didn’t even feature a live band.)

This news made the episode’s eventual elimination of Qaasim Middleton even more bittersweet.

No, Qaasim was not the best vocalist of Season 14. And no, the Judges’ Save probably should not have been used (some might say squandered) on him, when the show was only down to a top 11. But Qaasim was no doubt the best performer of Season 14. Maybe he didn’t deserve to win, but he would have been a major highlight of the concert tour.

Seriously, this was the performance Qaasim gave Wednesday when singing for the newly instituted Twitter Save. This was entertainment. Come on, I would have loved to see ice-cold Qaasim shake it like a Polaroid picture to Outkast’s “Hey Ya” at an amphitheater near me this summer:

But American Idol is, at its core, a singing competition. So in the end, Qaasim lost out in Wednesday’s Twitter Save sing-off to superior vocalist Rayvon Owen (who’d successful sung for the Twitter Save against Daniel Seavey just last week). I’m not saying America got it wrong here. Rayvon set fire to the stage with his “Set Fire to the Rain” performance. I’m just saying that Qaasim did more than enough this season to earn a spot on the summer tour. In every other season, just making it to a respectable eighth place was enough.

Oh well. Let’s recap the other six contestants who performed Billboard hits this Wednesday, and try to figure out which five of them will hit the road this summer…

Jax – I had mixed feelings about Jax’s cover of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” On the plus side, I appreciated that she changed things up. Also on the plus side, her voice sounded great. (Did you know Jax and Miss Germanotta herself share a vocal coach?) However, Jax’s loungey, Postmodern Jukeboxy remake sounded more like something Joey Cook would come up with; it didn’t really suit Jax’s punky style. And also, this was just a too on-the-nose, too obvious song choice, considering all the Gaga comparisons that have dogged Jax all season long. Jennifer Lopez really, really didn’t like this; she was wearing a total stankface during “Poker Face.” I don’t think this was bad, but I agreed with J.Lo that the radical rearrangement probably alienates some viewers (and some Little Monsters).

Nick Fradiani – So the oldest, pushing-30 guy of the season covered Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream.” And it worked, in a David Cook/Kris Allen sort of way! This was a classic gender-flipping WGWG move, and it was actually my favorite Nick performance to date. “See, that’s changing the song a little bit and making it your own in the best way… I could hear it on the radio today,” said J.Lo. I agreed. For once, Nick didn’t seem totally stiff and tense onstage, and he seemed to “embrace his hotness” just a little bit. I am sure many teenage girls (and full-grown women) will be dreaming about Nick tonight.

Quentin Alexander – Quentin has made his mark this season singing dark, brooding ballads, so I worried that he’d fumble doing the more uptempo “Latch” by Disclosure/Sam Smith. But Quentin really got his groove on here. (Harry Connick Jr. later praised Quentin for being such a great “rhythmic singer.”) There was an effortless sexiness to this; I finally understood why the judges keep comparing Quentin to Terence Trent D'Arby. Oh, and yes, Quentin looked amazing — this guy really needs to make it onto the tour, because I’m just dying to see what he’d wear. Please let there still be enough of a budget for several costume changes!

Joey Cook – I loved the quietly smoldering intensity Joey brought to her “Wrecking Ball” performance, and I loved her ethereal styling. (That Gothic princess gown would also be a nice addition to the tour wardrobe.) But I was a little disappointed by the chorus — because Joey did not come in like a wrecking ball at all. She came in like a Nerf ball, softly. And since she didn’t change up the arrangement very much, it was way too easy to compare her rendition to the original. Miley Cyrus’s version was full of passionate, no-holds-barred belting — therefore, Joey’s mellower performance was anticlimactic. Keith Urban told her, “I could sense you holding back.” And Joey is someone who’s rarely, if ever, been accused of holding back!

Clark Beckham – I must be a real Idol geek, because Clark’s bluesy, stormy take on Ed Sheeran’s “Make It Rain” was totally giving me Alex Preston “Fairytales” flashbacks. And that’s a compliment, by the way. After a couple stiff and old-fashioned performances earlier this season, Clark has clearly hit upon a formula that works for him, bringing a little bit more emotion each week, and if he can keep this up, it’ll be raining confetti on him in a few weeks’ time at the Season 14 finale. He’ll at least make to the top three, as Alex did last year. I don’t even know why J.Lo wastelling Clark to work on “the rest of the package” and spiffy up his image with a leather jacket or a popped collar or presumably something from her fashion line at Kohl’s. After all, Phillip Phillips never took Tommy Hilfiger’s advice in Season 11, and he did just fine. So you just do you, Clark Beckham. You do you.

Tyanna Jones – So far this season, Tyanna has excelled when doing happy, peppy fare, and has faltered when tackling ballads or angsty material. That’s why I was worried when she chose to cover Rihanna’s angsty ballad “Stay” this week. But by dedicating the song to her late grandmother, she channeled all of her emotion into her stunning performance and sang her little heart out. She was like a baby J.Hud. This was spectacular, a near-perfect vocal with a gorgeous vibrato, and I loved seeing this other side of Tyanna. At the end, Tyanna was sobbing, and so was her mother, sitting in the audience. This was a breakthrough moment. I want Tyanna to stay. And I think she probably will.

But who won’t stay? Well, obviously Rayvon still has a target on his back; he’s been up for elimination two weeks in a row now. If last week’s Twitter Save song, the exquisite “Since U Been Gone,” wasn’t enough to earn him a reprieve, then this week’s slightly-less-exquisite “Set Fire to the Rain” won’t be, either. Who will join Rayvon in next week’s bottom two? I’m going to make a bold prediction and say… Jax. She sang in the death spot, her performance was mostly panned by the judges, her radical remake was polarizing, and I have a feeling a lot of viewers think she is overhyped or that she peaked too soon. But don’t worry, Jax Packers: Having a sizable Twitter fanbase may not have helped Daniel Seavey last week, but if Jax has to sing for the Twitter Save next week, I do think her more than 46,000 followers will save her.

And as one of those 46,000, I’ve certainly got my #SaveJax tweets ready to go, just in case.

Tune in next Wednesday to see if I’m right and tweet along! Until then, Parker out.

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