Source: USA TODAY
“You came out tonight to snatch some wigs off some heads!” Nicki Minaj told American Idol Top Four contestant Angie Miller Wednesday night after three strong performances returned her to girl-to-beat status. “Tonight was your night.”
Not only did Miller end the show with a torchy version of Julie London’s Cry Me a River that the judges deemed perfection, she also sang Jessie J’s Who You Are, perhaps the only solo song of the night that sounded like it came from this century.
But it was Miller’s duet with Candice Glover that may have sealed the deal for her. After a version of Adele’s Rumor Has It from Kree Harrison and Amber Holcomb that lacked the necessary fireworks, Miller showed the judges and the viewing audience that she could stand toe-to-toe with vocal powerhouse Glover, as the two used Rihanna and Mikky Ekko’s Stay as a chance to sing to each other and try to outsing each other.
“That’s the way you do a duet!” exclaimed Randy Jackson afterwards. It was the kind of performance that may have given the two singers a spot in next month’s finale.
All three of the other contestants took some shots for their performances, either from the judges or from mentor Jimmy Iovine.
Keith Urban said that Harrison’s renditions of Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale and Susan Tedeschi’s It Hurt So Bad fell in that middle ground between intimate songs and houserockers that are the pillars of the singer’s strength. Nicki Minaj added, after It Hurts So Bad, “That is not a Top Four-worthy performance.”
Glover gave her usual phenomenal vocal performances on Drake’s Find Your Love and the Samantha Sang/Bee Gees hit Emotion. But Randy Jackson said, “It can’t always sound like you’re in church.”
While the judges raved about Amber Holcomb, even calling her covers of MacArthur Park and Celine Dion’s The Power of Love “current,” Iovine let her have it for covering MacArthur Park, a hit for Richard Harris, then Donna Summer. “That song is corny,” he said. The judges took his criticism — which was directed at them for praising Holcomb as much as it was at Holcomb for singing the song in the first place — personally, leading to a scene on the stage where Jackson and Minaj mock-choked Iovine after he accused them of smoking green icing, apparently from the cake that got left out in the rain.
Here’s how I rank them.
Who’s in trouble? Probably Harrison or Holcomb, but, at the end of the show, Ryan Seacrest promised a twist in the competition. It may not be an extension of the judges’ save, which has been historically used by the week of the Top Five. But you can be sure it’ll be something that’ll extend the season by a week. Because if it stays on its current pace, it’ll end a week earlier than scheduled.
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