Top 4 Recap

Tonight our Idols take on songs from the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock. Hey, Luke Menard is still hanging around the audience! I miss Brooke, but at least now I don't have to worry about voting, since I couldn't care less who wins anymore. Interestingly enough, I tried to guess the order in which they'd be performing tonight and got it exactly right. I'm sure no one cares, but I thought I'd throw that in.

We're starting with Combover tonight. He does Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf". Interesting song choice. He rocks it up a bit, but this time it has more of an 80's feel than a grungy one, which I like. My mother thinks it's a bit karaoke and affected, but I say it's not too bad. Randy says it was a solid performance but he's looking for "mad, hot vocals". Paula says it left her with a big appetite. Simon says it was a little bit copycat but probably good enough to bring him back next week. I didn't think it was as bad as the judges seemed to, even if I'm not getting overly excited about it.

Snoha is next. She's doing "Proud Mary" which she says is "by Tina Turner". It's by Creedence Clearwater Revival, people! OK, I know she's doing the Tina Turner version, but it's a shame that a great CCR song is known by most people these days as a Tina Turner song. My mother observes that Snoha is dressed like Tina Turner. The slow intro is a bit off-key, but she starts dancing around when the music picks up, which makes my mother laugh. It does look kind of goofy. Randy says she's in the zone. Paula says she looks like a star. Simon says it was a bad, shrieky version. My mother thinks it's pretty good and that she did something different with it. I think it's just OK.

Now it's The Code Man's turn. He's doing Bob Marley and The Wailers' "I Shot the Sheriff". Reggae on "Idol"? I guess Blake Lewis sort of did it last year. This isn't really a singer's song, but the image of Code Man's dreads with this performance may be memorable enough to get him some votes. Randy says it was really karaoke and nothing special. Paula says he performed to the audience more than ever, but she wasn't crazy about the performance. Simon calls it utterly atrocious. It's clear that they want Jason gone this week.

Getting the pimp spot once again is Mini-Carmen. I guess he'd gone the longest of these four without getting it, so it was his turn. He's doing the Ben E. King classic "Stand By Me". He adds some runs to it, but they don't ruin the song like they did last week with "Sweet Caroline". It's not my favorite performance of his, but it's pretty good. Randy says it was hot. Paula says he's seasoned already. Simon says it was the best performance of the night so far. I guess it's a toss-up between him and Combover.

Combover is doing The Who's "Baba O'Riley" for his second performance. It's about time The Who had one of their songs done on this show. I'm not a Combover fan, but he's won me over to the point where I can tolerate him, and I say this could be a great performance for him. He rearranges it so that it has a dark, slow intro. Well, at least he won't be accused of doing karaoke this time. The music picks up at the "teenage wasteland" part, and there are a few noticeable bum notes when he goes into his upper register. I'm disappointed with this performance. The song itself is very dramatic, and it doesn't work well pared down for an "Idol" performance. He could've done so much more with it if he'd had more time. As it is it's lacking. Randy loves it. Paula wants more. Simon says "Welcome back, David Cook". I actually liked his first performance better.

Hey, Rascal Flatts is in the audience! Aren't they performing on "Dancing With the Stars" tonight? I guess they must be filmed in the same building.

Snoha's back to do Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come". It's a good song, but it's not a great performance. There are too many off-pitch moments for me, but at least she ends with a good glory note. There's not much to say about it except that it doesn't impress me much (who am I, Shania Twain?). Randy says he doesn't love it and that the arrangement didn't work for him. Paula stands and claps before heaping tons of praise on her, which moves Snoha to tears. I think she just bought herself another week with this show of emotion. Simon agrees with Paula. Syesha then talks about how the song means so much to her after she researched its history. Yeah, there's no way she's going home after all this.

Code Man is back behind the guitar for his second song tonight, Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man", which was most famously done by The Byrds. It starts off sort of cool, but then he forgets the lyrics and hums to cover it up. He later says "is no place" rather than "ain't no place", which seems odd. Is he tanking on purpose? I read last week that he said he was ready to go home. Randy says Jason isn't in the zone tonight. Paula says it didn't blow her away, but that Code Man does. Simon says he should pack his suitcase. The producers clearly want Jason gone, and he apparently doesn't want to be there either. Still, Simon telling him to pack his suitcase may garner him some sympathy votes. Of course, the sympathy vote is the only thing that's kept him in it the past two weeks, so perhaps the voters are sick of bailing him out.

Little Mini-Carmen is doing Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender" as the night's final number. This is a really slow song, but he handles it pretty well. The camera is zoomed in on his face most of the time, which I suppose is to make the voters feel close to him. It's not an exciting performance, but I like it. Randy and Paula both love it. Simon says he crushed the competition tonight. I guess all the pimping may be to save him from the middling vote totals he's been getting lately (if DialIdol is to be believed). He may have picked up some of the Mormon voters now that Brooke is gone, so that's certainly in his favor as well.

Ryan closes the show by telling us that our vote is more crucial than ever tonight. Well this is the first week this season I'm not voting. What do you think about that?

Now it's time to make some predictions. Going into this week I was thinking we could lose David Archuleta in a shocker, because every odd-numbered season has a shocker in the Top 4. Archuleta doesn't seem to be doing anything new, lots of people on the internet seem to hate him and DialIdol has had him as vulnerable in recent weeks. Unfortunately for all you Archie haters, I don't think it's going to happen after all the pimping he got tonight. David Cook got the death spot, but at this point I think he's so far ahead of the pack that nothing will keep him from winning. Judging by what I read on the internet, he's clearly the people's choice. Syesha's surprising run has seemed to be nearing the end every week, but after the improvement she's shown recently and the emotion she showed tonight I think she'll have plenty of voters in her corner. I never would've pegged her for the Top 3 a month ago, but now I'm actually predicting it will happen. That leaves us with Jason. A part of me was thinking he'd shock us by being safe again this week. He has lots of fans, he projects a very memorable image, and even Vote For the Worst has gotten on board with supporting him. Still, it seems that both he and the producers are hoping he gets voted off this week. Combine that with my reasons why the other three will get votes and I don't have much choice but to make Jason my pick to go home.

To make it official:

Bottom 2: Syesha, Jason
Going Home: Jason

The rest of this season should be fairly predictable. Oh well. At least Jason's exit interviews will be entertaining.