Idol's final four

What were the judges going on about? Carrie sounded great in her second song. Naturally, when Randy says she was never on pitch, we can infer that her pitch was in fact flawless. But Simon is usually more reliable. I honestly can’t think why he would say it was an utter mess. At least everyone agreed that "Sin Wagon" was a smashing success.

I swear, if Bo doesn’t put that microphone stand down, I’m going to scream. The first performance seemed to last forever. The second was at least a little more interesting. I would have thought that even the second performance didn’t really connect, but the audience went absolutely crazy.

I wonder what happened to Vonzell today. Her first performance was pretty lackluster, and it was kind of Simon (yes, you read it right: kind of Simon) not to press the point after it had become clear that she was having problems. On the other hand, Vonzell has often seemed detached and non-committal in her performances, so I don’t know that whatever difficulties she had can be fairly blamed on a bad day. (And of course real performers don’t have bad days.) I have to admit, though: "Don’t Leave Me This Way" was excellent.

Anthony could not possibly have looked any cuter than he did in all that denim. His voice was beautifully controlled throughout "I’m Already There," even in the lower, quieter sections where he often has problems with support. Randy was clearly disappointed that he had to praise it. It’s not quite clear to me why the judges are so unenthusiastic about Anthony, but he often gets damned with faint praise even when he sings beautifully.

Oh no, he’s about to sing "If You Don’t Know Me by Now." He’d better way outsing Carrie. And he did! Unbelievable! And for once, Paula said something intelligent: he sang with conviction. That is what Anthony offers that not one of the others has: the songs get down into his bones and he conveys a deep sense of the meaning and passion and depth of a good lyric. For him, and for him alone, the sounds are not principally an excuse for vocal acrobatics, but a vehicle for conveying meaning. And that, brothers and sisters, is what a true singer does.

So in the actual order of merit, from top to bottom, we have Anthony, Carrie, Vonzell, and the increasingly unimpressive Bo. Likely results of the voting, however, are Carrie, Bo, Anthony, Vonzell.