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American Idol 2008 Results - Top 4 Announced - April 30

By Jason
May 1, 2008 in Features, Music, Television


The American Idol Results show for week 11 of Season 7 live performances whittled the contestants down by one more and gave the four remaining a 25% shot at being named the next American Idol.  Neil Diamond theme week ended up being almost as bad as Andrew Lloyd Webber week, but most of the talk centered on the judges as Paula managed to critique a performance that hadn’t even occurred yet.

I’m not certain if Paula’s “pre-judgement” of Jason Castro had anything to do with the results this week or not, just as I have no idea if Simon’s statement that Syesha Mercado was in trouble had anything to do with them.  The end result, however, surprised almost no one who has been watching the show for the past month or so.

If you missed the performance show on Tuesday night you can always watch the performance videos and read our recaps right here:

This week I got it right and picked a bottom two instead of a bottom three like I did last week.  It was a good thing I did because my bottom two prediction was right on the money.  Of course, at this stage in the game, it wasn’t a tough call.  To refresh your memory, I placed the Top 5 performances for April 29, 2008, in this order:

  1. David Cook - “I’m Alive” and “All I Really Need Is You”
  2. David Archuleta - “Sweet Caroline” and “America”
  3. Syesha Mercado - “Hello Again” and “Thank the Lord for the Night Time”
  4. Brooke White - “I’m A Believer” and “I Am, I Said”
  5. Jason Castro - “Forever In Blue Jeans” and “September Morn”

This week the contestants performed two songs each, but I rated the two songs together and ranked each performer as an overall ranking.  Even though I thought Jason Castro was definitely the worst performer of the week, I predicted that Brooke White and Syesha Mercado would actually be the two who received the lowest number of votes.  I further predicted that we would be forced to say goodbye to Syesha Mercado even though I thought she was actually pretty close to being the second best performer of the week.

The actual bottom two ended up being:

Last week the producers had Brooke and Syesha come out at the same time and everyone in the world thought Brooke would be the one who would be in the bottom two.  She wasn’t as you probably know.  This week, however, there wasn’t any escape for her.  Her first performance was panned by virtually everyone and Brooke’s continued slide into nervous tension has people wondering about the state of her mental health.  It just seems to be too much for her.

I think that Syesha has struggled to find her niche and build up a fan base, but her continued strong performances has helped keep her head just above water as others around her have faltered.  This week was no exception as Brooke probably lost a lot of fans or, at least, didn’t inspire them to call in and vote for her with her poor showing.  Needless to say, few (including Brooke) were surprised when Brooke White was voted out of American Idol.  Once again, I predicted incorrectly.

Why Syesha Mercado Was In The Bottom Two

I feel like I could just leave my paragraph from last week here and it would still apply.  However, a few things have changed slightly for Syesha.  It seems to me that she has quit trying so hard to actually win and is trying harder to choose songs that she enjoys performing.  I’ve said all along that this show is more about performance than it is about vocal skills.  If you put on a good show for the folks at home you have a good chance of going further than someone who might technically be a better singer, but can’t perform.  This doesn’t always work as David A. proves, but it seems to be working for Syesha now.  I will probably still end up picking her to leave next week, but I wouldn’t really be that surprised if she defies the odds and makes it another round.

Why Brooke White Lost American Idol

Brooke, by her own admission, has struggled with her confidence from the very beginning.  Early on it seemed that she had less trouble with it than she did in later rounds, but this might have been due to the mounting pressure associated with the success of moving on in the show.  Brooke had some wonderful performances in some of those early shows and built up a nice niche fan base that supported her for a long time.  The problem was that she failed to expand on that fan base by expanding her style and she showed herself incapable of really going outside her comfort zone.  Brooke does really well with her style, but struggles mightily when faced with an unfamiliar style (another reason I hate theme weeks).  In the past few weeks she’s clearly been outperformed by several other contestants and nothing she did from week to week was able to change anyone’s mind that she simply didn’t have the chops to win this thing.

The American Idol Top 4

If you’re keeping score with the little side contest Jeff (from Static ThinkBox) and I have going…  Jeff has had trouble keeping up with his posts with a new baby in the house.  He did contact me to let me know that his choice to be voted out was Syesha.  Maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t contacted me…  So, once again, we both show how much we suck as I chose the same person and we remain tied below .500, somewhere around “sucks hard.”

The current score is below.

American Idol Pick Off 2008: Jeff 8-12 Jason 8-12

For a quick recap from a slightly different perspective, swing by Static ThinkBox and see what Jeff has to say about the ousted contestants.

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Features, Music, Television
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