NEWS'American Idol' Final Four Recap: Tough Race With Jessica Sanchez, Joshua Ledet, Hollie Cavanagh & Phillip Phillips
May 10 2012, Published 2:53 p.m. ET
As Ryan Seacrest declared right at the start of the show, there are just two weeks left until the American Idol finale. We can't believe how fast this season has gone and this is by far one of the best final four that this show has ever seen with Phillip Phillips, Jessica Sanchez, Joshua Ledet and Hollie Cavanagh.
They all soared tonight with the two songs they performed. One song was by someone from California while the second song was one that they wish they had written. Check out how each one of them did.
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Phillip was up first and started it off with Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Have You Ever Seen the Rain." This song came off well with the gruff way that Phillip likes to sing, but it still bothers us when Phillip makes those gruff faces. The boy just needs to not get so into it sometimes. His second song was yards better: Damien Rice's "Volcano." This was so good! Phillip is finally showing us the guy we fell for at the beginning of the season. We just hope that he can keep it up.
Hollie was up next and we like to call this girl the dark horse of this season. She has been just rising and rising every week and she continued to do just that with Journey's "Faithfully." Maybe it was the wind machine, but Hollie really got into this song so much that you could see the emotion on her face. She really wants this. And her second song was just as good: Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me." And this was also a very smart move on Hollie's part — using her voice to try and court the votes of Skylar Laine, whom we sadly said goodbye to last week. We hope Hollie gets the votes to stay.
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Joshua took on Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up" and there was just something missing from this performance. It was like Joshua wasn't fully there or something. It just doesn't have the connection that Josh Groban has when he sings it. But when he came back out with James Brown's "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World," boy did Joshua blow apart that stage. When he is really in it, there is no stopping Joshua. What a voice!
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Jessica sang Etta James' "Steal Away" and we get what she was trying to do here, trying to emotionally connect to a song, but it came off as kind of phony. Jessica did blow the roof off the place though when she sang "And I'm Telling You I Am Not Going," which we have heard so many times, and, of course, there is no comparison to Jennifer Holliday or Jennifer Hudson, but wow, Jessica killed it. The vocals that she has are unstoppable, but did it sound too much like Jennifer Hudson? We will soon see what voters thought.
In between all of that we had a fake-out proposal from Ryan to girlfriend Julianne Hough as they weirdly promoted the Rock of Ages movie, but some not-so-great duets from Phillip and Joshua and then Hollie and Jessica. And let's not even talk about the trainwreck of a group number. Idol producers need to learn that these episodes don't need to be two hours. Too much filler.
This will be a tough results night. The final 3 get to go home and have their homecoming parades, but sadly one won't make it. Who do you think will get cut tonight? We are hoping Jessica, but we sadly think it will be Hollie. Find out tonight at 8 p.m. ET on FOX, where we will also be treated to performances from Jennifer Lopez and season 7 winner David Cook!
