Top 7 Sing II - Theme: "Train Wreck Covers From Now And Then"

Well, we're back with another top 7 show, because as I (and most likely half of America) correctly predicted, the use of the judges' save was inevitable. The show finally decided to use the save on a girl, and that girl is Jessica Sanchezzzzzzz. Fine by me. Now they can't use it if one of the bigger favorites (such as Colton) gets an early boot.

Anyway, this week's entry is going to be shorter than usual as I'm running on farts this evening. I'm taking the liberty of skipping the filler and just concentrating on the performances this week. The themes this week are "Songs from 2000-2012" and "R&B from back in the day", both which have a great deal for train wreck potential, especially when it comes to this group. Let's take a look, shall we?

Note: The contestants did not sing their two songs back-to-back, but I did put their performances together for the recap.

Hollie is up first, and her first song is "Botklaom Lam Ert Mliarrrm" "Rolling In The Deep", because we never hear enough Adele covers on American Idol. This turned out to be not so horrible, since she mixed up the arrangement a little bit and performed a lot better than she has in a long time. In other words, she wasn't a complete train wreck for the first time in weeks. She wasn't stellar, but she was all right. Steven and J Lo had a jizzfest over this, gushing about how she's finally emoting for the first time. Randy agrees after throwing in the prerequisite 'pitchy'. She may have bought herself an extra week or two in the competition.

Her second song is "Maff Lakdjoj Faeool" "Son Of A Preacher Man", and Train Wreck Hollie has officially returned. It's kind of hard to see this after watching a Soul Train tribute and a clip of Aretha Franklin singing "Rock Steady". Hollie has about as much soul as The Brady Kids singing about being at the carnival (yes, they have a song about that). The judges seem to like it for some reason, and she still might be safe.

Next is Colton, and he is making all previous attempts at appearing straight completely moot by covering Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance". He wants your ugly, he wants your disease. Sparkle Cows getting bored with Adam Lambert are all at home watching, thinking that they can give him their ugly and their disease, and believe me, they'll moo trying. This is because Colton has more or less morphed into Madam tonight, but with James Durbin's level of talent. Randy throws out an 'in the zone', and I roll my eyes. He then passive-agressively says that it sucks by doing a long roundabout speech that stopped making sense in 2004. J Lo reiterates this by saying that it sucked, but it doesn't matter. This is correct since he's unlikely to last more than two years in the music industry no matter what happens. At the end, he says he's going to 'expand' his 'box' every week. The question is, will he be expanding his box with something he bought at an adult store?

His second song is "September" by Earth, Wind and Fire, a song that would have been perfect for DeAndre. However, this is "September" as if it had been written by Ryan Tedder, backed by the drum track to "Apologize". Come to think of it, this is a total ripoff of "Apologize". Like Hollie's "soul" performance, this was another trip to the carnival with The Brady Bunch. Steven and J Lo hated his version of the song and throw him under the bus. Randy also rips on the song, and we'll see if Colton expands his box with one of the Bottom 3 seats tomorrow.

Elise's song this week is Alicia Keys' "No One", as in "No one wants to hear this song covered any more". At least it's Elise, one of my non-VFTW favorites, singing it, and it's one of her better performances. My only critique is that her feet seemed glued to the stage, causing her to bounce around awkwardly during the song. However, it was very on-par vocally. J Lo said she had her first goosies of the night and didn't tell her she's pretty, so she might not be in the bottom 3 this week. Steven and Randy continued the jizzfest, so Elise is one-for-one so far.

Her second song is Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On", and one-for-one becomes one-for-two as Train Wreck Elise has returned. It gets to where she tries to growl, and it comes out sounding like she's gargling nails. Maybe she was distracted from looking so hard for a key to stick to. It's bizarre how she alternates between amazing and amazingly VFTW, but it's one of the few interesting things about this season, so I'm not complaining. J Lo throws her under the bus by telling her that she needs to connect more with the song, while Elise stares daggers at J Lo. Randy and Steven continue the skewering by criticizing the song choice as well as the way she sang it. Elise nearly has a meltdown as she admits that singing a consolidated song is hard for her. Guess who's going home tomorrow? I think it may be Elise.

And now it's time for Mr. VFTW himself, WGWG5 Phillip. He's singing "You Got It Bad" by Usher, and I am immediately laughing as I imagine his growly guitar version of an Usher song. And growly guitar he does, turning Usher into something between Dave Matthews and Creed. VFTW victory! Steven said that he never knows what to expect from PP, a switch from last week's comment that he does the same thing every week. J Lo is about to dump her dancer twink as she calls PP's performance "sexy". Randy says that we have a 'true artist' on the stage before dropping yet another 'da bomb'.

PP's second song is Wilson Pickett's "In The Midnight Hour", or as PP sings it, "In The Midnat Ow". It's classic Phillip, complete with awkward dancing and take-a-shit faces. Thank you for the new faces, Phillip. Our photoshoppers are going to have a field day. Steven shows his Worster colors by calling his performance "brilliantly awkward".

Jessica Sanchezzzzz did nothing worth noting tonight, only with extra melisma on top of extra melisma. Melisma that often sounded like a sheep bleating. That was definitely worth noting.

Skylar is singing "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga, and I'm thinking that they're going to have to cut 90% of the lyrics. Did you know that Lady Gaga did a country version of the song? I guess that's the only reason why Skylar had ever heard of Gaga. As expected, 90% of the song was cut in place of about 100 extra "Born This Way"s. Despite that, Skylar once again makes me appreciate her brand of country, which no one on this show since Kellie Pickler has been able to do for me. She's good at what she does and she has crossover appeal, as Randy said after the performance. Her second song is a countrified version of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine", and again, I have nothing negative to say at all. This girl is talented. (She also seems to be very good with a shotgun.)

By the way, hot fiddler is hot. Maybe that's why I was so into her performances this week.

W'Tasia is going for the ironic song choice this week and singing Fantasia's "I Believe". I never really liked this song, especially since Fantasia has so many better songs, such as "B-A-B-Y M-A-M-A", "Hood Boi", and "Baby Makin' Hips". Wrong move, Joshua. Now I'm bored. But hey, all the basic bitches in the land probably loved it. However, all I see is the biggest missed opportunity ever. His second song is Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come", meaning we get two ballads from W'Tasia this week. BORING! To be fair, though, he's a damn good singer. I just like him better when he does fast songs. Hopefully there will be another opportunity for him to sing "Baby Makin' Hips".

Psht. Like he'd take the opportunity.

I have been getting SOMEWHAT better at results predictions lately, so I'll say this - W'Tasia is safe because he had the pimp spot plus extra pimpage from the judges. Jessica is safe because her tards are going to vote extra hard this week. Phillip is safe because he's fraubait, and Hollie may be safe because she was painted as the Comeback Kid Of The Week tonight. Skylar could wind up in the B3 as I'm not sure what her voting bloc is going to think about her singing "Born This Way". Colton might also wind up in the B3 since the judges shat all over him this week. And Elise...it was often fun having you on the show. Let me say good luck, because I think there's a 90% chance that Elise is toast this week. Joining her in the bottom should be two out of the following three: Colton, Skylar, Hollie.

And now we only have five performance shows left. As many a contestant has sang on this show, "Hallelujah!"