‘American Idol’ top 10 rankings: Angie Miller, Kree Harrison, Burnell Taylor go for #1

We’re thrilled that we finally have the top ten contestants on “American Idol.” Why? There’s no more need to separate the rankings! Everyone is sized up against everyone else, and now, the battle of the fan bases can really begin.

If we based this on talent along this year, then most of the women would win here in a blowout. However, you have to consider past voting history here with this show, and this is something that we consider in our rankings along with performance quality, edit / airtime, and perceived fan support (i.e. people following them and talking about them on social media). Oh, and we try to never be mean: it’s all in hopes that everyone gets better and we have a harder time ranking the singers the next week.

One additional thing that we want to point out right away is that the new “Supervote” introduced by the show this year may help to level the playing field a little bit. While there will still be many teenagers power-voting, older voters in the past were hampered by the fact that they didn’t have time to display the same passion for their favorites. This does not level the playing field, but it may lessen the “cute guy” bump ever so slightly.

Enough talk now: let’s get to the rankings!

Top 10

10. Curtis Finch, Jr. – A very good singer who gave what we thought was the best performance of “I Believe I Can Fly” ever on the show … but then again, most of the other performances of it were terrible. He made it through here on the strength of the judges, but with more likable singers and with us coming off of Joshua Ledet eating songs alive, we don’t see Curtis having a long ride.

9. Amber Holcomb – The only girl we are worried about leaving almost right away. She shouldn’t deserve to, but we get a feeling that America knows less about her than most of the other singers, and with all of their styles so easy to identify right away, her amorphous style may come back to bite her.

8. Lazaro Arbos – As a person, we love Lazaro. As a singer, we’re lukewarm. It’s a disservice to the other singers to give some of his issues a pass because of his stutter, and his live-show performance was very shaky. While his fan base is large enough to carry him for a few weeks, he needs to have a big moment that moves us like his original audition did if he wants to have a serious shot at winning the season.

7. Janelle Arthur – A very good country singer, and at times a very old-school country singer. She does need to speed up the tempo and have a little bit more fun like Kree did in her victory song, though, since for now we still occasionally get the feeling that she is a singer trying very hard for approval rather than one expressing herself.

6. Paul Jolley – We actually think that Janelle is a better singer than Paul, but he is probably going to go pretty far this season thanks largely to being a good-looking guy who sings country music. We don’t want to diminish that there is talent there, but he has painted with very broad strokes thus far. Paul needs to focus in, open the doors, and show us who he really is if he wants to be something more than a middle-of-the-pack player.

5. Devin Velez – A very talented singer with a good voice, but he has yet to really do anything that we see resonating with younger voters out there. (Singing Perry Como will not help.) The biggest challenge for Devin? Song choice, song choice, song choice. Oh, and be sure to limit your Spanish singing to just once every few episodes to keep it from being a gimmick.

4. Candice Glover – Probably the best singer of this season, and she is also as good as anyone from last season except for maybe Jessica Sanchez. Candice has a killer voice. What worries us is just that since Fantasia, most female R&B / soul singers have struggled to make it to the finale. Melinda Doolittle came close (we consider Jordin Sparks more pop), but we are already a little worried about her becoming the next Jennifer Hudson (which would be a good thing for Candice long-term, but a bad thing for her on this show).

3. Burnell Taylor – Shocker! Yes, we do have a boy in the top three, which is something most people would refuse to do. The reality here is that there are young women voting for guys heavily, and it’s completely unrealistic to think that we are not going to have a guy make it very far in this competition. Burnell right now seems to be the safest bet: he’s had a lot of airtime, a moving story, and he sings music that is soulful, but also current.

2. Kree Harrison – We’ve made it no secret that we love Kree in this competition, and the reasons why are very simple: she has not only a killer country voice, but that real talent to make you believe every word that she is singing. Just so long as she stays creative and keeps the older viewing base involved, seeing her win is something we could certainly see happening.

1. Angie Miller – We’re not 120% convinced that Angie is going to hold tight to this favorite position all season long, since there are some other talented contestants left. Plus, we are also worried about her getting stuck firmly in the ballad-with-an-uplifting-message genre. She’s clearly got a great voice and the biggest voting block out of anyone right now, but she has to remember that variety will be her spice of survival in this competition.

Who do you have at the top of your “American Idol” rankings right now? We want to hear from you in the poll below! In addition to sharing your thoughts below, and you can also read what Adam Lambert has to say about some of these contenders over here.

Photo: Fox