‘American Idol XIII’ top 7 rankings: Alex Preston, Jena Irene, Jessica Meuse still favorites

You can debate over whether or not the crop of “American Idol” contestants this season is your personal favorite, but there is one thing that does feel pretty consistent to us: The top four or so contestants. We’ve got clear tiers this time around, with a group of people who are routinely in danger, and then a group who haven’t broken a sweat since they gotten into the live shows on Thursday night.

Unless something insane happens, this probably means that there are some boring episodes ahead … but also a pretty exciting month of May when we are down to our final contenders. As always, we based our rankings on a combination of things: Performance quality, voting history, and even comparisons to past seasons for similar contestants.

7. CJ Harris (last week: 8) – A very likable dude with a girlfriend and family that get a ton of screen time. When it comes to singing, though, this just isn’t the place for him. We’d love to go watch him perform at some blues bar in the south, but this competition is about production and staying on pitch. That’s just not CJ’s game.

6. Sam Woolf (7) – When you look at the voting patterns, these two are the clear weak links. While there are two other singers with experience in the bottom three among those left, these two are the only ones with multiple showings. Typically getting the same equals multiple weeks of goodwill. Given that Sam barely deserved it in the first place, we only give him one. He’ll be in trouble again this week.

5. Dexter Roberts (5) – This is where things get really tricky. We really liked Dexter the past two weeks, but his overall body of work just doesn’t mesh with what he did here. We just cannot justify a seismic shift at the top of the charts right now.

4. Caleb Johnson (4) – Caleb is coming off of something that was our favorite performance from him and weeks, but traditionally, voters pick someone to win “American Idol” who is more than just a good singer. They also look for someone who is an artist. The top three have shown more creativity with their song choices, even when they haven’t been as strong performing.

3. Jena Irene (2) – Neither Jena nor Jessica are coming off of their best weeks in the competition, but we’re giving the latter a little bit of an edge based on the fact that she has never been in danger. Jena has given stellar performances as of late, but her “I Love Rock N’ Roll” was her weakest since possibly the start of the live voting rounds.

2. Jessica Meuse (3) – Despite never knowing how to please the judges (who never seem happy with her), Jessica has developed a solid body of work, and most importantly, has stayed safe from the vote even when she has stumbled. While we could envision a shock vote with Jena (as furious as it would make us), we cannot see that happening with Jessica. She’s bound for at least the top 4.

1. Alex Preston (1) – There is still no reason whatsoever to change things up at the top of our leaderboard. Alex has been dominant for a big chunk of the season, and he has yet to give a performance that was truly weak. Not everyone loved “Every Breath You Take,” but it still had a nice haunting quality to it.

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Photo: Fox