‘American Idol’ top 4 rankings: Jessica Sanchez, Joahua Ledet battle

We are now really in the homestretch for “American Idol” this season, and there are only four people left with a shot at the title — but that doesn’t mean that the four singers all have an equal shot of winning the title.

We’ve ranked Phillip Phillips #1 for a few weeks now, but there is a question that we started to ask ourselves moving forward — as people like Skylar Laine leave, are her fans going to gravitate towards Phillip (who tends to give similar performances every week), or one of the other singers? This is where we think this season’s “guy with a guitar” could be in trouble moving forward — and some of the other singers could rise to the occasion.

4. Hollie Cavanagh (last week: #5) – We give Hollie a great deal of credit for making this competition so competitive for the final four. Why? If it wasn’t for the tremendous growth she has shown the past few weeks, she wouldn’t even be here.

At this point, Hollie definitely is the sleeper candidate to win — she has been in the bottom two more than the other three contestants combined, and she will have to absolutely go out and kill multiple performances during Wednesday night’s show to have a shot at a hometown visit.

3. Phillip Phillips (last week: #1) – We’re going with out gut with Phillip here. He has never been in the bottom three, seems to have more support than anyone, and yet we’re still feeling that he shouldn’t really win this season.

At some point, we have to believe that giving great performances on this show should count for something — and while Phillip is talented, he’s not the sort of contestant that would probably sell the sort of records that Jimmy Iovine or 19 Entertainment would want. We’ve just seen too many winners like him, and if he continues to give uneven performances we can’t see him getting any further than 2nd.

2. Jessica Sanchez (last week: #2) – Jimmy certainly stirred the pot with some comments about the way in which Jessica performed “Proud Mary” this past week, and it’s to be seen whether that impacts her in the future. (However, shouldn’t Jimmy take some of the blame here for his own criticism? He hasn’t really tried to give her age-appropriate songs as he once vowed to do.)

Really, Jessica is a bona fide finalist if she captures the beauty and performance quality of her “You Are So Beautiful” for the next three weeks. She has so much natural talent that at this point, she’s going to have a career regardless of where she finishes.

1. Joshua Ledet (last week: #3) – We’re afraid about hyping Joshua up too much, mostly because we are going to be afraid that in the process, everyone will magically stop voting for him.

We’re not sure if there has been an “Idol” contestant in the past three seasons who is as consistently good as he is — there hasn’t been a single dud in his entire catalog, and has taken everything from the Temptations to Queen and somehow made it into something that suits him. He’s likable, talented, and a natural performer — we don’t know what better definition of “Idol” that there is out there.

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Who is at the top of your ranking? As always, be sure to share your thoughts in the poll as well as the comment box below!

Photo: Fox