‘American Idol 15’ review: MacKenzie Bourg, Trent Harmon, Sonika Vaid look to impress on top 8 show

American Idol -merican Tonight, “American Idol” is revealing its top eight, and they are doing so in a fashion that is similar to last year. With every singer that performs, they will be declared safe. Of course, the big twist tonight is that the bottom three will be revealed, and then the judges will actually be the responsible part for sending someone hope. What, do the producers seriously not trust America to do anything right? This is both maddening and depressing.

As with any other “American Idol” review that we do here at CarterMatt, we’ll be updating this article throughout the night! Stay tuned…

Dalton Rappatoni, “Radioactive” – Here is the problem when you develop a following for being so original and innovative. When you don’t do that, everyone starts to get a little bored. This was a little too karaoke given what we’ve seen from him so far.

Lee Jean, “Use Somebody” – Through most of this season Lee’s been that guy who has had undeniable talent, but at the same exact time has not really been able to piece everything together. Tonight we saw the effort and someone of the passion, even if the pitch was a little off. Do we give him some points for trying? We do like him.

Sonika Vaid, “Since U Been Gone” – This was similar to Lee in some ways. It was missing something special, but we saw the commitment and the passion there. Maybe she tried a little too hard to focus on nailing all the notes that she didn’t connect to the lyrics as much as she could have.

MacKenzie Bourg, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” – This was a nice rendition of a Whitney Houston classic, but let’s face it: It wasn’t a “wow” moment either. In the pantheon of great MacKenzie performances we wouldn’t put it at the top, but this is still better than many other performances that are out there.

La’Porsha Renae, “Halo” – Vocally, this was far and away the best of the night at this point. Yet, we still think that La’Porsha probably could’ve made some different choices in regards to the key. Not all of it sounded melodically pleasing to us in the way we’d like.

Trent Harmon, “When a Man Loves a Woman” – We don’t love that this song has been performed roughly a billion times over the past few years, but we can’t be mad at the way Trent sung it or carried himself on stage with that Olly Murs vibe goin’ on.

Tristan McIntosh, “Go Rest High on the Mountain” – Probably the best we’ve heard Tristan in a long time. We’re still not entirely sure she has it in her to be an enormous country superstar, but we sensed more confidence and vocal ability here.

Bottom Three

Avalon Young, “Earned It” – This was a great way to start out the deliberation for the judges, and Avalon really through everything in here! Now, let’s give some side-eye to America for not putting her in their top 7.

Olivia Rox, “Trouble” – Olivia through a lot into this in terms of energy, vocal range, and overall power. It just didn’t have the same sort of natural swagger to it that we saw earlier with Avalon.

Gianna Isabella, “If I Ain’t Got You” – Sure, it was decent, but we’ve just heard this song so many times before that there wasn’t anything new that we felt with it.

Results Check them out over here!

Want to see where we ranked all of the singers going into tonight? Then head over here to see our full contestant ranking piece right now! Also, sign up over here to secure some other TV news on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Fox.)

 

Love TV? Be sure to like Matt & Jess on Facebook for more updates!