‘American Idol’ top 7 review: Candice Glover, Amber Holcomb rock out on rock night

Are you ready to celebrate a little bit of rock and roll? If there is one adjective to describe Wednesday night’s new “American Idol” episode, it was “entertaining.” Were all of the songs good? Not even remotely, but at least most of them were entertaining. This is why we have to give major props to Nigel Lythgoe for at least organizing a theme that did not include any ballads, and forcing some of the contestants to have a little bit of fun.

When it comes to who is actually going to leave this week, though, let’s just say that odds are we are going to be seeing yet another guy leave the competition on Thursday night’s results show. Check out our take on all of the performances, and of course be sure to vote in the poll below.

Burnell Taylor, “You Give Love a Bad Name” – Can you start to cue the “you give this song a bad name” lines yet? We really do like Burnell as a guy, and the last thing that we want to see is him go home over Lazaro. But this wasn’t good. Not even close. We appreciate the bold song choice, but it felt way too karaoke and not remotely close to his style.

Angela Miller & Lazaro Arbos, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” – Ugh. We said earlier that someone was probably going to beat this song to death, and this was basically Angie being awesome and Lazaro being … Lazaro. He didn’t know all the words, his vocals were off, and the time is running out on his inspirational story.

Kree Harrison, “Piece of My Heart” – We’re starting to get a little bit worried about Kree, mostly because we’re not seeing any of the aggression from her that she may need. Her vocals are always pitch-perfect, but there are times when she just seems a little too relaxed on stage, and not enough energy, especially for a song like this.

Candice Glover & Burnell Taylor, “The Letter” – This was far better for Burnell than his solo performance, but there’s no denying here that Candice completely dominated him and tore the entire roof off of the studio. Maybe he’ll get a few votes by proxy; we’ll see.

Janelle Arthur, “You May Be Right” – Where was this side of Janelle earlier this season? She was completely awesome last week, and she put in here a performance that was the best of the night at this point. She picked up the tempo, moved around the stage well, and she turned this Billy Joel classic into a fun sort of country jam.

Lazaro Arbos, “We Are the Champions” – You may be shocked by this, but Lazaro really wasn’t bad here. He wasn’t amazing, but the lyrics were mostly on-point, he hit the right notes, and the performance was fairly entertaining. Granted, we do also have to say that he picked a song that is very recognizable, and the lyrics are pretty easy to learn.

Amber Holcomb, Janelle Arthur, and Kree Harrison, “Still Rock n’ Roll to Me” – This was probably the worst performance of any of the ladies tonight, at least from this perspective. It was okay vocally, but it was just dull. Unlike Janelle’s other cover of a Billy Joel song, this was just way too straightforward for our own personal satisfaction.

Candice Glover, “Satisfaction” – Yes. This was really entertaining. How was this boring? We don’t quite get it. Randy Jackson was right in saying that rock is about “attitude,” and she really showed that off this week more than she has in some other weeks. Believe it or not, this was probably one of our top 2 or 3 Candice jams of the season.

Amber Holcomb, “What About Love” – Well, what about it? Amber gave a pretty strong vocal here, but we have a problem with something else: wasn’t this week supposed to be about something other than ballads? This was a little against the theme, but we’re starting to think that Amber could be a darkhorse here, at least so long as she survives the next week or two when she is probably at risk.

Angie Miller, “Bring Me To Life” – This was a perfect song choice for Angie, and it’s almost as though it was written for her to perform. There were a few issues, though, from the weird back-up singer doing the other part in the song to her getting distracted by the wind machine’s attempts to show off her stomach. It was a bit of a comeback for her after a few rough weeks, and while it wasn’t perfect, it gets her going in the right direction. The only other thing we’d say is to not smile as much during a somber song.

If you want to see who we thought was in danger going into this episode, you can do so just by paying a visit over to the link here.

Photo: Fox