‘American Idol 15’ review: Avalon Young, MacKenzie Bourg, Jeneve Rose Mitchell have duets

Tonight, “American Idol” is doing something a little bit different for its top 24 performance show … or at least the first part of it featuring twelve singers. All of the remaining singers got a chance to perform duets with an iconic singer from the series, and these were then commented on by the judges. At the end of the show, the field of twelve will be narrowed down to seven, and the other twelve will perform next week.

We’ll have the results later in a separate article; for now, let’s focus on some of the performances. We’ll be updating this live throughout the night!

Emily Brooke and Lauren Alaina, “Flat on the Floor” – This was really fun! It’s always nice to get something that is so energetic, and this Carrie Underwood cover proved to be that and then some. A dramatic improvement from night one.

Thomas Stringfellow and Nick Fradiani, “Man in the Mirror” – Not as good as the night before. The two just didn’t really mesh well together, and the song choice is completely overdone at this point.

Stefany Negrete and Ruben Studdard, “Superstar” – It’s Stefany’s best performance of the season! Great connection with Ruben, and very good vocals. Is this enough to actually help her to advance? She’s at least best of the night so far…

Sonika Vaid and Caleb Johnson, “Skyfall” – The best thing that we can say about Sonika is that she really held her own in this … and that’s no easy task when you start to think about everything that he brings to the table.

Jenna Renae and Scotty McCreery, “See You Tonight” – Really solid. It’s not super-memorable, but at least there were some really good harmonies in here.

La’Porsha Renae and Fantasia, “Summertime” – We’re surprised that Fantasia wanted to even recreate her most-iconic performance in the history of the show, but we’re SO glad she did. This was fantastic through and through.

MacKenzie Bourg and Lauren Alaina, “I Hope You Dance” – They did their best with what was a really tricky situation here, given that MacKenzie is not a country singer, and he’s also not someone particularly suited for duets since his voice is so unique.

Gianna Isabella and Nick Fradiani, “Beautiful Life” – This performance exposed some huge problems with this theme. Gianna did okay, but the biggest issue to us here is that she had to adapt to Nick rather than the way around.

Avalon Young and Ruben Studdard, “Flying without Wings” – Basically, take everything that we said above and then copy-and-paste here. It all still applies unfortunately.

Caleb Johnson and James VIII, “Gimme Shelter” – The good news is that this was a little bit better of a vocal match than anything that we had in the past two performances … but that’s just about the only good news. Their voices for some reason didn’t work.

Jeneve Rose Mitchell and Scotty McCreery, “Gone” – Redemption is here! Easily, this was the best performance since “Summertime,” and these two had a very natural chemistry and feel. It was a little cheesy and out there, but we’ll take over-the-top sometimes for boring.

Jordan Sasser and Fantasia, “I Believe” – Hey, he tried. He just cannot top someone like Fantasia singing one of her songs. Ultimately, there was zero chance of this working well for him.

Results – Head over here to check ’em out!

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