American Idol Recap: Your Top 13

Well, Idol Worshippers, we’ve finally made it to this moment. The moment where the Top 13 has been chosen. The moment were we begin the live performance shows and speed dial voting next week. The moment where you lose hope in the Idol system or the moment where you learn to appreciate the elimination system. Tonight was full of moments, most of them irrelevant to the night’s theme of determining the Top 12 (or 13) to perform for America. In true Idol fashion, a number of filler spots and videos, judges interviews and music videos helped fill the gaps between announcing names during tonight’s two hour telecast. Don’t worry, this article won’t be full of filler this time … I have a few gripes to pick with Idol but we’ll leave it short and sweet with a full list of your Top 13 below.

First off, if my name were Kendra Chantelle, I wouldn’t take this cut personally. Idol didn’t give her a chance to become familiar with America and vice versa. We didn’t know of her existence until the final “audition” round show where they named the Top 24. Even then, she’s barely had her moment to speak to America, like a certain Lauren Alaina or James Durbin. To top it all off, when Peaches put her on the edge and asked her a question when it came time for the suspenseful announcement, he cut her off!! He. Cut. Her. Off. Even then, America wasn’t given a chance to warm up to her and we weren’t even voting anymore this week!

In a similar light, the whole special edit for Miss. Lauren Alaina is becoming very blatant (if it already hasn’t been that way). Now, let me come flat out and say that I have nothing against her. She’s very talented, with a great voice that can go places, but she was given even greater attention today as all of America found out that Kelly Clarkson tweeted about her. By all means, Kelly has every right to do so, about any contestant, but the constant comparisons and spotlight is becoming all too reminiscent of one Kara DioGuardi up the pants of one Adam Lambert. Sorry, was that too graphic? And I promise I’ll try and stop here before I start beating this to a pulp.

I gotta come out and fess up. My prediction on Julie was wrong. Way wrong, apparently…and I’m none too pleased. Her poor song choice of “Breakaway” broke her away from the competition. We also said goodbye to promising vocals of Tim Halperin, Robbie Rosen, and yes, even Rachel Zevita. Some of the Top 13 will likely take time as we figure out why they’re there, but we’ll cover that next week when we get our first look at them LIVE. For now, I’ll leave you all here with our Top 13. You got too much filler and cheese from Peaches, Papa Nigel and the Dawg Pound, so why torture you any longer (not that my recaps are torture, right)? Next week, we go LIVE and you better be here with us as we live blog the episode! Until then, who are you happy made it to the Top 13? If you could exchange spots of some contestants, what changes would you make? More importantly, what’d you think about the new elimination process? Was it a fair way to cut 11 from the Top 24 to give us the lucky 13? Let us know below!

American Idol Top 13

• Casey Abrams
• Naima Adedapo
• Lauren Alaina
• James Durbin
• Ashthon Jones
• Stefano Langone
• Jacob Lusk
• Scotty McCreery
• Paul McDonald
• Thia Megia
• Haley Reinhart
• Karen Rodriguez
• Pia Toscana