better than last week

of course, superstar number one is

mandisa - "i'm every woman"

one of the greatest A.I. performances to date, easily. she kicked this songs ass, picked it up, dusted it off, and kicked its ass again. just awesome.

katharine - "think"

she's unbelievably gorgeous, and can sing the hell out of an aretha song well enough for randy to call out his "dawgs". hot one in here, indeed.

melissa - "what about love?"

this was awesome. she's got a great original voice... too bad she'll probably be voted off this week. she's gotten better every time.

...unlike, say, paris, who hasn't really been great since the first week. "conga" was terrible, and her 'melodic choices' sounded like they were in a different key than the band.

lisa - "where i stand"
i dunno, another one i felt was off-key more than it was on. i liked the hendrix riff though...

kinnik - "if i ain't got you"
ouch. i'm thinking she ain't got enough of america's votes after that performance.

ayla - "unwritten"
the choruses were good, but the verse just sounded kinda talky. i don't know the song, but randy seemed to nail it, it's just not the type of song you can use to showcase your voice.

kelli - "i'm the only one"
her best performance so far, and i agree with simon, she is better than carrie. i like the roughness of her voice, and even though some of her 'stage moves' are kinda goofy, they're preferable to just standing still, which carrie did through all of last season. mandisa was a tough act to follow, but "the minx" was able to pull it off.

i'd like to see paris and kinnik leave this week, but i'm afraid it will probably be melissa and kinnik, with ayla in the bottom three as well.