The Results - American Idols

The show may have started with a group performance from the Season 12 Miss American Idol Top 10 finalists just like any other Results show from years past, but there were many fun changes and surprises in store!

The group song was an uplifted, inspirational new song from the upcoming animated film, The Croods. As expected, the girls sounded great, while the boys struggled to get their way through it just like in the performances last night.

Also, the same as usual was the performances to entertain us while we waited to finally hear the results. Tonight we had the chance to see Bon Jovi sing their new single from their forthcoming album, What About Now. We also heard the Season 11 Miss American Idol winner, Phillips Phillips sing his new single, Gone Gone Gone. Lucky for him, this song is going to be the Season 12 "farewell song" that will be played each week at the end of the Results Shows over the montage of the finalist who has been eliminated. That should be some great promotion to help the single get close to being as big as his debut single, Home. That song has been everywhere from insurance company commercials to the theme song for the Gold medal winning US Women's Olympics Gymnastics team. Randy came out on stage to present Phillip with a commemorative picture recognizing that Home has reached sales of over 4 Million!

So then, on to the new stuff. This year the producers are giving the fans the chance to vote more finalist into the American Idol Summer Tour. One boy and one girl performed tonight and whoever gets the most votes will be awarded with a spot on the tour. Charlie Askew was the contender for the boys. He sat at the piano and screeched out an original song of his called Sky Blue Diamond. He's an awkward and unstable young man and in no way will he be able to handle the pressures of being on a nationwide tour. The much better contender from the girls was Aubrey Cleland. Aubrey should have been in the top 10 instead of Kree Harrison, so now is America's chance to make an effort to fix things. She sang Out Here On My Own from the 1980 film Fame and she completely nailed it. Aubrey is exceptionally beautiful and she sounded wonderful.

Also new for Season 12 is the fact that the producers are revealing the actual ranking of the finalists for the first time. Here is how the voting went from the most votes to the least:

Angie Miller
Candice Glover
Kree Harrison
4. Lazaro Arbos
5. Amber Holcomb
6. Janelle Arthur
7. Burnell Taylor
8. Paul Jolley
9. Devin Velez
10. Curtis Finch Jr.

The judges once again have a SAVE that they can use if they unanimously agree that it's too soon for the finalist to be eliminated. Curtis once again sang I Believe and once again it was lackluster. The judges decided to let him go.

I correctly predicted two of the bottom three, but this year we can see how close I was to almost getting all three right. I was also correct in predicting that Curtis would be the finalist going home.