It was Diana Ross night on American Idol’s first finals show Tuesday, and the women reigned supreme. Most of the men misfired attempting to sing material from Ross or The Supremesa.
Brandon Rogers delivered a lukewarm You Can’t Hurry Love, Phil Stacy demolished I’m Gonna Make You Love Me and the Sanjaya Malakar travesty worsened with a pathetically weak Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.
Even front-runners Chris Sligh and Blake Lewis flopped with rearragements, Sligh injecting a Coldplay vibe into, oddly, Endless Love and Lewis executing a sub-par You Keep Me Hanging On.
The women were at least competent — a passable Love Child by Gina Glocksen, an appealing Missing You by Haley Scarnato — and at times better than that. LaKisha Jones won the night with an impressively nuanced God Bless the Child.
And Melinda Doolittle and Jordin Sparks picked dull Ross ballads (Home, If We Hold On Together) but sang them skillfully. The first finalist is eliminated tonight (Fox, 9 ET/PT). Malakar would be the logical choice.
