Bsti

Carter barely survived that Mariah song, the last third especially was kinda cringy (and I thought his knockout was pretty great).

Not sure what's so confusing...Cami is actually one of my favourites so far, and she's definitely one of the most unique contestants this season. I've enjoyed her performances, I just find it a bit funny that she's dominating this particular poll. There have definitely been some contestants with a similar style that have popped up now and then, going all the way back to Melanie Martinez. Meanwhile John has literally been called the "unicorn" of the competition, a metaphor for someone really unique that stands out, so...

It's definitely not Cami, but I guess she wins all the IDF polls by default now. There have been plenty of alternative artists like her who flip songs to make a darker/more haunting version, it's not a new thing on these shows anymore. It's John, easily. An opera-trained countertenor who sings a mix of jazz standards and big pop ballads is pretty darn unique. I can't think of anyone quite like him that's ever been on the show. Or on any other talent show, for that matter. The only other option is Ian, who has a unique voice. But his musical style and song choices are pretty generic.

Lilli Passero

Wow never saw Kat Robichaud before but that was actually a good cover of the song. Nailed the attitude and the vocals. The rest are bad karaoke in comparison.

Julia was the best in terms of vocals and originality. Taryn surprisingly had vocal problems and Larriah was good but didn't have the connection the song needed. Ryan sounded pretty great and is the likely winner, but at the end of the day it was a pretty safe cover of Time to Say Goodbye. No change-up at all and I actually felt he could have gone bigger with the ending as well.

Julia - New York State of Mind Jonny - Makin' Love Just Sam - Como La Flor, Rise Up Francisco - River Makayla - And I Am Telling You Lauren - What About Us

That makes sense. Also, it's a lot harder to give a trainwreck performance in the comfort of your own home.

Definitely, there's no way anyone could have gotten more than 2 stars on BnB with that cheesy arrangement and bad sound mixing. Kind of a shame when the rest of Julia's performances were solid or above average. I'm dead @ the current S18 average being better than seasons 1-7, 9, and 14-17 though.

True, in fact this year they're all pretty much forgotten already. Except Arthur and Francisco, and that's only because of international fans. I thought after Top 20 night that the format wasn't too bad, some of the contestants still connected and were creative with their performances...but it's clear now that this format is dead. There's just no performance aspect, no excitement. It's top 5 tomorrow and there haven't even been any 5-star performances yet. Not sure if this or The Voice's "everyone's a lounge singer now" approach is worse, lol.

Louis and Francisco are living proof that apparently every semi-attractive male who can sing passably and play three chords on an instrument is destined to be a superstar. The Makayla situation is laughable to me. She's clearly talented and has tools to succeed in the pop world, yet she's been criticized for her song choices since the beginning. Then the past week after scraping through she sings a country ballad in an obvious attempt to change things up and get more votes. It was simply solid and way less impressive than her previous performances, but at least she "tUgGed aT OuR hEArtsTrings!!1!" The worst part is that the judges, IDF, and the entire internet reward her for this by saying "good job!", even though it's totally disingenuous. It's getting a bit disturbing to see how Idol takes these artists who come in with a pretty solid idea of their identity, and then gaslights them over and over until they're voted out and left wondering who they even are anymore.