American Idol: Looks Like Carly Smithson is Going Home

Numbers from DialIdol.com, a website that monitors busy signals during voting for American Idol contestants, suggest that Ireland's Carly Smithson will be packing her bags come Thursday night's results show.  Wednesday night's usual results announcements will be preempted so that Fox can present Idol Gives Back.

Smithson had the lowest vote count according to the site.  She was somewhat closely followed by Syesha Mercado.  Shockingly, either David Cook or Michael Johns may also be featured among the bottom three.

DialIdol has made the determination that David Archuleta, Jason Castro and Kristy Lee Cook will all be safe this week.  Ms. Cook - who is not related to David Cook - offered one of her best performances to date.  Castro sung a revamped uptempo version of "Over the Rainbow" while playing the guitar.  Archuleta - on the piano - sang brilliantly. 

Carly Smithson took on Freddy Mercury and the judges didn't feel the connection.  They all agreed the performance seemed "angry" as opposed to "inspirational".  Songs that Inspire was Tuesday night's theme in conjunction with Idol Gives Back.

David Cook was not bad but he dropped the ball this week during a time when the competition is really starting to heat up.  Without Smithson and Mercado in the mix, he could have been in serious danger of going home.

Michael Johns performed a solid performance of Aerosmith's "Dream On".  The problem: It was too similar to the original.

As for Mercado, her version of Fantasia's "I Believe" was quite good as well if not for the fact that the Idol judges all felt Fantasia performed it so much better.  And Idol fans seemed to agree based on preliminary voting.

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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com

Originally published April 9, 2008 11:56 am EST