I'm getting back into American Idol again, after missing five or six weeks worth of it. The Jennifer Hudson controversy is interesting, but only because the THREE best competitors ended up in the bottom three. Otherwise, this exact same thing happened with Canadian Idol, and Ruben ended up in the bottom three at around the same point last season. Jennifer could sing, that's for sure, but her personality and looks did nothing for me so I'm not particularly sad to see her go. Yes, that's a terribly sexist thing to say through words on my website high horse, but pretending that looks don't matter in a pop music competition would be even more ignorant, yes? Anyhow, I'm just one person, but obviously the voting masses have spoken, so either Jennifer's popularity had waned or her supporters figured it was in the bag and didn't bother voting (same with Fantasia's people AND Latoya's people ... a fascinating sociological study, if nothing else, damn, this web page is just full of them this week :) ).

Gloria Estefan was introduced as the queen of Latin pop, with over 70 million records sold in her career. Wait, I thought Ricky Martin invented Latin music at the 1999 Grammys? I guess not ... anyhow, last night many contestants seemed a bit off. The Latin rhythms are generally fast, and the vocal lines are filled with fast passages and a lot of notes. This leaves little space for the Whitney/Mariah histrionic trills that everyone from the auditions to the finals feels they need to throw in to showcase the versatility of their voice. Thus, all these R&B adorers are straightjacketed because they only have space to sing the notes as they are written, and without an obvious spot to wantonly show off their range they're a bit lost and their performances fall flat. Reviewing the remaining Idol hopefuls:

Fantasia . With Jennifer gone, Fantasia is the only logical winner. I'm no big fan of Macy Gray either, but Fantasia can sing, she's got personality leaking from every pore, and she's adorable.

George . The competitors and the judges clearly like his talent, energy, and obvious amiability, but he has yet to really bring the goods with his performances. He hasn't shown up with a blowaway performance to really put his stamp down on the competition. From the outset of the finals, he certainly appeared to be a top five or six level talent, but he's been treading water since then vocally.

John . He's somehow managed to get this far, and he manages to survive through tonight then he's officially got more lives than a cat. It was readily apparent that a Latin night would completely expose him as a one-dimensional crooner, and it did. He tried to expose his complete lack of stage presence by doing something downtempo, but he still couldn't pull it off. Get this guy four more months of sing and dance lessons and repackage him as Rick Astley 2004. In that sense, I'm kind of hoping for him to continue on, because there's money in a GQ-ed teen crooner, but he'll likely need to finish higher for someone to take a chance with him.

Jasmine . No Randy, it was Jasmine, not John, who had the worst pitch of the night. For my money, she should be next to go.

La Toya . All sing, no charm. The judges think so too, and I can't imagine that it's escaped the voters either. She'd better get a personality transplant, stat, because when John and Jasmine are gone, she'll be left with three sparkplugs and then it'll be quite blatant who the boring one is. She's also a lot older than the others, and it shows. I hate to label a 25-year old woman as old, but it is 2004, and there aren't many 25-year olds on the charts, and none that I can think of that didn't establish themselves before that age.

Diana . Blew away everyone last night with room to spare. She 16, and she looks it, she's bubbly, she's playfully immature, she got baby fat all over. There's nothing wrong with any of that, although if she got a record deal you just know she'd be doing the Hillary Duff "ooh, don't look at me in that way you naughty boy, even though I am being so ditzy and giggly in my tight white top" routine within six months.