Coming immediately on the heels of the always emotionally taxing Hometown visits, each of Season XIII's remaining Idols performed three songs on Wednesday's penultimate performance show. The first round was made up of songs suggested by the surprisingly not-worthless 'full-time' mentor, Randy Jackson. The next round was songs that the judging panel of Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez, and Harry Connick Jr. selected, and the final round consisted of songs the Top-3 had previously performed on the show and were determined by their hometown fans (and by hometown fans, I mean the show's producers).

FOX executives shared that the long-running singing competition will be 'less hours' and will be 'streamlined.'

After Top-11 Week, when the remaining contestants get to spend their summer on our, this is the most important reward for IDOL finalists surviving elimination. The Top-3 will quickly depart Hollywood and head to their hometowns for the annual Cry-Fests, so tonight's elimination has even more riding on it than normal.

On last night's AMERICAN IDOL, the Top 4 performed three songs each, all in dedication to love!

AMERICAN IDOL begins its 14th season nationwide search for the best undiscovered talent in the country in Minneapolis, MN, on Wednesday, June 18. The search for the next singing superstar continues in New Orleans, on Wednesday, June 25; Uniondale, NY, on Wednesday, July 23; Nashville, TN, on Wednesday, July 30; and San Francisco, CA, on Monday, Sept. 29. Some of the biggest names in the music industry have started on the IDOL stage and there now are more ways to audition!

To make sure that the viewers make fully informed decisions, the finalists performed three songs each; a break-up song, a dedication (a la Casey Kasem), and then a make-up song. As always with IDOL Season XIII, the results were a mixed bag. There were some painful performances and one that I believe will go down in the IDOL Hall of Fame.

On last night's AMERICAN IDOL, the finalists were faced with a new twist as they were forced to vote between sending a fellow contestant home, or allowing the remaining singers to stick around for next week's show in which two of them would be eliminated.

Next week, we celebrate the agony and the ecstasy of music's greatest theme as the final four take to the stage in the “Love: Break-ups and Make-ups”-themed performance show

As first reported by TVLine.com, AMERICAN IDOL's Top-4 Week is going to take a very IF/THEN look at love with the theme 'Love: Break-Ups and Make-Ups.' So, after last night's elimination of personality vacuum Sam Woolf, IDOL's Final Four; Jena Irene, Caleb Johnson, Jessica Meuse, and Alex Preston, will each take their turns with two songs each that 'celebrate the agony and the ecstasy of music's greatest theme.'

Oh boy! Tonight's elimination episode kicked off with Ryan Seacrest teasing a 'shocking twist' that none of the idols will see coming. After last week's absolutely not-shocking 'shocking' elimination, I was more than a little weary of trusting Ryan. Next he said that each finalist will have a difficult decision to make. I wasn't sure if this would actually end up being 'game-changer' or just another in a long line of IDOL swerves.

I always get a little nervous when American Idol starts advertising a 'shocking' result, and after C.J.'s horrendous performance last night, anyone going home other than him would be a shock. So, I braced myself for the worst tonight.

It was a little bit country and a little bit rock n' roll as the American Idol Top 6 each performed twice on the Idol stage!

After week's of sagging ratings, Fox's AMERICAN IDOL received a bit of positive news following last night's 'Country/Rock 'n Roll' edition.

On this week's Top-6 edition of AMERICAN IDOL Season XIII, we were “treated” to not one, but two, songs by each competitor. The theme, “A Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Rock 'n' Roll” gave the contestants an opportunity to channel their inner Donnys and Maries. Speaking of the beloved Osmond sibs, nothing about them screams either Country or Rock 'n Roll to me. But I digress; in most cases tonight, the double your pleasure set-up resulted in an extra helping of awesome, but (as is expected from this season) there was one singer whose combined performances resulted in confusion with a side of frustration.

After a night of 20th Century Fox cross-promotion, we opened this week's results show with THE FOLLOWING's Kevin Bacon stealing Ryan Seacrest's signature line, "This is American Idol."

Now that AMERICAN IDOL has pared down its finalists to a manageable seven, the producers decided to bust out the most original theme in the show's 13 seasons, “Competitor's Picks.” How it basically works is, Randy Jackson did his only work of the season by playing stenographer as each contestant recommended songs for everyone else in the competition. Randy then handed pieces of paper to all seven remaining finalists, who subsequently picked their song for the week based off of that list.

This week AMERICAN IDOL welcomed back Season XIII's Top-8 for the second week in a row. This time they were mentored by the incredibly professional and discerning David Cook (especially compared to IDOL's 'full-time” mentor, Randy Jackson, who followed Cook around like a lost puppy all night). The Season 7 Champ brought a focused specificity to each performer's rehearsal, and in most cases that resulted in enjoyable performances.

Just as it did last week, tonight's AMERICAN IDOL featured the Top-8 finalists. After an ill-advised use of the sole judge's save, Sam Woolf remained in the competition long enough to be mentored by former IDOL champ David Cook for this week's 80's theme. With the obvious negligence of 'full-time' mentor Randy Jackson, it is staggering to see how much progress can be made with a mentor who is actively engaged in helping the finalists become better singers, performers, and artists.

When last we left our Season XIII AMERICAN IDOL finalists, an uncomfortable amount of confetti was raining down on 17-year-old Sam Woolf, who had survived America's vote by garnering the season's only judge's save. As the show went off the air host Ryan Seacrest informed us that Top-8 Week Part 2 would focus on the songs of the 1980s. Again, first-year Executive Producer Per Blankens has opted to give the contestants an extremely open-ended theme. Thus far, the strategy has proved beneficial for audiences and Idols alike, as both have been exposed to songs outside the normally limited Reality Show set-list.

Coming off one of the strongest episodes of the season, everyone expected this elimination show to be exceedingly difficult, especially considering the dwindling number of opportunities to use the season's single judges' save. However, when it came down to crunch time, the judges' decision didn't seem to be all that difficult.

As he has been doing throughout Season XIII, new AMERICAN IDOL Executive Producer Per Blankens has again thrown a curveball of a theme at the Top-8. Instead of the well-warn 'Motown' and 'Burt Bacharach' Weeks, for the first time in IDOL history, the finalists all performed their initial audition songs.

The new producers of AMERICAN IDOL are again turning the idea of a theme week on its head. While in the past they have had contestants repeat previous performances, for the first time in the show's history, all of the Top-8 will be revisiting the songs that earned them their Golden Ticket to Hollywood, in the first ever Audition Song Week.

For the first time that I can remember, AMERICAN IDOL's Elimination Show was a jam-packed 30 minutes this week. The shortened episode was necessitated by the series premiere of Christopher Meloni's new sitcom, SURVIVING JACK.

Last night's episode of FOX's AMERICAN IDOL featured the theme 'I'm With the Band,' the Top 9 performed recent and classic hits as the 'lead singers' of Rickey Minor and the American Idol House Band!

Last Thursday when I heard about this week's theme, 'I'm with the Band,' I have to admit that I just didn't get it. However, now that I've seen how the IDOL Powers-That-Be implemented it on stage, I still really don't get it. The contestants sing with Ricky Minor and his band every week, however, to switch it up, this week the finalists will be singing with Ricky Minor and his band ON STAGE.