American Idol | featured news

"American Idol" finalist Pia Toscano is on a high. After weeks of expectedly performing ballads, the soaring 22-year-old songstress from Howard Beach, N.Y., earned praise from the Fox talent competition's judges for strutting around the stage while powering through Tina Turner's up-tempo tune "River Deep - Mountain High" on Wednesday's rock `n' roll edition. Toscano previously promised to sing that tune.

Naima Adedapo and Thia Megia both had been in danger before and neither did particularly well on Wednesday, so it would have been surprising had they not been in the bottom three. Adedapo’s reggae number was more corny than innovative, and Megia’s vocals didn’t stand out from the crowd, so neither was able to gain traction among the voters. As a result, they ultimately were the two sent home.

Casey Abrams wasn't squeezed out of "American Idol." The fiery 20-year-old film camp counselor from Idyllwild, Calif., who stomped through Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" on Wednesday, was revealed to have received the fewest viewer votes on Thursday, but the judges unanimously decided to save Abrams in the middle of his last-chance performance of Ray Charles' "I Don't Need No Doctor."

"American Idol" viewers are saying adios to Karen Rodriguez....

Marisa Guthrie Univision beats rerun-heavy ABC for the third-place finish behind Fox and CBS.read more

"American Idol" finalist Thia Megia could be gone with the wind come Thursday.

The spring's first hour-long "American Idol" results show was down, especially with young viewers, but it still coupled with a new episode of "Bones" to give FOX key Thursday night wins, holding off CBS, which also aired a full slate of originals.

The saddest thing about this week s results show wasn t the fact that Ashthon went home, but that Casey wasn t there in person to receive the good news that he d made it through or give Ashthon a proper goodbye.

Let's just say that some members of the Top 13 were luckier than others on Wednesday night's "American Idol." Gorgeous Pia Toscano continued her ascent to front-runner status, following up last week's show-stopping performance of "I'll Stand By You" with a just-as-good-if-not-better performance of Celine Dion's "All by Myself." Randy called it "hot, dope and cool" -- and she looked good doing it.

The show revealed its finalists on Thursday night, and though there are already early fan favorites, the judges made three interesting selections for the wild-card spots.