American Idol Sends Syesha Mercado Home; Was it the Right Choice?

With last night's departure of Syesha Mercado, American Idol season seven is now down to the final two contestants - David Cook and David Archuleta.

Were the voters right in sending Syesha Mercado home last night? If you take into consideration only this week's performances, Syesha was strong enough to stay in the competition. She did a wonderful rendition of Alicia Keys' song, No One. Though criticized for not being contemporary, her performance of Fever was sung very well, and to say she owned the stage during the performance is an understatement.

I think ultimately what hurt her was her final song. The song Hit me Up by Gia Farrell, from the Happy Feet soundtrack, chosen American Idol's producers, was a poor choice. It was far too jumpy of a song to showcase her vocal talent and allow her to finish off the night demonstrating her ability to be a pop star. Furthermore, it was a song that failed on the charts in the United States, so the song's lack of familiarity may have also hurt her.

Her performances were not the worst of the night, though. Even with the American Idol producers choosing the wrong song for her to close out the night, it was still far better than David Archuleta's performance of Chris Brown's With You, which was way out of character for him and bordered on comical. His other performances, And So It Goes by Billy Joel and Longer by Dan Fogelberg, were both sung very well, but were incredibly antiquated in style and, overall, he lacked in stage presence.

Having said this, if we take just this week's performances, which should have been a culminating experience for each contestant, I think sending Syesha Mercado home was the wrong decision - it should have been David Archuleta instead. Though she started off as a weaker contestant, she learned and improved every week and finally came into her own toward the end. By contrast, Archuleta was a strong performer from the start who has shown little to no diversity. He is a talented balladeer, but hasn't shown promise as a contemporary artist the way that Syesha has - and I think his attempt to be contemporary this week proved just that.

To ask if it was the right choice is all relative - obviously the fans made their decision, but I think Syesha Mercado still has a lot to offer. Hopefully she'll be among one of the many "third-to-last" finalists (like Kimberly Locke and Chris Daughtry) to become a successful recording artist.