David Cook Owns Mariah Carey Night on American Idol

Despite a lackluster performance of Our Lady Peace's Innocent last week, David Cook was still my pick for the winner of this season of American Idol. After tonight's creative but shaky performance, I still think David Cook is the one to beat.

This week was definitely a challenge for all of the men in the competition. To have to choose a song by one of the most talented female singer/songwriters in America, there's really only two ways it could go for a male contestant - he could either ruin a song, or take ownership of it and make it his own. With his performance of Always be My Baby, David Cook did the latter, and it paid off.

The best thing about David Cook is that he knows who he is as an artist, and has always been clever enough to cover versions of songs that fit his style, or creating his own version. That's just what he did tonight, and it paid off. He is competing in a competition geared toward pop stars, and as a rock artist, he had to struggle to stay in the game and perform well.

Vocally, it was not David Cook's strongest performance - in fact, it started off kind of weak. As he built up to the end of the performance, though, it got stronger and stronger and more convincing. In the end, his choice to turn this pop ballad into a rock ballad was wise, and despite the shaky start, it really worked.

The judges seemed to feel the same. Randy said that he thought from the beginning that David Cook was ready to make an album, and the other judges agreed. Simon said he stood out from the crowd on an otherwise karaoke night.

Though tonight's performance was not David's best, for all of the reasons given above, he's definitely still a top contender in the game. I fully expect to see him in the top three, alongside David Archuleta for sure, and perhaps Jason Castro as well.