Who's in it to Win it This Week? Power Rankings for the Top 7 on American Idol Season 7

If you haven't been following American Idol this season, but want to tune in to watch the top 7, here's a synopsis of how you can expect them to perform. The order is altered slightly from my predictions from last week based on their performances, and the departure of Michael Johns.

1. David Cook: In spite of his somewhat lackluster performance of Our Lady Peace's Innocent last week, I still think David Cook is the one to beat this year. Some (Simon Cowell included) have described him as arrogant, and to be fair, he does come across as overconfident. This may be his one pitfall. Fortunately, his confidence is not without good reason - he is talented, and I'm interested to see how he will do this week. If he has another sub par performance, he may move down the list next week, but I think every performer is entitled to one "off" night.

2. David Archuleta: After last week, I think the race between David Cook and David Archuleta is close. This week's performances could be the deciding factor. One thing that David Archuleta has going for him is that he is almost always right on the money with his song choice (as far as fitting his voice and his attitude), and he is incredibly talented. Like I mentioned last week, I think he needs to diversify his style just a little bit, just to shake things up and keep his performances interesting. If anything is going to hurt David Archuleta's chances at winning, it will be his predictability. That aside, he has a really good chance at taking this season from David Cook, especially if David Cook's performance this week isn't stellar.

3. Jason Castro: After his performance of the Caribbean-style version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow last week, Jason Castro landed himself in a more prominent position on the American Idol radar. He is very convincing, and has definitely found his niche, but like David Archuleta, he is at risk for becoming too predictable. He's a very talented artist, both vocally and on the guitar (or ukulele, as the case may be), and his song choices are always right on the money for his style, but given how powerful his voice truly is, it'd be nice to see him really belt out a song and show us what he's made of.

4. Brooke White: After her very old-fashioned performance of You've Got a Friend, I think Brooke's in danger. She went from being very modern to very classic all at once, and while it's good to be diverse, you don't want to alienate the audience by making yourself less radio-friendly. Brooke is an incredible singer, and as I mentioned last week, is really clean-cut and innocent, which makes her intriguing. Maybe this is a weak point for her, though - she's not edgy or all that interesting, so she's at risk for falling behind the more memorable contestants.

5. Syesha Mercado: I'm still having a hard time deciding if I like Syesha Mercado or Carly Smithson more. Syesha comes off as more genuine, and more of a risk-taker, which is why I'm still putting her ahead of Carly. She took a huge risk performing such a powerful song last week (Fantasia's I Believe) and I think she did it really, really well - the same as she did with the Whitney Houston song the year before that. In spite of this, she still keeps falling into the bottom three every week. This is only speculation, but maybe it's her risk taking that is keeping her from succeeding. She is certainly talented, but she is performing big songs by big name artists, and allowing for too many comparisons. Maybe if she performed a song by a lesser-known talent and did it really well, her talent would shine through, free of comparison.

6. Carly Smithson: Carly's performance last week (of Queen's The Show Must Go On) was really quite good, in spite of Simon Cowell calling it an "angry" performance. It still wasn't strong enough to keep her out of the bottom three, though - she wound up there along side Syesha Mercado and Michael Johns, and was fortunate enough to stick around for another week. She seemed pretty convinced that it was her week to go, judging by how she pointed to herself while Ryan Seacrest was going to commercial saying "Find out who's going home this week after the break. In comparing her to my choices for the top three, I think what Carly is lacking in is personality. She has a niche, and seems to be trying to fit the "classic rocker girl" image, but doesn't quite fit that genre as well as David Cook. She comes across as nice enough, and she has a very powerful voice, I think she just needs to find that special something to help her stand out from the crowd.

7. Kristy Lee Cook: Every week when Kristy gets to stick around, I'm shocked. I don't know if she's getting all of the votes from country music fans, or if I'm just missing something when I watch her perform, but nothing about her jumps out at me. She's not a bad singer, but, in my opinion, she's not star quality. I think she lacks stage presence and lacks personality - or, if she does have personality, she comes across as standoffish and arrogant (though the same has been said for David Cook). Either way, I think she will really need to pick a song and knock it out of the park this week if she wants to stick around.