Top Four of American Idol

The Brit pop theme of American Idol for this week produced some of the strongest performances of this season. However, after 60 million voting cast, one of the Top 5 contestants according to Ryan Seacrest has been booted.

That boot was faced by country cutie Skylar Laine, the pint sized Mississippi girl who livened up the show every week with memorable performances.

Thus there will be no country finale this season and this is despite of Laine’s heart winning performances of CCR classic and Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” which resonated with the judges.

Lopez, in particular, admired Laine’s weekly adrenaline rushes upon hitting the stage, and Interscope’s Jimmy Iovine agreed—to a point.

“She suits up and shows up every night,” he said, but noted that the lyrics of “Fortunate Son”—John Fogerty’s full-on disgust with the Vietnam War—may have gotten lost on her.

As for the Springfield selection, Iovine was less impressed. He especially hated the stage bench with a swooning couple in love, which was as a prop.

“It had Nashville, Vegas and Broadway,” he said, adding the whole thing was “very strange” and missed the “darkness” of the original.

“I was not thrilled with it,” he added.

Laine at the end got the bottom two spots with Brit Hollie Cavanagh this week.

May be it was her upbeat pop take on Tina Turner’s” River Deep, Mountain High,” that saved Cavanagh. Lovine called it “a game changer.”

“She approached it like, ‘I’m a pop girl. I know who I am and I am going to pay homage to Tina Turner,’” he said.