American Idol: The Lucky Six?

It's kind of pointless to do the recap of last night now that we know Kristy is FINALLY leaving. Suffice it to say that I thought a night devoted to Mariah Carey songs would go much worse than it did. No one was terrible, and I thought the Davids, at least, gave better-than-average performances. Now that we have our Top Six, we can take a step back and compare them to other Idol seasons. It's kind of a big deal, making the Top Six on American Idol: we're halfway home and by this point, most of the fat has been trimmed.

Season 1: Christina Christian, RJ Helton, Tamyra Grey, Nikki McKibbon, Justin Guarini, and Kelly Clarkson.

Season 2: Carmen Rasmussen, Trenyce, Josh Gracin, Kimberley Locke, Clay Aiken, and Ruben Studdard

Season 3: John Stevens, George Huff, LaToya London, Jasmine Trias, Diana DeGarmo, and Fantasia.

Season 4: Constantine, Scott Savol, Anthony Federov, Vonzell Solomon, Bo Bice, and Carrie Underwood

Season 5: Kellie Pickler, Paris Bennett, Chris Daughtry, Elliott Yamin, Kat McPhee, and Taylor Hicks

Season 6: Phil Stacey, Chris Richardson, LaKisha Jones, Melinda Doolittle, Blake Lewis, and Jordin Sparks

And now Season 7 has left us: Syesha, Brooke, Jason, Carly, David C., and David A.

If anything, the Top Sixes are getting better as we go. In each of the first five seasons, there was at least one terrible, how-in-the-hell-did-they-last-this-long singer that brought the rest of the group down: Nikki in 1, Carmen and Josh in 2, John and Jasmine in 3, Constantine and Scott in 4, Kellie (and I would argue Taylor, but I know that's not a popular opinion) in 5. While 6 and 7 may have uninteresting singers (Phil, Syesha) or singers that some may find offensive to their tastes (Blake, Jason, David C.), I don't think either season has given us a patently untalented Top Six member.

Of course, having a lack of bad singers can't be the only measure of how good the Top Six are. How many seasons have given us great performances once we reached the Top Six? Season 1 gave us Big Band Night and Kelly Clarkson setting the standard for all other Idol performances with "Stuff Like That There." The week after, Tamyra sang "A House is Not a Home," and in the semifinal week, Kelly sang "Without You." So there were three in Season 1, from two different contestants.

Season 2's Top Six night was Diane Warren night, which flopped miserably, but their Top Five night ranks among the series' best. Treynce sang "Proud Mary" and "Love Will Keep Us Together," her two best performances. Clay had a stellar night with "Build Me Up Buttercup" and "Solitaire," and Kim Locke continued her hot streak with "Where the Boys Are." Next week, Clay had "To Love Somebody" and Ruben sang "Night on Broadway," which was his best since "A Whole New World." Top Three had Kim Locke's "Inseperable," and the finale had the second-greatest Idol performance of all time, Clay's "Bridge Over Troubled Water." So Season 2 had nine stellar performances in the Top Six, from four different singer.

Season 3 was awful. Top Six night was the ill-fated Gloria Estefan Night, which featured John Stevens "singing" "Music of My Heart." Really, the only three standout numbers from the second half of that season are LaToya's "Don't Rain on My Parade" from Top Five night, Diana's "Enough is Enough" on Disco/Top Four night, and Fantasia's final performance of "I Believe," which, despite the cruddy lyrics, reaches the upper tier of Idol performances on sheer emotion.

Season 4: I can't remember Season 4. I know I watched it, but it's like a haze is blocking out Idol from that year. I remember Bo's a capella to "In a Dream," I remember Carrie's "Independence Day" and Bo's "Vehicle" from the finale, but that's about it. Maybe there were only three standouts from Season 4 as well.

Season 5: I freely admit that I am a biased observer, and I think it really comes out on Idol when I have a favorite, as I did in Season 5 with Elliott. But as unbiased as I can be, I think 5's Top Six had seven great performances. Taylor's "In The Ghetto" in the Top Four, Kat's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on Top Three, Elliott's "A Song for You," "Home," and "Trouble," and Daughtry's "I Dare You" and "Suspicious Minds." If I were to indulge my Elliott-bias more, I would include his final song, "I Believe to My Soul." So there were either seven or eight standouts from 5, depending on how much you liked Elliott.

Season 6: I think this group's Top Six night, with the Bon Jovi theme, was the strongest Top Six night of them all. Three of S6's six standout numbers come from that night alone. Blake's "You Give Love a Bad Name," Melinda's "Have a Nice Day," LaKisha's "This Ain't a Love Song" -- I still listen to those songs on my iPod. I also include Jordin's "Broken Wing" from the finale, Blake's "When I Get You Alone," and Melinda's "Nutbush City Limits."

So maybe Season 2 still holds up as the best year for Idol, but I think Season 5 makes a good run at it. I don't exactly have high hopes for this year's crew, but I guess we'll see in the next month and a half. Right now, barring another huge shocking upset on Top Four night, I think we're headed straight for an all-David finale, with Archuleta squeaking out the win.