This week on American Idol was a little strange. Starting the week off was the group of 12 girls. I have to say that I was not impressed. There were a few memorable performances but overall it fell flat! The guys stepped it up a little the next night. Three out of five of my favorite performances this week were from the guys. My favorite performances are the following (in no particular order):

Lee Dewyze: Chasing Cars



Casey James: Heaven

Andrew Garcia: Sugar, We’re Going Down



Crystal Bowersox: Hand In My Pocket

Siobhan Magnus: Wicked Games

What were your favorite performances?

One of my favorite songs of all time is Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. The song has been covered multiple times and I wanted to share some of my favorite versions with all of you. Most of you know the original version by Leonard Cohen, so I am just going to share some covers from other artists. This is my favorite collection! Check them out below:

Jeff Buckley:

Justin Timberlake and Matt Morris:

Jason Castro:

Allison Crowe:

k.d. Lang:

Campaign – Another Hallelujah:

Brandi Carlile:

Rufus Wainwright:

Alexandra Burke:

What is your favorite version of Hallelujah? I’d love to know what all of you think. Respond below! Don’t be shy.

I am very excited to let you guys know that this is officially the 100th post made on Justin’s Take On Entertainment since I started on October 24th, 2009. I would like to thank everyone who has given feedback and shown support while I continue to write about current entertainment. This is what I love to do and I’m glad that so many of you are willing to support me in this. I appreciate it so much! I hope that you continue to enjoy future posts and I look forward to hearing from all of you.

~Justin Vaughn

I wanted to share Closer with everyone. I have had the opportunity to see Warren Barfield sing live several times and he is definitely someone that you should check out. I enjoy all of his music. This song is from the album Reach. Many of you may know of Warren because of his song Love Is Not a Fight from the movie Fireproof. You can listen to Closer here:

Here is an official list of the Top 24 on American Idol Season 9:

Didi Benami, 23, of Knoxville, TN

Crystal Bowersox, 24, of Elliston, OH

Lacey Brown, 24, of Amarillo, TX

Michelle Delamor, 22, of Miami, FL

Katelyn Epperly, 19, of West Des Moines, IA

Siobhan Magnus, 20, of Cape Cod, MA

Paige Miles, 24, of Houston, TX

Ashley Rodriguez, 22, of Chelsea, Ma

Lilly Scott, 20, of Denver, CO

Katie Stevens, 17, of Middlebury, CT

Haeley Vaughn, 16, of Fort Collins, CO

Janell Wheeler, 24, of Tampa, FL

Lee Dewyze, 23, of Mount Prospect, IL

Andrew Garcia, 24, of Moreno Valley, CA

Tyler Grady, 20, of Nazareth, PA

Todrick Hall, 24, of Arlington, TX

Casey James, 27, of Fort Worth, TX

Aaron Kelly, 16, of Sonestown, PA

Alex Lambert, 19, of North Richland Hills, TX

Michael Lynche, 26, of Astoria, NY

Joe Muoz, 20, of Huntington Park, CA

John Park, 21, of Evanston, IL

Jermaine Sellers, 27, of Joliet, IL

Tim Urban, 20, of Duncanville, TX

Catch American Idol tonight at 8/7c for a 2 hour episode. Then tune in tomorrow at 9/8c to meet the Top 24 of Season 9!

The Song of the Week is Terrified by Kara DioGuardi and Jason Reeves. Watch Kara and Jason sing it below:

It starts at 1:48.

I am slowly becoming a Kara DioGuardi fan. She definitely has talent. I was not completely convinced when she joined American Idol but now I can see why she deserves to be part of the judging panel! She is a great singer and a fantastic writer.

The song was performed by Didi Benami on American Idol last week:

Listen to Katharine McPhee’s version of Terrified here:

So what does everyone think of the song?

Tags: Song of the Week

I came across a funny video to share with my American Idol fans!

I tracked down a pretty cool deal for Country Music Fans. You can get a free 11 song playlist on iTunes courtesy of People Magazine. Go HERE to get your special code. All you have to do is click Redeem at the iTunes Store and enter the code. The playlist will begin to download automatically. The code expires 04/09/2010.

Another cool deal: A free copy of Letter to Me by Brad Paisley. Courtesy of Good Housekeeping Magazine.

Enjoy!