American Idol R&B Night Ushers in a New Favorite

Michael Becker / FOX

Usher had his work cut out for him this week.
With the remaining American Idol finalists coming off one of the roughest themed performance shows ever, fans were looking to R&B night for that much-needed spark to get them excited—finally—about this season's top 10.
In case you hadn't noticed, however, only a few members of this year's group are particularly versatile, so we were already prepared for a real mixed bag with only sporadic signs of greatness by the time the first contestant stepped into the spotlight.
Sure enough, the Moments were indeed sporadic. The surprising part was where they came from...
Siobhan Magnus: It seemed as if Siobhan was back in business with Chaka Khan's "Through the Fire," until a few horrible notes torched the whole thing. At times the tone of her voice was just lovely, but more often than not, she was shrieking. (Which is not to be confused with her signature scream— regrettably, there was plenty of that, too.) "By far your weakest performance so far," Simon Cowell redundantly judged it, and Kara DioGuardi, Randy Jackson and Ellen DeGeneres couldn't do much more than agree. On a bright note, she didn't kill the song. "I'm going to call it manslaughter," Simon said.
Casey James: It was already music to our ears when Ryan Seacrest said Casey was singing a song never before done on the Idol stage. Hats off to that! And then, to top it off, he did a great job with Sam & Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'." More like, "Watch out, other contestants. Casey's coming." And he's bringing saxophones, stubble and an electric guitar with him! "I'm really, really impressed with you this week," Simon said. Randy thought it was hot. So wouldn’t you know, Kara and Ellen still want to see more range from the 27-year-old. "They do mean musically," Ryan reminded him.