Swedish Idol 2013: Friday Finals Week 2 - 04.10.13

This week's theme was "Their Idols".

George Shaid - "Home" (Michael Buble): Maybe not the right choice as he lacks Buble's distinctive vocals, but George displayed good vocal control and restraint on this.  He's still one of my favourites in this competition, and certainly looked the part of a pop star this week.

Miriam Bengtsson - "P.Y.T." (Michael Jackson): Her outfit reminded me of a leopardskin onesie.  A little shrill and shrieky vocally, and certainly not a great song choice, although she really got into the performance towards the end.  A muted response from the panel and obviously the viewers agreed as she ended up in the bottom 2.

Gabriel Alares - "Sista Morgonen" (Niklas Strömstedt): a very good, if slightly anonymous, rendition of the song made famous by the man who is currently hosting rival channel SVT's "Alla Tiders Hits".  That's my problem with Gabriel - he has a good voice but doesn't really have that something extra to push him much further in this year's competition. Extra points from me though, for singing a Swedish-language song.

Matilda Melin: "Superhero" (Cher Lloyd): here at EuropeCrazy HQ it would be fair to say that we are not fans of Ms Lloyd and her swagger.  Matilda's obviously done something to annoy the stylists as she's clad in a Batman jumper proclaiming "WHAM!" on the front.  Maybe she should have sung a George Michael song instead.  Her days are probably numbered, judging by the panel's muted response.

Sara Sangfelt - "Your Song" (Elton John): it's not the Elton version, nor the Ellie Goulding version for that matter.  Instead we get the Sara-version, a little rocky in mood and also vocally.  Another styling nightmare. She hasn't been well this week, so the sympathy vote may have saved her, who knows?

Sakib Zabbar: "The Botten is Nådd" (Timbuktu):  Sakib was thankfully more animated than last week, yet he still didn't seem to be making that all-important connection with the viewing/voting public which was probably the reason why he went home this week.

Erik Rapp: "Wicked Games" (The Weeknd): now this is more like it.  I was complaining last week that there were too many safe song choices, where the old-style Idol would go for some less obvious choices. Well, normality has been restored.  Lots of sweary words and a more obscure song choice.  In a British talent show this would be the kiss of death; in Sweden this just raises his stock more and more by the day. Like his namesake Erik from Idol 2009, you get the feeling that he could take on any song and do it well.

Kevin Walker: "Say" (John Mayer): believe it or not, I was a big fan of John Mayer in the early stages of his music career, before he became more famous for his celebrity girlfriends.  Kevin's voice lacks the distinctive quality of Mayer's, however he did well enough on this.  Of course the competition's not all about being the best singer - and Kevin's easy-going charisma and winning smile is going to take him a long way.

Jens Hult: "Heart of Gold" (Neil Young): 'Rock'-style performers have traditionally done very well in Swedish Idol.  Jens brought rough-diamond quality to this, and he seems to be growing in confidence now, helped along by positive comments from the panel.

Elin Bergman - "Tell Me About It" (Joss Stone): she gave it her all but for some reason I'm still having trouble connecting with her and there is still something missing.  As they used to say, it's just a little bit karaoke.

Sandra Wikstrom - "I Will Always Love You" (Whitney Houston): so we've decided that the stylists must have been in a right old bad mood this week.  Now they've put Sandra in an unflattering dress.  This wasn't her best week - not a great song choice and the end result was rather ...empty.

Two weeks in and Idol is still all about the boys.