Clive Davis on American Idol

ELLIOT // Journey – "Open Arms"
Clive Davis: "He really came through with the Elvis Presley material, probably the best of any of the other artists.  What Elliott has to be careful about is that sometimes he gets too hip for the room. Sometimes he tries to show, ‘I am different from the others,’ and he goes into cool jazz, or he will go into songs that America does not know."

KATHARINE // R. Kelly – "I Believe I Can Fly"
Clive Davis: "When we met and spent time together, I said, ‘You’ve got to reach down now. You’ve got to develop your own sound. When you turn the radio on and you hear Whitney Houston, or you hear Kelly Clarkson, you know when you hear those artists. You have to develop the Katharine McPhee voice. So when you are singing "I Believe I Can Fly," when it talks of everlasting arms, where it is talking of God, you’ve got to make the audience feel that.’"

TAYLOR // Bruce Springsteen – "Dancing in the Dark"
Clive Davis: "So I said, ‘Taylor, you have to understand that "Dancing in the Dark" is about one thing, it is about sex. It is about the restless anxiety,’" Clive recalls. "I took out the lyrics and I read them to him. This is about, I am bored in this town, I am bored with my life, I need some fire to light my spark. So yes, you can prowl and command the stage, but you’ve also got to understand the lyric of what you are singing, and you can’t do anything with artifice that doesn’t ring true."

This week on American Idol, each contestant will sing three songs — one selected by music mogul Clive Davis (listed above), one selected by Paula, Randy and Simon and one of his or her own choosing.  Taylor Hicks, Elliott Yamin, and Katharine McPhee duke it out tonight on American Idol @ 8PM ET/PT on FOX.  What do you think of Clive Davis‘s song choices?  Who will get the boot?? 

American Idol‘s Top 3 take this week’s cover of TV Guide.
Last night on Leno, Simon Cowell said it’d be a Taylor vs.
Katharine showdown in the finals with Taylor taking
the cake.  Thoughts??????????????????