Christina Aguilera: "You Lost Me (Live on American Idol)"

It was a Season 9 finale where America finally found its quintessential Idol, a.k.a. a dude who sings every song like some drunk guy stumbling out of a bar, and where Janet Jackson performed two whole songs strictly from her dimples. For making me nearly forget about these bad, bad things, I can only offer Christina Aguilera my deepest thanks. Really, who would think that in such a context Aguilera would deliver one of the best live TV song performances of, maybe, all time, tearing with incredible passion and skill through a song from her upcoming and now-hotly-anticipated-by-me Bionic. And props to Idol for the uncharacteristically elegant and evocative staging, but seriously, what just happened? I mean that in a very good way; I’m about to go Kara DioGuardi on this—shoulders hunched, head bobbing side to side, finger pointed in the air as I declare Aguilera’s vocal “genius” and “amazing,” etc.

Even to someone well-aware of Aguilera’s technical prowess as a singer this performance could be considered astonishing, the exaggerated quaver runs in the bridge just one example of her obscenely great voice control. She uses this power for good, too, culling nuanced vocal feats out of the poignant if obvious central piano line and somehow constantly managing to take the melody to unexpected sweet spots where few other pop singers could follow. So “You Lost Me” functions as Aguilera’s neo-aria, monumental like opera except, you know, heart-rendingly relevant. For beyond all the rapturous details and dazzling virtuosity it’s the grand emotional arc of Aguilera’s voice and the performance as a whole that soars and soars and—given the song’s themes of loss, neglect, infidelity, and an “infected” world—soars right into an infinite pit, a pitch-black sky. Against such a dark backdrop, though, Aguilera positively gleams, radiant, a singular star shooting upward. Lee DeWho?