'Idol' shocker: Carly Smithson gets boot

BY JIM FARBER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, April 23rd 2008, 10:05 PM

The surprise decision on Wednesday night's "American Idol" had less to do with who got axed than with who didn't.

Brooke White, the first contestant in "Idol" history so flustered she had to stop singing in midsong, avoided voters' ire. Meanwhile, Carly Smithson, whom the judges had unanimously praised, got the boot.

Smithson performed the most rocking number of the night, "Jesus Christ Superstar," as part of show dedicated to the songs of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The rattled White had warbled unsteadily through "You Must Love Me," a song written for the movie version of "Evita."

In another surprise move, Jason Castro avoided the "bottom two" endangered singers, despite a performance of "Memory" deemed a "train wreck," not by the harshest judge, Simon Cowell, but by the normally even-handed Randy Jackson. Instead Syesha Mercado nearly got canned for her vampy and well-reviewed version of "One Rock 'N Roll Too Many."

At the end of the show, Cowell apologized to the expelled Smithson for giving her a compliment. "Kiss of death," he said.

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