Candice Glover 'American Idol' Top 2 Season 12 Finale Winner? Final Performance, 'Another Level,' Says Judge (VIDEOS)
American Idol's Top 2 contestant Candice Glover received not one, but two standing ovations on Wednesday's final performance show.
Glover and her competitor, Kree Harrison, performed three songs each- a pick from show creator Simon Fuller, the Best Performance song of the season and a Coronation song. The coronation song is usually co-written by the contestant and becomes the season winner's first single.
Fuller's pick for Glover was Chasing Pavements, the coronation single she performed was titled I Am Beautiful and she sang I Who Have Nothing, a song reprised from earlier in the season.
Glover's performance of I Who Have Nothing led the show's judge Keith Urban to call her a "powerhouse singer" and said her performance was like a "planet exploding."
Nicki Minaj told her, "what comes across from you is superstar, you command the stage...you always walk on there and own it immediately. Salute!"
"Everybody knows that that girl can plum flat-out sing! This is how you do it!" yelled Randy Jackson.
"What you have is the innate ability to take any song and turn into a vehicle for that amazing voice that nobody can deny," Mariah Carey told Glover. "Your talent surpasses what even I could have ever imagined I would see here," Carey continued, adding, "I know I'm going to be listening to you for years to come."
Watch Candice Glover receive a standing ovation for I Who Have Nothing here.
The three songs Harrison performed were: Angel (Simon Fuller's choice), All Cried Out (coronation single), and Up to the Mountain (contestant's best performance of the season).
Three of the judges gave Harrison a standing ovation for All Cried Out- Nicki Minaj sat out. However, later in the show, Minaj joined her fellow judges for a standing ovation for Harrison's Up To The Mountain performance and explained the sitout.
"I'm so glad you did that one... That energy is so uplifting. I loved it even more than the single performance because it felt so rich."
"That was beautiful, Kree," Urban told Harrison after she sang Mountain. "It's the spirituality and the soulfulness you tap into. It's your story. It's all connected."
Jackson called it a "winning performance," and her "best" of the night."
Carey said she agreed with Jackson and told Harrison that she has something "special" and that "it's going to be very, very difficult for America tonight."
The finale will air tonight at 8 p.m. EST.
Watch Kree Harrison perform Up To The Mountain here.
