Pia Toscano and Casey Abrams set themselves apart from the pack on Wednesday's edition of American Idol, as each delivered rousing performances on a night the show's 13 remaining contestants battled for another week in the limelight.

Toscano wowed with a sterling rendition of Celine Dion's All By Myself, showing her range by hitting all the high notes, on the heels of her breakout performance of the Pretenders' I'll Stand By You last week.

"We love you Pia, I mean... I think a lot of people were wondering what you were going to do to top last week, and that was it," judge Jennifer Lopez told Toscano.

The scruffy Abrams held nothing back in his performance of The Beatles-turned-Joe Cocker classic, With A Little Help From My Friends (also the theme from The Wonder Years), getting high marks from judges Randy Jackson, Steven Tyler and Lopez.

The show's producers caught some criticism this week when it was revealed that the segments that aired Wednesday had actually been taped Tuesday  night , as editing was required to consolidate all 13 performances into the broadcast. Also of note, was that each song was cut down to 1:40, which, as Tyler pointed out, was less than half the time of a normal radio track, hence the jagged bridges in between tunes.