American Idol- Crystal Clear

I came into last night's season finale of American Idol wanting to leave thinking that I didn't care who won. When it was all sang and done, I couldn't come to that conclusion. Although I will probably listen to the type of music Lee will make out in the real world, Crystal just destroyed him in this one on one competition. Yeah I thought she was better than entire season, but MamaSox just capped it all off with a vocal beat down tonight.

Having said that, I don't think Lee was nearly as terrible as Idol critic Dan Fienberg seemed to think...

I don't think Lee DeWyze hit a single note in that version of "Everybody Hurts."Wed May 26 00:23:49 via TweetDeckDaniel Fienberg
HitFixDaniel

So Lee destroys another perfectly good song and *Kara* is the only judge who dares to criticize him.Wed May 26 00:43:54 via TweetDeckDaniel Fienberg
HitFixDaniel

He sounded fine to me, just not in any way comparable to what Crystal did. She came back with what was the best performance of the season in Me and Bobby McGee. I literally stopped downloading any songs from this season after she did that, because everything seemed like garbage compared to it. They really could have stopped the competition right then and said, well Crystal wins.

But then she came out with a completely different vibe in Black Velvet, which executive producer Simon Fuller chose. Someone should tell the head honcho to give up making picks as I believe both of his choices tonight were pretty bad for these contestants. Crystal made hers works a lot more than Lee.

Because The Boxer might have been Lee's best of the season, the final round was what made this thing a KO for Crystal. I was very familiar with Beautiful Day, and became painfully familiar with how uninspiring Lee was in performing it about half way in. Crystal, on the other hand, did a song I had never heard of, Up to the Mountain. What a way to go out! It was so moving in its tenderness. She went out the way she came into this competition. Just her and her guitar.

After Adam Lambert lost last season's finale to Kris Allen, I don't think I could gear myself up for really wanting someone to win that badly again. Even though I think Crystal deserves to win this thing as much as any season's winner ever has, I won't be disappointed if she loses. If Lambert can come in second, it's not that big of a deal anymore.

Having said that, I think Crystal will win tonight. She's been the best throughout and she is not polarizing at all. Lambert was clearly hated by a lot of people, and because of that people voted against him by voting for Kris. I don't see that happening with Crystal.

Anyway, this has been a very lackluster season of Idol. Whether it was a terribly lame group of contestants, the structure of Idol getting a bit repetitive, or the fact that I loathe the judges, it just didn't do it for me at all after the first couple weeks of the top 12. Here's hoping X-Factor will be just the kick in the pants we need to make one of the two shows good again.

Fantasy Idol Results- Personality of a Mailbox

Pops- "I'll be right back, I'm gonna go put my head in the oven."

That is absolutely how bad the conversation between Seacrest and the final three contestants was last night. I envy those who fast forwarded to the end last night, don't watch the results show at all, or have quit on Idol all together, because the ten minute heart to heart between Seacrest, Casey, Lee and Crystal was brutal to watch. Honestly I haven't heard a more boring conversation since Andy Stitzer rambled about making an egg salad sandwich. At first I thought that they need to stop talking to the contestants because it's just completely awkward, but then I realized that it was just the fact that no one on this season has a speck of personality. If Adam Lambert were being asked the questions, I'd be engaged. Even David Cook was a good speaker. But these three? Terrible.

Fantasy Scores

The Rock Bodega
Casey James- Eliminated (-26)= -26
Janell Wheeler
Tim Urban
Lee DeWyze- Safe (79)= 79
Week 13= 53 Total= 670

Splash Downs All Around
Todrick Hall
Crystal Bowersox- Safe (79)= 79
Tyler Grady
Michelle Delamor
Week 13= 79 Total= 369

Diabolical Haters
Didi Benami
Lilly Scott
Lacey Brown
Michael Lynche
Total= 159

You're Coming With Me Leather
Andrew Garcia
Paige Miles
Aaron Kelly
John Park
Total= 150

The Curlgar
Ashley Rodriguez
Joe Muñoz
Haley Vaughn
Siobhan Magnus
Total= 92

HashTag Katie Stevens Is Only 16
Katie Stevens
Jermaine Sellers
Katelyn Epperly
Alex Lambert
Total= 19

American Idol- Dear America

Dear America,

In case you haven't noticed, we want Lee DeWyze to win this season of American Idol. We see him as a much more commercial artist than Crystal Bowersox and therefore it would be in our best interest to have him win our reality show. Last night we did everything we could to get Lee into the finale and hopefully continued our run of making him the champion come next week. Honestly what else do we have to do? We gave him the pimp spot of singing last. For judges pick, he got his song from the most respected reality man in the biz. His pick? Only one of the best songs, and one of the easiest to perform extremely well, Hallelujah. Even Tim Urban had a moment with this song. To cap it all off we brought back the gospel choir for the first time since what seems the Ruben/Clay finale to perform with Lee. Thankfully Mr. DeWyze helped us out by doing Hallelujah really well. In doing so he made it much less uncomfortable when our judges made him out to be the best thing since The Shawshank Redemption without even paying attention to the performance. So if you didn't pick up on it from last night's show, we want Lee to win and we will stop at nothing to make this happen. Good luck voting. Remember we have AT&T employees sent out all over the country teaching how to cheat in order to mult-vote for Lee.

Thank You,
American Idol Producers

That about sums up last night show for me. Don't get me wrong, Lee was really good on the night. Maybe slightly better than MamaSox, but I might be being swayed by the choir and the judges. Who knows? All I know is if Lee and Crystal aren't in the finale it will a travesty of the Fantasia vs. Diana DeGarmo nature. Goodbye Casey James.

American Idol- Let's Duet

Ellen DeGeneres- "One of the classic, great movies of all time...Free Willy."

Yeah of course Idol was bad again last night. Was there a great performance in there? Yes. Crystal and Lee's Falling Slowly was fantastic. They paced the duet perfectly and their voices meshed together so well. In fact Casey and Mike's When a Man Loves a Woman wasn't half bad either. It was almost as if the contestants saw how terrible the duets were last year and decided to make a statement this season.

The downside of that is that it seems like the four finalists put no effort into their individual songs. Crystal moved back into first by default this week. Because everyone else was so bad, her so-so performance of Caddyshack's I'm Alright stood out as the one to beat.

I guess I'm stuck with Lee being the second best this week. I got excited real early when he didn't try to go falsetto in his Kiss From a Rose, but then in the second line he went to the falsetto and almost knocked my eardrums out. Brutal.

I'll now attempt not to make any comparisons between Big Mike and the whale named Willy that he was singing for. What a terrible Idol song. There are no lyrics to it. It's all "yeahs" and "ooohs." You can't grab a hold of anything in this, even though he should good vocals again.

And Casey James should now leave the stage. Quote from JJ on Casey's Mrs. Robinson, "Is he even trying?" Quote from Pops, "Is he drunk?" Two very good questions. This was a terribly uninspired performance full of top shelf vibrato.

Performance Rankings

1. Crystal and Lee
2. Crystal Bowersox
3. Casey and Mike
4. Lee DeWyze
5. Mike Lynche
6. Casey James

American Idol- Cry, Cry, Crystal

Simon Cowell- "This may have been a step too high this week, in terms of actually believing in the perormance...having said that, you have improved over the weeks."

It seems that Simon decided to pay a bit of homage to Larry David after new broke today that Curb Your Enthusiasm will return for an eighth season in 2011. Nice work Simon. Other notes on the judges: Kara needs to stop using metaphors. Ellen is getting better since she started coming up with jokes before the show starts. I don't think Randy knows a single thing about music.

Tonight was inspirational songs week, and unlike the judges and many others, I'm not going to goo and gush over how moving Crystal Bowersox's performance was. Her People Get Ready was the best of the night sure, but is that saying much? There are only two other contestants that should make a normal season's top 24. MamaSox starting acapella was quite a moment but what was absolutely shocking to me was that she cried during her performance! The funny thing is that if a lesser contestant would have done that, they would've been killed for it. Since Boxershorts is the only commodity Idol has right now, she was commended for it. Brilliant.

The other two that deserve to make an Idol semifinals. Lee DeWyze and Siobhan Magnus both had good performances tonight. Seriously how much better would Simon and DeWyze been than Simon and Garfunkel. Garfunkel might not have been able to cover Sam Cooke during the third season of Saturday Night Live, but Lee sure as heck could cover Garfunkel here. Was I the only one surprised that the judges killed Siobhan's When You Believe? I thought she killed it without throwing in a ridiculous scream and the falsetto was pumpin'. Why do they always let Siobhan babble after her performance. This is the main reason for going over the alotted time every week.

Everyone else was bad. Casey James was better than last week if only because the vibrato died down. He seems to run out of breath while standing still, which is never a good thing. Tim Urban, for the first time in a couple of weeks, was completely over powered by this Goo Goo Dolls song. Aaron Kelly. Oh boy. I'm so tired of talking about how much I hate him. I think JJ said it best when he tweeted "my performance of I Believe I Can Fly at Pleasure Island was better than Aaron Kelly's", but that may have been 'cause he took his shirt off. For the first time ever, Michael 'Will Kieffer' Lynche had a bunch of bum notes. That combined with his corniness will get him knocked out of the competition this week.

My Performance Rankings

1. Crystal Bowersox
2. Lee DeWyze
3. Siobhan Magnus
4. Casey James
5. Tim Urban
6. Michael Lynche
7. Aaron Kelly

American Idol- Little Less Conversation, Little More Singing

Aaron Kelly- "I don't necessarily know that this song fits me. It's probably wrong in every possible way, but I'm gonna go out there and have a good time with this performance."

This is the first blog post in almost a week. This is my first day back from my vacation. And this...is American Idol. What a way to get back in the swing of things. Ms. Lambert as the mentor less than a year after his run on Idol? Great to see. And actual great mentoring to many of the Idols this week. Of course there are some train wrecks (cough Aaron Kelly cough) that just can't be mentored.

For the first week since the semifinals began, Crystal Bowersox was not my favorite performance. She is still my favorite contestant, and I think her Saved was the second best of the night, but Lee DeWyze killed it tonight in a big way. It wasn't just that he sand the theme song to one of my favorite bad tv shows of all time (Las Vegas), he actually performed extremely well. Immediately after he finished his stellar take on A Little Less Conversation, I wrote that he really took Adam's advice to heart and stepped his performing game up. 30 seconds later Lee made the same observation, going out of his way to thank last year's champion runner-up.

Siobhan Magnus was enjoyable to me for the second straight week with Suspicious Minds. Her scream in the middle had a certain Lambert-like musicality to it that could have only come from the help of Adam himself. She finished the song off with both a great falsetto and a fantastic glory note that wasn't cringe worthy like something she did early in the competition. The judges, like always, were completely wrong in my opinion. Simon's "you lost who you were two or three weeks ago" comment was absurd because everyone knows her performances of two and three weeks ago were God awful. The past two weeks have been her best in a long while.

Going into watching last night's episode I had heard from multiple sources that Tim Urban was one of, if not the best of the night. I was very disappointed. I wanted to really like his Can't Help Falling In Love. I enjoyed it. But it was just another decent to good attempt at a very easy to sing song. The highlight of Tim's session was Kara taking her love for the phrase singer-songwriter to a whole new level as this week she used it as a straight up adjective. Tim's performance was "singer-songwriter" to Kara.

Mike "Will Kieffer" Lynche performed yet another soft and sincere performance, but his slightly sleepy In the Ghetto was stuck as a middling performance for me. Katie Stevens continues to show that she has the pipes, but her Baby What Do You Want Me To Do kept getting annoying for me. Once someone points out that there is something annoying about a certain person, it's hard to ignore. I wanted to throw up every time she moved her head back and forth as if she had some swagger--Thanks Slezak.

My Bottom Three. Casey James's vibrato is getting worse and worse. He didn't sound like a hungry goat during the semifinals. Last week and during this week's Lawdy Miss Clawdy, he did. Andrew Garcia was really bad once again. He needed to either speed up Hound Dog a lot, or slow it down a lot and bring out his acoustic (broken record). As Lambert said during their session together, it was boring. For the second week in a row, my least favorite of the night was Aaron Kelly. He did Blue Suede Shoes and just like the quote at the top said, it was completely wrong for him. Unlike what the rest of the quote said, it didn't look like he was having a single bit of fun up on that stage. Pack your bags Aaron, because you and Andrew are going home tonight.

My Performance Rankings
1. Lee DeWyze
2. Crystal Bowersox
3. Siobhan Magnus
4. Tim Urban
5. Michael Lynche
6. Katie Stevens
7. Casey James
8. Andrew Garcia
9. Aaron Kelly

American Idol- Don't Treat Lee Like a Lady

Simon Cowell- "Watch the show back and realize this is the night your life may have changed forever."

Sure MamaSox was the best of the night by a mile and she continues to have wow moments week in and week out, but let's take a week off from the Crystal Bowersox show to focus on some dudes that made Idol watchable through an entire episode again.

As Simon said at the top, this was a great week for Lee DeWyze. The cool, quiet one took an oldy but a goody and turned it into a contemporary gem. The Cornelius Brothers' Treat Her Like a Lady is well known by most and because of the great sound to his voice, he was able to flip the song on its head without changing it up to much.

Obviously Andrew Garcia took my advice from last week. Thanks for reading Andrew. He cut all this crap about doing different things and got back to his bread and butter. Acoustic rearrangements of popular songs. Of course this wasn't as good as Straight Up, but he's back on the right track. The judges praised him for getting back to who he is even though they are the ones who told him to go away from this style a few weeks back. Once again, you guys are morons.

Big Michael Lynche gave us a big cheeseburger with no cheese this week. The corny winks and movements were to a minimum because of the soft and tenderness of the song he chose. What shined through? His fantastic vocal ability. He's not my cup of tea, compared to Lee or Andrew, but there's no arguing that he's pitch perfect every week.

Two girls that I liked tonight. Of course my MamaSox, whose big surprise was playing the piano. Although she had to concentrate on looking at the keys, it didn't take away from her fantastic performance. When she stood up and the song picked up, I think all 30 million people watching smiled along with the dreadlocked queen. And shoot me but I liked Didi Benami once again. She wasn't as good as the past two weeks, and I wish she had slowed the tempo down a bit, but her voice is so unique that I love it every time.

Here's my bottom three for the week. Now obviously this isn't who will be in the actual bottom three, because both Siobhan Magnus and Aaron Kelly have big fan bases already, but my worst three performances of the night belong to the glass blower, the tiny loser and Mr. Smiley Tim Urban.

As JJ tweeted last night, "finally someone puts magnus in her place." Now unlike JJ, I've liked her in the past, but last week's Superstition was annoying and this week's Through the Fire was flat out terrible. Her lower register sounded awful and when she went up higher with the "through the fire" lyric I wanted to pull my ears off. El Pres over at Barstool simply posted, "Siobhan just ruined my vacation and I haven't even left yet."

Tim Urban and Aaron Kelly are just self explanatory. Neither one can sing. They both use a disgusting amount of vibrato. Kelly chose Ain't No Sunshine, which might have been Kris Allen's signature from last year, and it was so bad I don't even know if it can qualify as the same song. Urban is just so bad he's not worth talking about. Simon did his annual "oh it doesn't matter what we say anymore because they're gonna vote you through anyway" thing which was a great jinx and I think Urban goes home tonight.

That leaves me with only two performances that I neither liked or hated. Katie Stevens was once again blahh, but her vocals are always decent. She's a good singer just not an artist in any sense of the word. Casey James is just so uneventful. Kara was absolutely correct wrong when she said, "I think you've got more range in you." That's the main thing holding him back. He has no range and it shows in every flatline performance he gives us.

My order of the night
1. Crystal Bowersox
2. Lee DeWyze
3. Andrew Garcia
4. Michael Lynche
5. Didi Benami
6. Casey James
7. Katie Stevens
8. Aaron Kelly
9. Siobhan Magnus
10. Tim Urban

American Idol- He's a No Soul Man

Simon Cowell- "You sucked the soul out of that song."

And that quote, in a nutshell, explains what has happened to Andrew Garcia since the first week of the semifinals. After completely killing Paula Abdul's Straight Up during Hollywood Week, Garcia came back with a similar acoustic rearrangement to Fall Out Boy's Sugar We're Goin' Down. I thought it was a great performance, if not up to par with the ex-judge cover. The judges, on the other hand, destroyed it and did so again the next week.

They pushed him to do different things, and he began shying away from acoustic rearrangements, and completely lost his guitar for the next three weeks. It was these empty performances that have Andrew on the verge of being ousted before the top 10. He sucked the soul out of the performances because the judges gave him horrible advice for many, many weeks. Don't get me wrong, it's Andrew's fault for listening to these yahoos, but I still place most of the blame on the fabulous four behind the table.

Garcia took on Marvin Gaye's I Heard it Through the Grapevine during Billboard Number Ones week and failed to show any type of improvement. My girl Miley Cyrus helped Andrew out the door by telling him to drop the guitar during her mentor session. We all know that Miley is a comic genius, but her skills as an Idol mentor were less than stellar tonight. My prediction is that Garcia goes home this week.

Andrew definitely wasn't the worst this week. That's why he will be joined in the bottom three by Paige Miles and Tim Urban. They were by far the two worst of the night. Seriously Paige's Against All Odds was one of the worst vocals I've ever heard on the show. Urban was equally as awful during Crazy Little Thing Called Love if only for his horrendous slide across the stage (and complete lack of vocal ability).

Out with the bad, in with the good. The one that Pops affectionately calls "Boxer shorts" was once again the best of the night. Crystal Bowersox did Me and Bobby McGee miles better than Janis Joplin. I had actually never heard it before (crazy I know because I like old music), so I YouTubed it and watched how it wasn't even close to how unbelievable MamaSox was tonight. She is on another level right now people. And what's this? She claims that she's "got big plans for next week." Oh boy.

The other three I liked tonight were (in order) Didi Benami, Lee DeWyze and Mike Lynch. I really don't get what the judges didn't like about Didi tonight. She was theatrical? Isn't that what you praised Adam for last year? And Siobhan as recently as last week? And Didi wasn't even as over the top as them. I loved her performance of You're No Good and judges can't stop me from voting (even though I don't).

I thought Lee wasn't good when he went first, but after watching everyone else be worse, he got better and better as the night went on. He wasn't as good as other weeks, mainly because his rendition of The Letter just didn't feel like him, but the sound of his voice makes up for that.

Will Kieffer's black cousin, or Big Mike Lynch as the Idol faithful like to call him, recorded another fantastic vocal performance this week. His When a Man Loves a Woman even reduced many of his over confident gestures that had me hating him last week.

Katie Stevens and Aaron Kelly both scraped by and really give me nothing to say about them. The other two mediocre performances of the week came from Casey James and Siobhan Magnus. It's pretty difficult to not get me to love the Back to the Future song, but that's exactly what Casey did with Power of Love. He's just so boring and robotic. Power of Love? How about a little power of voice Mr. James. 'Cause you haven't shown any.

And finally we get to the judges favorite who is starting to really irk me. This week she chose one of the most repetitive, boring songs out there in Stevie's Superstition. Note to Siobhan: You can't half ass your way through the entire song and then just scream at the top of your lungs at the end and think you're gonna win me over. It's not only predictable, but really annoying to watch at this point.

American Idol- Rolling Stones Gather No Votes

Crystal Bowersox- "I haven't thought that I had the competition at all...but thank you for saying it."

It is very weird to watch the last two performances of an episode of Idol and then go back to watch the first ten, but that's what I had to do tonight after coming home at 9:40.

Well Ellen was on her game tonight. As Pops pointed out to me, someone must have told her that if she didn't start being funny she was gonna get canned. That's not to say that she was laugh out loud, knee slapping hilarious tonight, but her witty comments were definitely an improvement on her awkward commentary during the semifinals.

Now let's get my favorite out of the way first so we can move onto the contestants that both me and Slezak are not biased in favor of. Crystal Bowersox absolutely killed it once again, this time changing You Can't Always Get What You Want to fit her style perfectly. Her little riffs, especially the talking piece in the middle, were great. She can do so many different thing vocally that it seems like she has been at the top of the charts for years.

Then we have the other three that were good tonight.

Didi Benami might have the best sound to her voice in the competition. Although her performance of Play With Fire wasn't out of the box vocally, she showed decent power and had great tone throughout. The anger she produced on her face as "Don't play with me" came out of her mouth was truly fantastic to see.

Lee DeWyze might continue to be David Cook Light, but I really don't care. I loved Cook's voice and I love Lee's. He changed Beast of Burden simply by putting his raspy voice on it and he did a great job with it.

While Siobhan Magnus's glory note was completely off tune and screechy at the end of Paint It Black, the final falsetto moment made up for it. Her vocal skill is definitely there, but tonight was not nearly as good as last week, I don't care what the judges tell me. Having said that, she gets the okay from me if only for letting us know that Cape Cod is "divided into towns."

Honestly I thought the rest were pretty bad. If I had to pick one to go home based on tonight it would be Lacey Brown. Her baby doll voice is losing its luster and her off tune singing is shining through. The worst part of her take on Ruby Tuesday was the way she changed such a great part of the song. When she sped up "still I'm gonna miss you" it killed me because it's such a great moment in the original song.

The rest of my bottom four would consist of Aaron Kelly, Casey James and Andrew Garcia. Aaron's place mostly has to do with my hatred for him, because I thought his Angie was serviceable tonight. Casey and Andrew on the other hand just blew up there. Casey obviously shouldn't do fast songs or use the electric guitar and his voice doesn't have the power or range to go far in this competition. Garcia, meanwhile, just obliterated Gimme Shelter. I was literally laughing during the entire performance at his attempt at the song. Strap the guitar back on and try to sing Straight Up every week buddy.

Michael Lynch, Paige Miles, Katie Stevens and Tim Urban were okay in my book this week. Lynch showed he obviously skills during Miss You, even if his confidence is turning into unbearable undeserved cockiness. Paige was way better than any of her other performances with Honky Tonk Woman, even if she is as bland as Lil Rounds. Katie finally picked a great song to showcase her big voice, but still didn't do much else with Wild Horses. Urban decided to dial back Under My Thumb into a reggae song which allowed him to not murder himself like he did with Apologize a few weeks ago. It was a weird choice but not a horrendous vocal so good decision.

American Idol- Four With a Chance

Tonight was a definite toss up for best performance. It was either MamaSox's electrifying Give Me One Reason or me going onto YouTube and watching Ruben's version of Smile after Paige Miles destroyed it to pieces. In the end I'd have to give it to Crystal Bowersox because she was actually on tonight's show. Her version of the Tracy Chapman song, and her ability to use an electric guitar to her advantage (unlike Casey last week) proved that she is the one to beat this season.

There are three others from tonight's top eight ladies that are still in the hunt this season. Lilly Scott, although took a bit of a step backward this week due to poor song choice, is still my runner-up on the female side of things. Though the Patsy Cline number I Fall to Pieces didn't allow her to showcase her true skills, she still kept me engaged because of her quirkiness and dare I say, artistry.

Siobhan Magnus and Didi Benami are right on her tail with better performances this week than last. The Barstool favorite belted out House of the Rising Sun and it was strides better than the Aretha number last time. She killed the a capella beginning! Didi, meanwhile, went back to her bread and butter, as her smooth stylings fit perfectly with Rhiannon.

So who are the two that deserve to stick around for the big stage and the Top 12? Katelyn Epperly and Katie Stevens. Although they both bored me this week, they have each proved that they have the chops to make a run at this thing in the future. Paige Miles and Lacey Brown, on the other hand, need to leave us this week. Paige for reasons stated at the beginning, and Lacey for putting me to sleep at 8:10 p.m. I thought that Lacey should've left the past two weeks. Here's hoping that the third time actually is the charm.

American Idol- A Change Is Gonna Come For Lilly

A pretty fantastic night of Idol I think. Unlike Randy, who thought that they guys were great this week and in it to win it, the rest of us all know that guys were terrible for the second straight week. At this point I would take a Top 10 of seven girls and only three guys. Who are the three chicks that don't deserve top 10 status?

Haeley Vaughn, Lacey Brown and Paige Miles. Of the three, I think Paige deserves to stay around another week even though her Walk Away was painfully average. Lacey's main problem was that she took Kara's advice and sang Kiss Me, duh duh duh duh duh duh Twilight. The one thing you don't want to do, as we saw with Alex Lambert last week, is sing an artist that you sound exactly like because you will just come off as a terrible copy cat. Having said that, Lacey was still better than the mess that was Lips. When you can't even come close to the works of Miley Cyrus, it means you are no good. Don't get me wrong, I love many of Miley's songs but let's be real here, her true talent is comedy.

Let's skip ahead to my two favorites of the night. They also happened to be two that I loved last week so from this point forward Crystal Bowersox and Lilly Scott are my frontrunners. They both showed great vocals and were able to change their songs just enough to make them seem current. I don't know if it helped or hurt my opinion of MamaSox that she sang one of my top 10 songs of all time, As Long as I Can See the Light. I'm pretty sure the fact that I loved it says a lot about her talent. Lilly, on the other hand, picked a song that has been attempted on the Idol stage many a times. Unlike the others before her, I think she killed A Change Is Gonna Come. Her voice is so unique and there was one run near the end where she sped the lyric up and it sounded fantastic.

The other five contestants would be in my top 10 power rankings right now, but haven't performed to the level of MamaSox and Lilly. Katie Stevens's voice sounds unbelievable, but like Sepinwall said in his review, she is having trouble connecting with fans on stage the way she is able to do in interviews and video intros. Didi Benami got screwed over by listening to the judges notes. On further review her performance last week was even better than I thought and she should've stayed with that type of song. Of course, the judges criticized her so she ended up with the horrific choice of Lean On Me.

Michelle Delamor just seems really polished to me. It's like she's been a professional singer for years. Having said that, she didn't wow me with her rendition of With Arms Wide Open. Katelyn Epperly could have been great for all I know, but the way she murdered the first line of The Scientist killed the whole performance for me. As a Coldplay fan that lyric is extremely iconic and can't be tangled up like that. Barstool's pick for the win, Siobhan Magnus impressed many of the judges again, but I was with Simon on this one. The huge note was nice and all, but the rest of it was so so.

In closing, let's take notice of the fact that Simon and Ryan both acknowledged the fact that the judges have been giving contradictory advice this year. Obviously some people having been reading on the blogosphere. Instead of just mentioning the fact and continuing to be contradictory, how bout you figure out how to judge better? I get that sometimes changing the melody doesn't work and sometimes it helps, but explain that to the contestants. Don't just say, "I want you to change it up" or "Don't change the song up." Explain what types of songs shouldn't be changed. It is my feeling that the songs that the judges don't want you to change are the iconic ones, like Todrick did with Tina Turner last week. You're best bet is to take a popular song that isn't critically acclaimed and change that up. That way the audience can realize what you're doing and the judges don't chastise you for it.

American Idol- Mags's Cousin and MamaSox Lead the Way

For the Simon-proclaimed year of the girls, not a single chick left me that excited after the first live show. There were definitely some that were good, but there were also some that were just okay and a couple that were flat out bad last night.

Let's start with what may be my weekly Kara rant. Both Pops and I realized last night that it isn't even the ridiculous things that she says night in and night out that annoy me anymore. In fact it doesn't matter what the words are that come out of her mouth, it's how she says them. No matter what she says, I want to slap her in the face as soon as she begins to speak.

Ellen, who I enjoyed during Hollywood week's edited segments, didn't fare as well in her inaugural live show. She seemed nervous with the first couple of contestants and didn't have many great comments throughout the entire show. Her highlight was explaining that Katelyn Epperly was "interesting to me. It made me wanna pay attention to you." That's the type of armchair judging I was expecting from her. She doesn't have a musical background but she still can have reasons for why someone did well or not. Ellen just didn't do enough of that last night, but I'm sure she'll get better (unlike Kara who has gotten worse and worse every week).

Now on to the contestants that failed to wow me last night.

Let's begin with the two that I think should be going home after last night's performances. Haeley Vaughn, or Lips, was absolutely the worst one of the night. She screeched through the entire minute and a half of I Wanna Hold Your Hand. I loved the risk of changing up a Beatles tune, but that risk did not pay off in this case. Lacey Brown's Landslide was not much better. As it started I got excited because it's such a great song, but then she started singing and it was all downhill from there. When Ryan asked her why she chose that song she explained that she liked it and then talked about what the song meant. Once again people, these are not good reasons for choosing a song to perform on Idol.

Then we get to the hodgepodge of middling contestants that did nothing to shine more than the rest, but when all is said and done should stick around for another week. On the lower end of that spectrum we had Paige Miles, Ashley Rodriguez, Janell Wheeler and Katelyn Epperly. Of the four, Epperly was the only one that showed potential for a decent run later on in the season. The other three all picked big songs and couldn't deliver a less than boring performance.

The three okay contestants that put forth quality performances were Michelle Delamor, Didi Benami and Katie Stevens. Delamor showed the ability to use both power and tenderness in her rendition of Fallin', while Didi's underwhelming performance still had the ability to leave me wanting more. KS of the CT pulled the risky move of taking on Feelin' Good less than a year since Adam Lambert killed it. Although her performance was just about half as good as Ms. Lambert's, half as good as him is still strides better than most of these jokers.

Not sure my feelings will probably flip after next week's performances, but these are my three front-runners after last night. Lilly Scott, Siobhan Magnus and Crystal Bowersox. Lilly had the advantage of going directly after three contestants that failed to step up to the plate. Even though I had never heard Fixing A Hole before, I could tell that her rendition had to be different than the way the Beatles did it. Either way...she had a very interesting sound, and just like JJ has an interesting look. This performance felt extremely comfortable and terribly current. Very good.

Maybe it's because I imagine Nicolas Cage calling me honnay whenever I hear this song, but I thought Mags's cousin's Wicked Game was fantastic. Her ability to change from her regular voice to falsetto was great. I do not know how El Pres does it, but the man at Barstool might have done it again, only this time he picked a winner out of nowhere.

And then we have the girl that Slezak and the rest of EW.com seem to be backing at these early stages. MamaSox's vocal performance wasn't anything to write home about last night, but she absolutely showed promise for the future. Add to the mix that she played both the guitar and the harmonica extremely well, and you get quite the performer. She controlled the whole performance and kept me interested and as a bonus it seems as though she used some white strips since Hollywood Week.

Who agrees/disagrees with the Kid?