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?