Jasmine – What I got from the auditions when it came to Jasmine was that she tended to hiccup a lot to denote emotion and sing through her nose when she started going into her upper register. Jasmine’s rendition of Love Song lacked the hiccupping, but there was plenty of nose singing to be had, and Jasmine’s slurry phrasing made it almost impossible to make out any lyrics. The lack of reverb made her voice sound really tinny, and she wasn’t able to knock out any of her big notes. I’m not sure why the judges keep calling her “commercial” – she didn’t really seem to have that great a voice during the auditions, the nose singing is a turn off, and her eyes are set so far apart she looks like the Angelina Jolie fish from Shark Tale. Even though she was wearing a Member’s Only jacket, it was a silver lame Member’s Only jacket, and she rocked it. Gold lame, on the other hand, would have been a fashion disaster.

Matt G – How many audition wonders are going to fall by the wayside in this top 36 format? In a top 24 format like last year, Matt would have skated through this week and then hopefully would have gotten his bearings next week. But this year, it’s just not looking good for the “dueling piano player” (note to Idol hopefuls – strange sounding occupations will help you go far in auditions: Bubble Tea Maker, Oil Rig Roughneck, Widower). Again, the lack of reverb made his voice sound tinny, but the real problem was that Viva La Vida was too manic for his vocal style. He sounded like he was rushing through the song, trying to squeeze out the last note of a phrase before running out of breath, and the falsetto was total fail. That last run was just awful and the goaty vibrato that seemed to be under control during Hollywood week was back. At times, it sounded like he was singing whilst sitting in a vibrating massage chair set to HI. And what the hell is it with the AI stylists and Member’s Only jackets? Does Blake Lewis work in the wardrobe department now?

Jeanine – Apparently, Jeanine tripped over a coffee table after making the top 36. I say apparently, because we haven’t seen hide nor hair of this girl like, ever. “I hope they don’t show that!” she said. But that 2 second clip was 1000% more face time than she had gotten since the beginning of the competition. The lack of exposure made you assume that she had fodder stamped on her forehead. But then again, there’s always that chance that she will just wow you and just knock your socks off. But alas, Jeanine’s performance of This Love could only be described as woeful, the kind of caterwauling that sounded like she took vocal lessons from Stevie Wright, being only occasionally (and probably only accidentally) on key. The travesty of the Atlantic City hooker outfit was matched only by the cringe-worthy groveling and begging on display during the judging. Jeanine did have support in the audience from her celebrity friends Ugly Betty and Ugly James Franco. Seriously, could that girl have looked more like Betty Suarez? She had the glasses and braces and errr-thing.

Nick – So, I was never amused by any of the schtick that Nick/Norman Gentle showed off during his New York audition, and when he pulled the same act in Hollywood week, it was already stale. When he appeared on stage with the headband and shiny shirt again, I sort of groaned, expecting the same overblown rendition of And I’m Telling You that we’ve seen twice before – the one where he does just enough to convince you that he can sing, but is so overdone that you don’t want to actually listen to it. And yet, about the time he started caressing the AI logo in front of the judges table, I started to giggle – after his shout out to Doogie, I lost it. When all is said and done, Nick didn’t do anything to ruin the show (trust me – the producers are working overtime to do that) and even a skeptic like me had a larf. BTW, this was the second week in a row that Neil Patrick Harris was in the audience. Will he be an Idol staple? Maybe he and Ugly Betty can fly in together from New York every week.

Allison – I did not have high hopes for this magenta haired girl with the Yogi Berra face after hearing her audition clips and Hollywood week performances. I admit that I had assumed she was merely fodder, and her drunken, aphasic responses to Ryan in the pre-song interview only cemented that opinion. But I have to give her props for (mostly) shredding Alone, doing it (mostly) better than Carrie did it in season 4. Her whiskey soaked voice and aggressive stage presence reminded me of a younger Amanda Overmyer, if only Amanda could really sing. Now, I say mostly shredded because this is not Allison’s first foray in reality TV singing contests, having been crowned the winner of the Telemundo singing contest Quinceañera. I had seen a clip of one of her performances previously, and while she started off sounding good, she ran out of steam about a minute in and just went off the rails for two minutes. Since Idol only requires 90 seconds of singing, Allison was able to nail most of the song before oversinging, having lapses in pitch, and getting shouty at the end. She needs to work on the endurance or concentration required to finish properly. That said, she killed. A highlight of the night. Great job, Yogi!

Kris – Another seldom seen piece of fodder, Kris “decided” to sing Man in the Mirror, but sang an extremely boring arrangement that didn’t show off his voice, sounding very karaoke and a bit on the shouty side. My wife could not get over his similarities to David Archuleta – the hair, the clothes, the gestures – right down to the lip licking (that moment got her very excited – she had been yelling at Kris to lick his lips for most of the song). For the first time this season, Kara’s critique was spot on (as it jibed with mine, of course) and the rest were reviewing some other performance we didn’t see.

Megan – I know a lot of people (including Simon) were fans of Megan since her initial audition because of her bluesy voice and Billie Holiday-esque phrasing. I was less impressed because of the pitch problems. And while I grant you she’s pretty, I cannot get over the sleeve of tattoos on her right arm. At the time of the audition, Megan was in the process of divorcing her husband – shit, if my wife spent all of my money getting tats up and down her arm, I’d want a divorce too. Megan’s version of Put Your Records On was better than I had imagined, avoiding the most of the egregious pitch problems that I found annoying in her audition. However, the performance was marred by her poor posture and odd shimmies that made it look like she had to pee, and her occasional spastic arm flicks were distractingly weird. She did have pitch problems when she went into her upper register and falsettos, and it made me wince whenever she sang the word “down” because of her bizarre pronunciation. But there were a lot of moments I enjoyed, and lucky for her, the sound engineers finally figured out the right amount of reverb for the mic. And while the dress was pretty, I could have done without the fabric roses that reminded me of Koko the Clown, and as a general warning, wearing a baby-doll dress on TV tends to make you look pregnant. Wait, didn’t you just get a divorce?

Matt B – If You Could Only See was a boring song selection for Matt. I could make out a pretty good voice somewhere in there, but I was also zoning out for a lot of the performance. The one thing I noticed was that Matt’s entire stage presentation looked like he was surfing in slow motion. Matt looks like a balder, fatter version of Gabby’s husband from Desperate Housewives.

Jesse – I love the song Bette Davis Eyes, and contrary to the judges’ opinions, I thought she did a really good job with it. Perhaps my familiarity with the song smoothed out some of the slurry lack of enunciation that Jesse sometimes substitutes for bluesiness. She had some pitch problems during the bridge and it started out way better than it ended, but this was a good one for me, and I liked the bluesy tone of her voice. Points off, however, for her Brooke White-like diarrhea of the mouth. Shut up, you sound like a babbling idiot. Jesse can’t seem to get her hair right – here’s a montage of her hairstyles since the initial audition. Now, the first two just suck. But the third one, I think, works for her, even if it is a little soccer mom-ish. However, she decided to part her hair in the middle and add long curls for tonight’s performance, an unfortunate style that accentuates her eighthead (that’s one forehead, doubled). Her hair was definitely not money, no matter whom the stylists used for inspiration. Jesse face crinkles in so many places when she sings that she could be in the new Star Trek movie as any number of aliens, and the producers will catch a break on makeup costs because she doesn’t need any prosthetics to play a Cardassian, Bajoran, or Klingon. Well, technically, Half-Klingon. And finally, what exactly is that shiny thing in Jesse’s nostril? I suspect it’s the post to a nose stud, but I couldn’t see the actual stud on the outside. Oh, these kids and their piercings.

Kai – I am going to assume the producers assigned a clunker like What Becomes of the Brokenhearted because I cannot imagine what kind of insanity/stupidity would have led to anyone voluntarily dusting off a moldy oldie from 1966. Now, I’m not saying that 4o plus year old songs are bad or that the Jimmy Ruffin version isn’t great – what I am saying is that all this song will do for you on Idol is make you sound old fashioned. To make matters worse, the arrangement didn’t stray far from the familiar, and while it is in Kai’s vocal range, it’s lower than the sweet spot of Kai’s vocal range which just made the whole thing sound perfunctory and boring. Groucho Marx called and he wants his hair back.

Mishavonna – I half liked her version of Drops of Jupiter. She has a nice full timbre although she strains for higher notes and really messed up the part before the na-na’s. I pretty much loved the verses before the chorus, but then she lost me when started singing from the back of her throat like she was gargling. Mishavonna is surprisingly tall – well, at least taller than Ryan. Now granted, she’s in heels, but who doesn’t think Ryan wears lifts? I liked her outfit – sure, it looked it came straight from the Taylor Swift Collection at Kmart, but it worked for me. Too many of these young idols contestants end up looking like mismatched trainwrecks.

Adam – I don’t know whether to be incredulous or if it was obvious that Adam, he of copious amounts of face time, would end up getting the pimp spot anyway. I’m incredulous because it’s terribly unfair to the other contestants, but then again, this is exactly how they set up Danny, and the producers are nakedly taking sides this year. I still don’t understand the effusive praise that Adam’s voice engenders – to me, it sounds like Frankie Valli trying to sing like Ronnie James Dio. Castrato Metal, as it were. I find his upper registers screechy and irritating, like nails on a chalkboard, and his over the top theatrical flourishes are artificial and off-putting. He didn’t sing Satisfaction so much as act out a cabaret version of it, mugging incessantly and making Elvis faces. Adam started off the song with some weird, slow growl that sounded more like a grunt, as if he was taking a poop on stage. Some of the more irritating faces are, “Smiling Smugly At the Camera”, “Sneering For No Reason” (for which he must have been trained because he can sneer on either side of his mouth), and “Grimacing Like a Tough Guy” (because nothing says badass like jewelry and black nail polish). The judges, predictably, creamed all over the performance. Don’t get too excited, Adam! Yes, his pitch is impeccable. Sure, his range is impressive. But I cannot imagine wanting to listen to that voice on the radio.