We’re on the cusp of the top twelve, and I gotta tell you, after LaKisha and Melinda, there is a drop off of talent so steep you’d need a parachute to navigate it. It’s so bad that dreck like Chris Richardson and Gina Glocksen get compliments from the judges. If Simon were “perfectly honest”, contestants would be crying left and right. The guys collectively sucked it on their night, and the girls weren’t much better (I’m not lumping LaKisha and Melinda with them – it would throw off the grading curve). I don’t know what the producers were thinking when they chose the top twelve, but don’t you think at least half of the “singers” wouldn’t be here if they could go back in time and re-pick? It’s like, the only thing interesting each week is seeing if Sanjaya and Antonella can hang on even though it seems they’re dead locks to get the boot week after week (but I doubt they're going anywhere this week).

Blake – Boy, that beat-boxing schtick got real old, real fast, didn't it? Like, whenever he busts it out, I roll my eyes. Like, who cares? Your voice is mediocre, your personality is boring, and it looks like you've been pocketing your clothing per diem and stealing clothes from the homeless for kicks. I wouldn't be surprised if you've also been pocketing your per diem for hygiene products. And the quarters for the laundromat? Pocketed that too. Those pants looked nasty. Verdict: Beat Box Bore.

Sanjaya – Jennifer Aniston called – she wants her hair back! Snap! I still think he has a nice voice, but man, he's just so low energy and boring you just lose interest. I mean, I thought he sounded good and he finally stayed in rhythm, but you'd have to fight off sleep to notice. At least this was his best post-song interview – Sanjaya was mute throughout. Didn't make a peep – just shrugs and facial contortions.

Sundance – I was shocked that they were able to clear a Pearl Jam song. Like, is Eddie Vedder a closet Idol fan? A totally karaoke performance, more shouted than sung, and it appeared he stumbled all over the lyrics. Also outshone by the backup singers, even though they only sang one line. Embarrassing.

Chris R – When Ryan said, “Chris goes Urban after the break”, I figured it was either Chris was going to do a Keith Urban song or he was going to do gangsta rap. Although the latter would have been a hilarious disaster, it turned out he was just going to do some lame-ass Keith Urban song. You know, it's surprising that a guy who did that much coke could crap out such stupefyingly boring songs. I had heard this song on the radio before, and the only reason I noticed it was because the chorus ripped off Wind Beneath My Wings. When you're cribbing from Wind Beneath My Wings, an intervention is definitely needed. Anyway, this performance sucked hard on so many levels, including the inability to stay on-key, a lack of energy, and amateurish vocals. Chris is the male Antonella. At least he didn't do that twitchy head shaking thing again.

Jared – So Jared is going to sing Stevie Wonder? Hahahahaha! According to his pre-song blah-blah, he didn't think he'd make the NBA so he switched to music. Which means he played basketball worse than he sang! Boggles the mind. Jared started off bored and uninterested for a few measures until it occurred to him that he was being watched by 31 million people. So he started yelling slightly off-key. I suppose that one way to go, but personally, I think it was a mistake. Simon called Jared “popular”, which means he's either not watching the same show we are or he's confused him with someone else. Because Jared is pretty much off the radar.

Brandon – I can't quite zero in on what's wrong with Brandon, but there's a quality about his voice that just doesn't blend well with the background singers or the music. It's not that he's off-key (although he does veer off from the proper note way more than he should), but it's that his voice has this odd lack of musicality. I have a theory that he puts the mike too close to his mouth and it distorts his voice. Brandon ended the song with a run that sounded like a Tarzan yell. I was surprised that elephants and chimps didn't bum rush the stage. During the judging, Simon called Brandon “Travis”. Let's see, Brandon made it all the way through Hollywood week and three weeks of Idol competition, and… Simon can't even recall his name? Man, that's the very definition of unmemorable.

Phil – I always said Phil looked creepy, but that hat just upped the ante. There’s something about a hat on a shaved head that just doesn’t work. The oddest thing was that the top of his left ear was bent under the brim of his hat – my wife thought he looked like Sloth from The Goonies. Phil’s command of the English language is not so good – he was on the verge of insulting the judges by saying that he took their advice “with a grain of salt”. He was able to get out of trouble by playing the stupid card, and I believe that he didn’t understand what the phrase meant and used it in the opposite way. It’s like when people mistakenly use “literally” to mean “figuratively”. Apparently, “literally” was used in an ironic sense a long time ago, but nowadays people commonly say “literally” when there is no figurative sense you need to distinguish it from. The word they’re looking for is “actually”. Back to the show… now, I’ve never heard Marlee Matlin sing, but I imagine if she did, it would sound like the first 10 bars of Phil’s performance. I was surprised he wasn’t signing while singing. This was clearly a case of Flying Too Low Syndrome, and the result was atrocious since he couldn’t even stay in tune or hit any of the higher notes anyway. It was so bad I wondered if he was on the show because the Make A Wish Foundation mistakenly thought he was on chemotherapy. And Randy comparing Phil to Steve Perry was jaw droppingly crazy. Just an insane comment to make.

Chris S – I guess his tone is okay and my wife seems to really like him, but to me, he sounds like one of those guys who’s in the school glee club trying to rock out. The intonation just doesn’t cut it, and he ends up sounding like Hilary Duff singing Courtney Love – it’s just too wholesome sounding a voice to grab me on any level. It lacks any hint of funk or soul, and while it isn’t offensive, it’s uninteresting.

Jordin – last week, Jordin suffered from Flying Too Low Syndrome and she just messed up the whole damn thing. She avoided it this week by singing the entire song up here, the adenoidal Pat Benatar classic, Heartbreaker. The beginning was marred by a technical glitch, with her microphone volume set too low and slightly cutting out. By the time they got it working normally, Jordin started running out of breath and while there was a lot of energy, it seemed, as Simon said, manic (I hate when he says exactly what I was thinking, because if I want to use it, I have to attribute it to him so as to not appear to be a plagarist). There was one very odd moment at the end of the song – Jordin starts belting the last note, pitches her head back, and then pulls the mike away. But the note keeps going for a couple of seconds. Was she lip synching? Was it a background singer? So odd.

Sabrina – Man, whoever said you can’t have too much ruching is a jackass. Because Sabrina proved that there was a limit and she went well beyond it. Mocha colored and fantastically wrinkled, it looked like how I would imagine her naked body would appear when she hits ninety. Sabrina sang – well, no – yelled the song throughout, and when she wasn’t shrieking she was singing through her nose. Speaking of which, did you notice her nose looked smaller in her high school clip? Who gets their nose done to add size? Another singer upstaged by the background singers, Sabrina also scooped the last note (that is, she didn’t know where it was so she started down here and then worked her way to the right note), except she never actually found it. I was thinking, “it’s not there yet honey, it’s not there yet honey, it’s not there yet honey, it’s – song’s over.” I’m not overly fond of her song stylings, but this was crap regardless.

Antonella – Embarrassment, they name is Antonella. Although I have to say, that was a great look – the dress was kickass, the boots were hot, and her hair looked great. And when she started singing, she was mostly in-tune and while she didn’t sound good per se, she wasn’t the laughingstock of the competition like she was in weeks one and two. That lasted for about fifteen seconds. And then, ladies and gentlemen, the Antonella Barba show started. Which is like a… a… not quite a freakshow… it’s like one of those shows where audience members walk on stage and get knitting needles plunged into their ears until the blood just won’t stop. You know, something like that? Wait… come to think of it, I guess a show like that doesn’t really exist. Well, I’ll give Antonella this – she’s unique. What a mess. BTW, if anyone doesn’t think she’s one of those overly entitled brats who think the world owes her, she shattered that illusion into a million pieces. She thinks that she shouldn’t be vocally compared to the other singers, ignoring the fact that this is a singing competition. Just a simple, self-absorbed douchebag. Who can’t sing.

Haley – I figured out who Haley is. Haley is the second coming of Kathy Lee Gifford, with the fake smile, the cheesy, cruise ship entertainer vocal stylings, and a taste in clothes that screams, “I’m fifty!” Simon claimed to not know her name. C’mon Simon, it’s Travis. Oh, wait, it’s… yeah, he’s got a point. The last exchange between Paula and Simon left me pondering if Paula did not know what a “surname” was or if she was simply stalling because she had no idea what her last name was but didn’t want to prove Simon’s point. Like Phil, she covered her ass by playing the stupid card. BTW, when Haley gets voted off, I will be happy that there will no longer be a void in the program that is her turn to sing, and that I will no longer have to see her armpits. If you want to keep raising your arms up, please wear something with sleeves. Yeesh.

Stephanie – Another singer who started off nicely and then went all to shit. Her last run was totally off-key, and the last note was no better. And while Simon considers Haley to be anonymous, at least Haley is consistently mediocre. Since her zenith in week one, Stephanie has become a totally different and mostly unpleasant singer, and I’m sure there are a lot of audience members who are wondering, “whatever happened to that other black girl who could sing?” Because that is clearly not Stephanie anymore.

LaKisha – I just can’t stop gushing over LaKisha’s voice. She never suffers from Flying Too Low Syndrome because her range is almost superhuman, and when she hit that big note, she sang it with melody instead of shouting it like almost all the other girls do. If she could just get the right ensemble together she would be unstoppable. While I loved the hair, she wore something out of Mrs. Dracula’s closet – I half expected her to turn into a bat and fly off the stage. It was more a Halloween costume than a dress, and those rhinestone encrusted open-toed shoes just gotta go. Both ugly and don’t match. But I give LaKisha all the props in the world for her vocals – she probably has the best, most consistent voice of any contestant from any season of Idol.

Gina – Please stop voting for her. I mean, this performance was, in a nutshell, everything I hate about Gina. Her outfit was, I guess, supposed to be edgy, but it looked like a cross between Madonna circa 1985 (what was that, a fishnet sock on her arm? Why?) and a guest on the Jerry Springer Show (sheer grey top and a red bra? You’ve got to be kidding me). It’s vomit inducing. It’s phony. Also phony? Her whole “attitude” while singing. Just a screeching, unlistenable mess, punctuated by manic “dancing” and some sort of frantic head shake that was, perhaps, an homage to Iggy Pop? Yeah, like Gina even knows who Iggy Pop is. All she really knows is Whitney and Mariah. Fake. And crappy.

Melinda – If you’re old enough (like me), all you kept thinking about during Melinda’s song was Enjolie perfume. Enjolie was a mass produced cheapo fragrance they sold in drug stores (like Charlie, although if you remember Charlie, you should remeber Enjolie), and while I never actually opened a bottle, I imagine it smelled like Juicyfruit gum and horse piss. During the 70’s and 80’s, the Enjolie commercial played almost non-stop, and the jingle was based on Melinda’s song. After the line, “’Cause I’m a woman”, the commercial would end, “En-jo-lie”. Sort of like the “by Men-nen” jinglet. I’m sure half of America sang, “En-jo-lie” during Melinda’s performance. Which brings us back to the topic at hand. Melinda’s edge over LaKisha is her energy and her ability to work the hell out of the song. She’s like a little James Brown on that stage, and she just prowls around and delivers attitude and confidence. So while I’m more wowed by LaKisha’s vocals, other people soak up Melinda’s total package. That little Ewok can work it. But… I was wondering if Melinda did something to piss off her stylist, because that jacket could only be borne of revenge. It was just hideous. It looked like the upholstery from a dining room chair at a discount furniture store that’s been on sale since the 80’s ‘cause no one wants to drop a penny on that ugly sonofabitch. “En-jo-lie”.