Tonight’s Idol went back to The Beatles well, and although I love The Beatles as much if not more than the next guy, the truth is, only a couple of contestants really know much in the way of Lennon/McCartney, and after picking 12 songs last week, this week’s picks are basically the stuff they preferred not to sing last week. Simon was right about it being a mistake to go with the same theme two weeks in a row, and the performances were mostly uneven or downright bad.

Speaking of which, I have a strong feeling that Kristy will be leaving the show, if for no other reason the people who voted for David Hernandez last week will be damned if they give their votes to the girl who should have gone instead. Even if she gets all the votes she got from last week, she’s dead meat. I don’t think she’ll even do that well. Bye bye, Fembot!

Amanda Overmyer – I liked the latter half of her version of Back In The USSR, as it had a nice, growly energy to it, and she seemed confident and was totally feeling it. The first half, however, started like all the other Amanda performances, which is to say warbly and off key, and she seemed to struggle to remember the words at times. Amanda didn’t look so hot tonight, looking older than her age again, like an old Melanie Griffith. It’s like she stayed off the booze for a couple of weeks and started to regain her youth, but fell off the wagon, went on a bender, and got all puffy faced. This is why Paula prefers horse tranqs and Preparation H to the hooch.

Kristy Lee Cook – No crazy eyes tonight, but scrunchy face made an appearance. Reeling off a sleep inducing version of Hide Your Love Away interrupted by frenetic blinking and awkward stances, Kristy basically punched her ticket home tonight. Kristy’s beaded dress was overkill, competing with Paula’s excessively bedazzled number for the most overly sparkly dress of the night. It looked like a mob started to tar and feather Kristy for butchering Eight Days a Week but couldn’t remember where the feathers were and let her go. She looked like Armus the tar monster who killed Tasha Yar in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode entitled Skin of Evil (note that you may need to be a Trekkie to even smirk at this joke, as the only picture of Armus I can find is so non-descript that it’s barely a Separated at Birth). As bad as the dress was, hooking it up with high-heeled cowboy boots (oughta be illegal) should be enough to get her off the show. Speaking of getting off, Kristy told Simon, “I can blow you out of your socks and you know it,” which, if physically possible, may be worth $4,000 to Simon.

David Archuleta – Back to the wholesome part of the blog. David got right back on that horse and sang the hell out of The Long And Winding Road. The timbre of his voice is fantastic, and when he’s on (which, when he’s not forgetting the words, is most of the time), his voice is perfectly in pitch. David barely scooped the last big note – otherwise, he landed spot on to every note. He hit about three or four awesome notes, and my wife was impressed with his breath control at the end of the song, which was a series of long notes and runs. Didn’t cheat any of them. I know some people rankle at the golden boy mantle, but it was impressive any way you slice it. I’ll even overlook the constant licking.

Michael Johns – Quite frankly, as a Beatles fan, I consider Johns’ ADHD arrangement of A Day In The Life a complete and utter travesty. Trying to compress a five and a half minute song down to a minute and a half is already a daunting task – when you spend over 20 seconds going, “Ahhhhhh” (and unimpressively at that), the best you can hope for is that it sounds like a skipping record. Johns had an off night vocally as well – he couldn’t hit the first falsetto note to save his life, and the rest was scratchy and barely passable. Has not lived up to his potential thus far and is losing fans every week.

Brooke White – Let me preface this by saying that I hate Here Comes the Sun. When I was in college, I made a cassette tape of Abbey Road and left off the song. I would skip the song when I moved up to CD’s. I just find it sappy and pointless, pales in comparison lyrically to Lennon and McCartney (it’s actually a George Harrison song), and it’s musically repetitive. As my wife pointed out, the melody in the verses is the same melody in the chorus, and to me, it just drones on ad infinitum. So I can’t say that I was a big fan of Brooke’s performance, which started on the stairs – this is never a god idea, as you have to get up and start walking as you sing, and it’s awkward and distracting. Brooke, of course, multiplied that awkwardness by doing some spastic deadhead hippy twirl (complete with a “whoo!”) then lumbered uncomfortably to the mike, where she proceeded to sway and dance arhythmically, shrugging her shoulders and smiling uncontrollably. There was nothing wrong with her vocals on a technical level, but that song did nothing for me. I got the feeling she picked the song to match her Big Bird dress. The actual worst part was her incessant chattering during and after the judges’ critique. It really became grating.

David Cook – What a douche. David is full of smirks, smug looks, winks, and himself. I find it hard to watch his “rocker” shtick, and a third week of the same formula (monotone pretentiousness, slow tempo, power chords), tired even Simon. The talk box part was ridiculous, as it heaped the pretentiousness and, frankly, was poorly done. Not a big fan of this arrangement of Day Tripper. David wanted to see what he would pull out of his hat this week – I suspect it’s clumps of hair. I mean, there are bald rockers out there (the guy from Live, for instance), but how many rockers have orangutan-like comb overs?

Carly Smithson – I am going to be perfectly frank and mean about Carly. As much as I don’t appreciate her brand of scream-singing and her inability to keep from belting at the top of her lungs, one of the things I really don’t like about watching Carly sing is the part where I have to watch Carly sing. I have come to realize that she’s fugly, and easily the fugliest contestant this year. She a nose wart away from looking like a prototypical witch, and I have to look away when she makes those strained faces when she sings. And yet, I thought that tonight’s rendition of Blackbird, with its quiet tones and softer arrangement could be something worthwhile. Well, I was wrong. The beginning was actually quite boring, and she made even more ugly faces than normal. And then, for no reason other than compulsion, Carly started belting, going out of key, and scooping any note she could find. It sounded like, “Blackbird in the dead of SCOOOOOOOP.” By the end, it was just formless yelling. Typical Carly. Randy’s excessive praise has passed puzzling and has moved into troubling, as in, either something is wrong with his hearing or someone is paying him off. Whatever it is, it is not right. I have to add that Carly’s shirt was the single most hideous shirt I have ever seen. Not just on Idol – I mean ever. Formless and billowy, it looked like maternity wear except much, much less fashionable. The fabric roses screamed, “I have no taste!” It’s the kind of thing that they would refuse to sell on QVC, and they sell insanley ugly shit as it is. The scary part is that even though the red shirt looks like a rayon-poly blend, it and the roses may well be pure silk and cost an insane amount of money. You’re better off investing in Bear Sterns than wasting your money on rubbish like that.

Jason Castro – He looked very uncomfortable singing Michelle. Without a guitar or a chair to sit in, Jason paced awkwardly around the stage, trying hard to look like he was enjoying himself. He didn’t know what to do with his hands or even how to stand still. It was rather standard karaoke, and Jason added nothing to the song.

Syesha Mercado – Again, one of the Idol rules is Cleavage = Desperation. After finding herself in the bottom three last week, Syesha turned to her bosom for some extra votes. I frankly had no idea that her boobs were that big, so I was kind of taken aback at the décolletage. Syesha sang Yesterday, and there is this one line in the song that goes, “I said something wrong now I long for yesterday”. I once heard someone sing this incorrectly as “I said something’s wrong now I long for yesterday”, and the addition of the letter S basically changed the entire meaning of the song – instead of a paean of longing, heartbreak, and regret, the song turns into, “I dunno why – that bitch just left me.” Just for the record, Syesha did indeed sing the correct lyric. But what she didn’t do was give out any genuine emotion – it came across as phony, with excessive brow wrinkling and over-emoting as a substitute for feeling. In the end, it seemed overdone and amateurish, although to her credit she did actually stay in key and resisted the urge to start belting inexplicably like Carly did.

Chickezie – My wife and I are really starting to like Chikezie. At the start, I was sort of disappointed at the slowness of I’ve Just seen a Face, but my wife was digging it and I had to admit he was handling that Luther Vandross crooning thing better than usual. He stopped to blow a harp solo so badly that my 2 year old daughter could have done a better job. Taking a page from last week’s playbook, Chikezie proceeded to change up the tempo and musical style, shifting gears into bluegrass. And then he kicked a lot of ass, singing with confidence, bristling with energy, and doing some sick vocal stuff. Most importantly, he was having fun, and it was infectious. I ended up with a big, goofy grin on my face, and I was quite confused when Randy and Paula were subdued in their reactions and Simon flat out didn’t like it. I mean, I wish that he sung the entire song in the bluegrass style that fits him so well (and left the harmonica backstage), but even that half song was better than most of the other performances combined.

Ramiele Malubay – That was the total suck package right there. What was supposed to be a “fun” rendition of I Should Have Known Better (and if there’s anything you should know better, it’s that “fun” = karaoke), turned into a nightmare melange of weak, off-key vocals, distracting movements, and a few notes that sounded like a bag of drowning cats. It plodded along, lacking energy and conviction, and I was surprised at how bad it was. Also surprising was how bad her outfit was. I know that girlfriend can’t dress herself, but it was a new low for Ramiele’s brand of mismatch fashion, where nothing goes with anything else. The silver hooker shoes, the black parachute pants, the yellow t-shirt, the white hat, and, worst of all, the black corset that reminded me of The Rocky Horror Picture Show – it was a disaster. My wife was absolutely repulsed by it, but I thought Carly’s shirt was still miles worse.