In the interests of full disclosure, let me start by saying I am not a fan of Mariah Carey. I was shocked to learn that she had eighteen #1 songs considering I could only recognize two or maybe three songs I know as hers, and while I understand that a great deal of the appeal is her preternatural voice, the songs that were sung tonight (most of which I had never heard before) really sucked, lacking hooks, interesting melodies, or insightful lyrics. Quite frankly, without the vocal pyrotechnics, there’s not a lot the contestants could do with these songs, which is probably why tonight they collectively sucked hard.

On another note, Ryan’s fauxhawk is getting pointier and higher each week – tonight, it reached TinTin propotions (next stop – Jimmy Neutron). Speaking of whom, Ryan doesn’t seem to know how to put a hat on and Paula needs to comb out that wig before she puts it on. Her “hair” was a mess tonight.

David – Little Davey tried rockin’ some leather pants, and let’s just say the Porkchop doesn’t really have the credibility to pull them off (“chuleta” being Spanish for porkchop). Also, if you are going for the leather pants look, they should be tight and form fitting, not all baggy and wrinkled, looking like Starr Jones’ legs post gastric by-pass and pre-skin resection (yes, I recycled that joke). Perhaps they were hand me downs from Michael Johns (they seemed stretched out enough). While the performance was technically great, with strong runs and a nice fat note in the middle, the beginning part was a bit boring, and the song itself lacked a catchy hook and strong melody. Quite frankly, I couldn’t pick this song out of a line up. The falsetto that Mariah suggested just didn’t work. David only licked his lips once tonight and the loud gasping was almost unnoticeable.

Carly – When Carly isn’t oversinging and trying to murder notes as she did in front of Mariah, her face relaxes and she looks rather pretty. And then she gets on stage and turns into a gorgon. Much like her performance of Blackbird, this one started off pretty and I thought for a fleeting moment that I would actually enjoy one of her performances. And then I realized that she was going to get really loud and it was going to go all to hell. Which is exactly what happened. The second half of the song was just a horrid collection of screechy notes that were frequently off-key, and Carly’s unquenchable thirst for volume above artistry sabotaged a potentially good performance. My wife and I thought that Carly actually screwed up the last note, which was supposed to be one long note but she got confused about where she was in the song, stopped, and then had to start again. There’s something about the way it awkwardly stopped and started and the expressions on her face that gave us the impression that she screwed up. That was easily the best outfit she’s worn all year, partly because it has sleeves to cover up her fugly tats. Once again, cleavage = desperation. Chinese David and Chinese Kristy Lee, meet your new friend Chinese Carly. Ni hao everyone!

Syesha – Once again, Syesha’s dress is able to show off her boobs without showing off any cleavage. I will say that it was a pretty slammin’ outfit, probably the best looking wardrobe choice by anyone all season. Unfortunately, Syesha was not able to come up with a performance to match. The beginning was okay, albeit with some pitch problems. At some point after the chorus, the song turned into a Mariah parody, a mish-mash of pitchy runs and melismatic bombast that reminded me of a Maya Rudolph satire of the genre. Only occasionally (and perhaps accidentally) on-key, I was expecting Sandman Sims to come out and give her the hook (well, maybe not Sandman himself considering he died five years ago, but whoever took his place at the Apollo). The song ended with an awkward moment where Syesha kept staring into the camera even though the song was over. But maybe that was the director’s fault for not cutting away, the same director who keeps cutting to distorted images on the monitors. That stuff just looks stupid.

Brooke – Poor Brooke had to miss her sister’s wedding over the weekend, and the plans to have a cardboard cutout in her place fell through. I thought it would have been apropos since a 5’ 5” piece of cardboard would weigh about as much as Brooke appears to weigh now. Brooke’s dress made her boobs look saggy, which was quite a feat considering the girl doesn’t have any. How sad. Brooke sang one of the few Mariah songs I actually know (and dislike), and even though she seemed to rush the tempo on the piano and misplayed some notes, I liked the beginning of the song, and unlike Randy, I really dug the bridge. But when she hit the final chorus, she began to shake uncontrollably and things went south. She sounded lost and confused and it appeared that she lost her piano “instincts”, but I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment that she lost her nerve. As near as I could tell, she just had a lapse of concentration and the rocky ending marred what could have been a strong performance. I do love it when Brooke plays piano because she plays with one shoe off and I get a chance to marvel at her sasquatch feet. It looks like she’s wearing J.J. Casuals (shoes that look like feet). With those feet and lanky frame, Brooke is turning into a blonde version of Olive Oyl. Brooke really needs to shut the hell up during the judges’ critiques. If you get a compliment, just smile and nod. If not, stop making excuses. The diarrhea of the mouth is maddening.

Kristy Lee – Girl, you gotta learn that when a diva like Mariah Carey says, “I think you did it better than me”, the customary response is, “Mariah, no one does it better than you”. Kristy Lee’s, “Thank you so much!” is not what Mariah expected to hear. It goes without saying that Kristy Lee did not do it better than Mariah, starting with a low part that was so below her range that it was washed out and mumbly and would cut out when it got real low, sounding less Mariah and more Marlee (Matlin, that is). The other parts of the song were okay, and while she did hit a few nice notes, the performance sounded like, “mumble mumble mumble mumble… FOREVER! The sleep singing was back, and at one point it looked like she nodded off in the middle of the song (not that I blame her) and at another, she appeared to be snoring. As if the sleepy faces weren’t distracting enough, Kristy Lee kept busting out this hula dancing move and using her arms to emote (rather than, let’s say, oh, I dunno – her voice). Kristy Lee’s bronze colored toga looked like had been working at Caesar’s Palace Casino as drink girl and continued to show her love of shiny metallic fabrics. Ooh… shiny. One more picture of Kristy Lee dreaming about playing the trumpet.

David – I was able to fight my base instincts and cut through the douchiness that is David Cook to find that his performance was, admittedly, very good, and easily the best of the night. Someone pointed out that David sounds like Darius Rucker from Hootie & the Blowfish, and if you close your eyes, you can picture that goateed, guitar strumming, Tiger Woods looking mofo and it’s 1995 all over again. Is it possible that Hootie & the Blowfish already covered this song? I mean, it really sounds like a Hootie song. David recycled his Annie Hall look from the semi-finals, but his hair looked incredibly fugly back in the day. It’s like he combed his hair with a chuleta. A hairstyle reminiscent of Corky from Life Goes On.

Jason – Like Porkchop, Jason did a good job on a song I could care less about. While Jason’s voice itself is not powerful by any means, Jason’s singing is getting stronger each week, and it appears that he’s putting in more time and effort than he had in the past. Jason didn’t have as many weird faces tonight, but there was one paroxysm of peculiar faces during the bridge. A lot of them reminded me of Adam Sandler from the Waterboy. To paraphrase the immortal words of Bobby Boucher, “Now that’s what I call high quality H₂O THC.”