First let me say that I know Idol is a marketing goldmine but the product placement stuff and endless reminders about iTunes and Coke and Apple are getting tedious and very old. My "grades" are in parentheses.

As for last night's revisit to the Beatles songbook, it was woeful and even occasionally awful. On the other hand, Syesha had seemed to be slipping into guaranteed oblivion and she redeemed herself in spades. But how did The Eleven manage to pick almost entirely uninteresting songs and arrangements? I know they have to squeeze their performances into 90 seconds or so but still. Anyway, I thought David Cook and Syesha were amazing; all the rest were pretty bad for me. And when are the contestants going to learn that they shouldn't sass the judges? Who do they think is making their success?? Do they really think they can go from here to 50-year careers without any advice or modifications? Sheesh.

David Cook - 1 - not as good as last week but still really awesome; he's inventive and his voice is just getting better and better; Paula said (lucidly!?) that he's ready to make records and I totally agree; if they let sappy Archuleta win instead of Cook, they'd be foolish because they could have another success like Underwood
Syesha Mercado - 2 - fantastic version of Yesterday; made it seem like she really belonged there; don't know if it was too quiet and sophisticated for the Idol voters but I loved it
David Archuleta - 3 - he's sweet and has a powerful voice but he's too young and the breathy hiss is driving me nuts; I'm completely over him and think/hope he'll be the surprise elmin at some point despite his good voice; he'll have a good career anyway although shouldn't he finish school first being 16 and all
Brooke White - 4 - what was she thinking? ridiculous silly rendition of Here comes the sun, complete with sunny yellow dress; it seemed like a 4-year-old doing the itsy bitsy spider complete with hand gestures when the sun comes out; she's awesome so she's not in any trouble yet but she'd better never such nonsense again
Kristy Lee Cook - 5 - her voice is pretty nice so I hope she hangs around a bit longer and I love her gumption; unfortunately I think the judges are sick of her
Jason Castro - 6 - not as good as that phenomenal Hallelujah but almost nothing would be; I agreed with Simon that Michelle sounded rickyticky; please can't someone convince him to ditch the dreds and grow up just a little? how can he have a career if he's scared of people?
Carly Smithson - 7 - she rubs me totally the wrong way between the self-indulgent whining ("we feel like broken blackbirds who've been freed"? give me a break!) and her frowning and tattoos; the maternity top (no, I don't think it really was) was hideous
Chikeze Eze - 8 - silly although still better than his first week; I didn't get the harmonica at all; he seems like a great guy but I'm not sure what he's doing here
Ramiele Malubay - 9 - she's out of her element except when she's singing; she's babyish about friends and being soothed but she sounds terrific when she sings despite pretty icky songs and arrangements
Michael Johns - 10 - I fear he's past his sell-by date; he looks lovely and has a nice voice but always seems out of sorts; last night he hit a some wrong notes really loudly which is tons worse than forgetting lyrics (for which they excoriated David A.); I might give Michael another week to see if he can pull it together but he's not long for the competition
Amanda - 11 - every song sounds like every other song and it's incredibly annoying not to make out any words; and and her attitude is dreadful - why stay if she hates it so much? and her sassy rebuttal about not being willing to do ballads was stupid, aside from rude, because few will go to shows where someone does the growls loudly and abrasively over and over again ad infinitum; it's time for her to be eliminated

My prediction is that the bottom three will be Amanda, Michael and Kristy and that Michael will be eliminated.

Labels: a.i., a.i.7, reflections, tv