American Idol -- Top 11

Miley Cyrus is mentoring tonight.  What, Raven Symone was busy?  I sense that I will be using the mute button often tonight.

Lee DeWyze - The Letter – singing it in the style of The Stray Cats (big band/rockabilly).  It’s fine.  I don’t see any reason why he won’t be here next week unless people forget about him because he went first. 

Tim Urban - Crazy Little Thing Called Love – this should please the Vote for the Worst crowd.  I’m not sure it’ll be the worst of the night, but, as the Wife said, “he’s become a caricature of himself.” 

Paige Miles - Against All Odds – ugghh, one of my least favorite songs that someone sings every year, and no one ever does it well.  And Paige is no exception.  I hope this is enough to finally send her home.

Aaron Kelly - I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing – while talking with Not-Wayne-Brady, Aaron admits he has laryngitis.  And he says he’s singing “Aerosmith’s” version of the song, but he’s obviously singing the country cover version of the song.  If Paige wasn’t still in the game, I’d be rooting for him to go home this week.

Crystal Bowersox - Me and Bobby McGee – could she be any more predictable with her song choice?  We get it.   You’re a Lilith Fair, girl-power rocker.  I can see people getting bored with her if she doesn’t challenge herself as an artist.  But she picked a great song, sang it well, so she’s a shoe-in to next week.

(ASIDE:  Kara’s advice for Crystal to put down the guitar next week is idiotic.  She’s a guitar-playing musician who sings well.  Why she’d get away from that is beyond me.  I don’t want her to stop playing the guitar – I sometimes wish everyone had to play an instrument while they sang – I just want her to sing a song that is out of her comfort zone.)

Michael Lynche - When a Man Loves a Woman – great song choice for him (although I prefer the Michael Bolton version).  He sang it well, but was did some weird runs at the end.  He should be on to next week.

Andrew Garcia - I Heard it Through the Grapevine – he’s singing the Marvin Gaye version (which is probably my least favorite version) and Miley suggested he sing without the guitar.  It’s karaoke at best.  I won’t be sad when he’s booted out of the competition.  He was once on top and he’s in a free fall.

Katie Stevens - Big Girls Don’t Cry – (the Fergie version, not the Four Seasons’ version that is the into to Dirty Dancing.)  The first half of the song was an exact mimic of Fergie, but the back half was very pitchy, dawg.  But it was a great song selection on her part.  She should make the Top 10.

Didi Benami - You’re No Good – and Not-Tom-Brokaw mispronounces her name before she sings.  The guy is a jackass.  She picked a lousy song and does nothing relevant with it.  She sings fine, but the performance is lacking anything noteworthy.  But, it’s too early for her to exit the competition (although, that’s what I thought about Lilly and look how that turned out, so who knows).

Casey James - Power of Love – he tells Miley that he likes the “power” and “passion” of the song.  I wonder if that is why Huey Lewis and the News liked it initially.  And I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to enjoy anything the guy sings because I can’t get past his goat-vibrato.  It just grates on me.  And he did fine, but it was a fairly weak performance overall.  Yet he shall survive this week.

Siobhan Magnus – Superstition – my lady gets the pimp spot, but I’m nervous for her with this song choice because, while I have no statistical data to back up this assertion, NO ONE EVER PERFORMS STEVIE WONDER WELL!  Hell, I’m not totally convinced Stevie does Stevie Wonder well.  She sang it straight (no wacky antics) and sounded good.  And just as I typed that last sentence, she went all Adam Lambert with the last 15 seconds of the song.  Odd, but not going home. 

Rather than rank their performances tonight, I’ll rank them in terms of my favorites: 

1.  Siobhan   
2. Crystal  
3.  Lee 
4. Didi 
5. Katie 
6. TIE – Michael, Andrew, Tim, Paige, Aaron, and Casey – I don’t care when these people go home, just so long as they go before any of the above five are booted.