Songs from the year you were born is something of a staple as far as Idol themes go. It’s been done twice before, in Season 4 and in Season 5 (as part of a two-theme week). The results have generally, been, by Idol standards, above average – so how did Tuesday night go?

Let’s just say it went as a pleasant surprise. Only one major disaster (and the producers, bless them, got that out of the way first), plenty of above-average performances, and an outstanding, season-defining effort from David Cook.

Disaster first: Ramiele. Ugh. Alone is a song best left, well, alone. As Gina Glocksen (and anyone else watching last year) learned, anyone doing Alone is inevitably compared to Carrie Underwood. Crashing into a brick wall, repeatedly, at high speed, would have done Ramiele more good than that comparison. Even on its own, though, it wasn’t good. In parts, it almost seemed like Ramiele wanted to displace Syesha as the season’s Designated Shouter.

After that, we have a couple of performances that ranged from fair to almost good, but lacked the flair to put them over into “good” territory. First to fall into this category was Jason Castro. The trouble with this was simple: the performance felt like old hat, like we’ve seen it all before. The Spanish bit in the middle did Jason no favors either. It wasn’t really bad by any means, it just wasn’t terribly interesting.

High-energy Chikezie took a seat this week, to be replaced by R&B Chikezie. Even then, though, the singing was as good as we’ve seen from Chikezie all season long. The problem is Chikezie, when he goes the R&B route, can’t grab people’s attention the way he does with his high-energy numbers. On vocals alone, he was in the top half of the night; on the overall impact, however, he was less impressive.

Last week we slammed David Archuleta fairly hard, and as if on cue he decided not to do a ballad. Is David or his dad reading this? Anyway, David only succeeded in proving our point: David is very ordinary when he’s not doing ballads. He still tends to rely on glory notes and runs even when they’re not fully called for. Simon was pretty accurate (if somewhat exaggerating things) with his critique; the word we’d use was… awkward. It didn’t feel natural in any way.

We’re not American, so Kristy’s song choice didn’t affect us on that level. This was probably her best finals performance… which isn’t saying much, but it is something. She’s right back to her form in the semifinals: she’s never the worst of the night, but she is pretty close. The song choice probably helped her get some votes the singing didn’t really deserve. Call it what you want – cynical, brilliant, etcetera – but the one thing that can’t be doubted is it worked.

Carly is really in the Twilight Zone – better than fair, but not quite good enough to be good, either. First of all, her vocals were nowhere as sharp as we’ve seen from her before. She didn’t sound quite in control of her power, to the point that she sounded like she was shouting in some parts. Carly usually has better control than that; it’s possible that her bottom three stint last week shook her confidence a bit. Still, we disagree with Randy – this was a good song choice for her; she has exactly the kind of big, powerful voice the song needs. Chalk it up to nerves and worry over her bottom three appearance last week.

Then we have three good-quality performances. Not quite showstoppers, but fairly close. Syesha is shaping up to be the best of the non-frontrunners, even if she doesn’t have much chance of cracking the top six. Randy was right; this was the best performance we’ve seen from her. She still has a tendency to overdo the power notes, but she doesn’t sound anywhere as screechy as she did in the past. Well done.

We’ll dissent from the rest of the Idol punditocracy when it comes to Brooke. A lot of people are saying she should not have brought the band in for the second half of the song. We disagree – for strategic reasons. If she had stayed with just the piano for the entire song, it would have been very similar to Let It Be style-wise. You don’t want to be boxed in like that. As we said last week, Brooke needed to figure out how to do uptempo songs well – and that second half was the best we’ve seen her go uptempo. She’s in the process of rounding out her musical arsenal. Brooke lost a little this week to try and win the whole war. Even then, though, we liked this one a lot. An impressive way of bouncing back from last week.

The last single-person medley we remember was Katharine McPhee butchering Elvis back in Season Five, so we were a little skeptical of how Michael Johns would do. We’ll give him credit: his Queen medley was very good. For the first time since this season, he gave a performance that made us actually pay attention and say “Wow”, instead of just nodding and saying “that was alright.” Good vocals, excellent stage presence – that was as good as any Queen performance on the Idol stage.

Last, but definitely not the least, was David Cook. His version of Billie Jean was not only the moment of the night, it was the performance of the season to date. It had everything you could ask for in a performance: song choice, arrangement, vocals, emotional connection, stage presence – everything was excellent. It will take some top-notch singing, and luck, for anyone to match what David did this week. It’s a bit early to say so, but we’ll say it: David made his case this week for being at least in the final four, if not the finale.

The exception, not the rule: With the rest of the punditocracy waking up to what we’ve been saying for a while – that David Cook is a legitimate frontrunner – an old argument has suddenly surfaced, with David’s name attached to it. The argument, in effect, is this: that he doesn’t need to win; all he does is place well. A sub-argument is that, in fact, winning would be bad for David, because rock music would never welcome an Idol winner.

Let’s take this down in two parts. First: “David doesn’t need to win: look at Chris Daughtry.” The trouble is Chris Daughtry was the beneficiary of unique circumstances that make him an exception to the rule. Two words: Taylor Hicks. In no other season have the Idol PTB been less pleased with their winner. Chris (and, to a lesser extent, Kat and Elliott) both benefited from that fact. Besides Chris, one is hard-pressed to find a non-winner who did better than their season’s eventual winner. Chris was the product of such unique circumstances that you can’t use him as an example and extrapolate out to other cases.

Second: “Rock will never accept an Idol winner.” That may be true of some parts of the rock genre, but as a genre “rock” is now so wide that doesn’t matter much. David Cook, if he wins, will have an audience. Some will reject him for his Idol heritage, but enough won’t. To hammer home the point, let’s do this thought exercise: rewind back about three years and replace “rock” with “country”. Carrie may now be the toast of Nashville, but keep this in mind: her Idol single, Inside Your Heaven, was not a success on the country charts. On the pop charts, it was, but not in country. It took a good album that was legitimately country to win Nashville over.

If David Cook wins, and produces a quality rock album, he’ll find his success. Unfortunately, given the Idol track record when it comes to debut albums, that’s easier said than done.

Stop the arm-waving: We don’t always agree with Simon, but on this one topic we can agree. Can someone please stop with the silly arm-waving? In this EW interview, Simon’s already spoken out against the arm-wavers. We agree. It makes for bad TV – personally, we find it distracting from the singers when someone’s arms are moving through the whole width of the screen.

If they’re not going to stop the arm-waving, can they at least wave in the same direction? More than once we’ve seen half of the audience moving one way, the other half another. Check out Brooke’s performance for the evidence. If that isn’t distracting – both to us and the singers themselves – we don’t know what is.

Just for the heck of it: Everyone agrees that song choice is vital on Idol. Still, though, aren’t there times when you think “I wonder how they’d do with (insert name of song)?” If you don’t, well, it’s just proof that we think too much about Idol. But, anyway, here are our picks for “Songs That Would Be Interesting To Hear” from some of the Top 10. Note, of course, that we offer no assurances these would be good song choices. Nor are we actually saying the remaining contestants should actually use these song choices. But they’d be interesting, at the very least. (Thanks should go to bbnbama, who pointed us in the right direction for some of these picks when we ran out of ideas.)

1. Brooke White: Searchin’ My Soul. If the title isn’t familiar to you, here’s a hint: the song became famous on Ally McBeal. Brooke hasn’t fully figured out how to do uptempo material yet, but something from Vonda Shepard might do the trick – and, at the very least, it would be interesting to hear.

2. Carly Smithson: Tell Him. Idol pundits love to make fun of Celine Dion, but the one sure thing is she has a powerful voice. Carly, at top form, might be able to pull Celine off. Certainly, she’s got the power to do so. Her best shot might be this relatively unknown duet with Barbra Streisand.

3. Chikezie: Play That Funky Music. Longtime viewers may remember that Taylor Hicks did this song back in Season 5. Say what you will, but Taylor and Chikezie are two of the most high-energy performers to ever make it on the Idol stage. A duet would occur at roughly the same time that Paula achieves full sobriety, but wouldn’t that be an interesting two minutes of television?

4. Jason Castro: Hey There Delilah. Something like this Plain White T’s song would be right in Jason’s zone. The challenge for Jason would be to take a relatively recent song (it was #1 on the iTunes music store for most of July 2007) and make it his own. It would be an interesting test of not just his vocals and emotional connection, but his all-around performing ability.

5. Ramiele Malubay – Put Your Records On. Ramiele needs to learn that trying to go for power notes as her bread and butter is a mistake, not with Carly and Syesha in the mix. She needs to change gears and do something less vocally ambitious like this Corinne Bailey Rae song. Still, there is one caveat: Corinne Bailey Rae has only been done once on Idol – by Antonella Barba. It was also Antonella’s last song.

6. David Cook – Big Yellow Taxi. The original is by Joni Mitchell, but the more interesting version would be the Counting Crows one. It’s not nearly as “edgy” as most rockers on Idol like, but it would be interesting to hear David’s take on this. Bonus question: who does the Vanessa Carlton backing vocals?

7. Michael Johns – Accidentally in Love. Once again, we reach into the Counting Crows songbook for this song, which also appears on the Shrek 2 soundtrack. Why this song? So far, all of Michael’s song choices have tended towards the serious. We’d like to see how Michael can do with a less serious one.

8. Kristy Lee Cook – Can’t Fight The Moonlight. Like our pick for Michael Johns, this one also comes from a movie soundtrack – 2000’s Coyote Ugly. Why? First, it should suit Kristy reasonably well – the original was by LeAnn Rimes, so it’s not far off her comfort zone. Secondly, we’ve noticed that since her Eight Days a Week fiasco Kristy’s facial expressions make her look either sleepy or bored. That won’t work here. Would it be a trainwreck? Probably, but it would be an interesting one.

9. Syesha Mercado – When You Believe. The Unholy Trinity of singing divas, as far as Idol pundits are concerned, are Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston. Having already hit Celine with Carly’s pick, let’s give Syesha this two-divas-for-the-price-of-one-special. Yep, it’s the 1998 duet between Whitney and Mariah (also, coincidentally, off a movie soundtrack.) If she can do this song well without resorting to screaming, then the “Screamesha” tag might have a chance of stopping.

10. David Archuleta – Come Fly With Me. Depending on your age, you might be more familiar with the 1958 Frank Sinatra original or the 2003 Michael Bublé cover. Genre-wise, while it isn’t exactly in David’s favored area, it’s not as far off as We Can Work It Out or You’re The Voice. The challenge is very similar to Jason’s: can he take a song strongly identified with not one, but two good singers and make it his own?

The Idol Power Rankings: Not an awful lot changed in the order of the Power Rankings, but here’s something that the order doesn’t reveal. The gaps between the contestants are both shrinking and increasing. What do we mean? Our top two picks are starting to pull away from the rest of the field, while the midfield is getting bunched up. The laggards, meanwhile, stay right in the cellar and show no clear signs of life. Remember: this chart is not about artistic merit; it’s all about whether they’re likely to go far or not.

1. David Cook (Last week: 1)
The only bad part of being so good so early in the competition is he’ll be under even more pressure than normal to do well in the later stages than usual, to show he “hasn’t peaked early”. That’s the only possible fly in the ointment for David.

2. Brooke White (Last week: 2)
As we said earlier, Brooke now appears to be at least on the way to solving her uptempo song problem. If she does, and with all the attention and hype focused on the rest of the field, Brooke could fly under the radar and make it all the way into the finale.

3. Carly Smithson (Last week: 3)
She’s still in third, but don’t let the placing fool you. David and Brooke are pulling away, and Carly did not look on form this week. She needs to take it up another notch – but can she?

4. Michael Johns (Last week: 6)
Finally, Michael lived up to all the hype around him and turned in an excellent performance. However, his climb up the chart was also helped by the stumbles of those on top. How will Michael handle country week? He has to prove his Queen medley was not a flash in the pan.

5. David Archuleta (Last week: 5)
We know ballads and a fanbase of hormone-driven teens will get David far. Can it make him an Idol winner? We have our doubts. All this week told us is: he hasn’t showed the kind of improvement that others have.

6. Jason Castro (Last week: 4)
Jason’s chances of getting very far are looking, well, fragile. He has been boxed in, style-wise – each Jason Castro performance is sounding eerily similar to the last one. This is not a recipe for winning over new voters – as his bottom three placing indicates.

7. Ramiele Malubay (Last week: 9)
Her promotion has nothing to do with her singing. It’s all about her fanbase – if they could keep her out of the bottom three even with the disaster that was Alone, one has to respect their combined voting power.

8. Kristy Lee Cook (Last week: 10)
Once Kristy managed to return to her country roots, she managed to escape the bottom three. Even better for her: she can stay right in her comfort zone for another week. She’s probably safe next week, but beyond that her prospects are still bleak.

9. Syesha Mercado (Last week: 7)
If it were just performances we grade on, Syesha would be far higher. However, her two stints in the bottom three are not reassuring. If that was what a “breakout moment” gets, what will an average (or worse) song get?

The Many Faces of Chikezie: From a pure technical perspective, this was Chikezie’s best week, but also his last. That’s not supposed to happen, but it did. So why did it happen?

Chikezie’s exit comes down to two things: inconsistency, and, again, an unclear musical identity. Chikezie could never decide whether he was High-Energy Chikezie or R&B Chikezie. High-Energy Chikezie was just an average singer, but an excellent performer. R&B Chikezie turned out to be an above-average singer, but bored people at home. That’s not to say he couldn’t do both. Taylor Hicks proved you can go both fast and slow, and still go far. However, Chikezie he had to be damn sure he was equally at home with either style. He just wasn’t.

The ultimate result was Chikezie could never build the fanbase you need to get far on Idol. He couldn’t get a genre-based fanbase, nor was he good enough to win over uncommitted voters. With a weak fanbase, he was in trouble with just an okay performance. Weaker singers had stronger fanbases; Ramiele’s might be as fanatical as the Sanjaya fans ever were, and Kristy strengthened hers by going back to her country roots and a shrewd song choice.

The ultimate takeaway from Chikezie’s exit? It’s not enough to be a good singer, which Chikezie was (at least, at the very end). Intangibles – charisma, likability, the “X factor”, they all count too. Chikezie didn’t have the whole package, which is why he left despite a good performance.

The NFL likes to promote the idea of parity, where one team can beat any other on any given Sunday. Well, parity hit the Idol stage hard this week. Last week, we were pleasantly surprised that the top 12 pulled off the Lennon-McCartney songbook fairly well; it turned out that Beatles on Idol 2 was, like most sequels, not as good as the original.

Normally, we like to rank all the performances from the good to the bad, but with the relatively even field this week we’ll skip that. Let’s just go over it in chronological order.

Amanda was handicapped by a band that was a bit too loud, but maybe we folks at home should be thankful for that. She doesn’t have the vocals to just “rock out” any song; and Back in the USSR was not all that suited for her voice. She’s a good performer – her stage presence is pretty good – which is really the only thing that kept this number watchable.

As for Kristy, anything would have been an improvement from last week. Still, you have to wonder if the experience affected her mentally. You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away was the most lifeless, please-send-me-home performance we’ve seen in a while.

David Archuleta bounced back from his performance last week with yet another highly stylized song along the lines of his earlier Imagine. Was The Long And Winding Road that good? No. We didn’t feel David connected as well with this song as with Imagine. On its own, however, it was a good performance. The song choice was good, and the vocals were the usual top-notch quality. This was enough to give him the performance crown for the guys tonight. It’s hard to feel excited, though, because this wasn’t exactly something we haven’t seen before.

Michael Johns’s favorite moment was his Bohemian Rhapsody performance – which was just as well, because that was better than his version of A Day In The Life. With Michael, it’s never about the quality of the singing. That’s pretty good, even if his range is a little limited. However, as before, the performance did nothing to make Michael stand out in the crowd. Michael is something like a German sports car: he gets you musically from point A to point B in style and in speed, but there’s no feeling of risk, or excitement, or… anything, really.

We can sort of see where Brooke was going with Here Comes The Sun. She doesn’t want to be boxed in style-wise, so she decided to mix it up a little with an uptempo song. As strategy, it wasn’t bad – but the execution was flawed, to say the least. Given the limited list they could probably pick from, this was not the right week to mix it up. It’s a close call whether this was her worst performance or Happy Together.

If Brooke was at the more experimental end of the spectrum, David Cook was at the ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it end. This didn’t really break the mold in any way – yes, he brought out the voice box, but that was about it. The whole package just gave off the feel of trying too hard and being unnatural.

Carly easily had the best performance of the night. It wasn’t as impressive an overall performance as Come Together, but vocally it was actually better. Carly can hit the power with the best of them – we’ve known that since Day 1 – but she showed us a different side vocally. When she wants to be controlled and subtle she’s not bad at it either. The song choice was not ideal, but all in all it was the best of the night.

Jason’s bread and butter on Idol is connecting emotionally with his songs. If he can’t do that, he can’t rely on his vocals alone to carry him. So what happened? Just as last week we learned what happens to David Archuleta when things go wrong, this week it was Jason’s turn. What he does is to do this strange sort of pained smile. It’s Jason’s equivalent of the Manning Face. It’s like he’s thinking, “what am I doing singing this song?”, but he can’t exactly show that annoyance and disgust live on the Idol stage.

Syesha was a pleasant surprise in a night of disappointments. Gratuitous glory notes aside, this was actually a good performance. She won’t be mistaken for a “control” singer like Brooke any time soon, but it was okay. By the standards of the night, that was more than what we expected.

In a night of strange performances, Chikezie’s version of I’ve Just Seen A Face took the cake. Or should that be versions? It was almost like having two performances in one – which is not all that good a thing. It wasn’t really poorly done, but the reaction this left was “huh?”

Finally, we have Ramiele. This, too, was strange in its own way. Ramiele was probably trying to break the “I can only sing slow ballads” stereotype. Like Brooke, however, it didn’t work all that well. It’s hard to pinpoint where exactly this didn’t work; maybe it was the hat or the arrangement (which, to us, sounded like a half-baked uptempo arrangement), but either way… not good. On the flip side, Ramiele’s vocals were reasonably good. Not outstanding, but more confidence-inspiring than last week’s show. Time may be running out for her, however.

Theme song of the night: Sometimes, the Idol gods work in strange and mysterious ways. Really, Ramiele’s choice of I Should Have Known Better was the theme song of the night. The Idol Powers-That-Be should have known better than to, in effect, do the same theme twice in a row. Yes, they weren’t technically the same, but they might as well have been.

There’s actually a pretty good reason why the same theme two weeks in a row is a bad idea. The pressure to improve every week is significant. With a well-received first week, the temptation with a “familiar” theme is to either switch up styles (hello, Ms. White!) or do what is essentially a rehash (hiya, Mr. Cook.) On the other hand, with an unfamiliar theme, smart contestants will change things up enough to make things interesting but still follow the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

The Left Hand Not Knowing What The Right Is Doing Department: Maybe somebody can check back how many times our judges have said how vast the Lennon-McCartney and/or Beatles songbook is, but we know Randy said so at least once this week. Uh, reality check, Mr. Jackson. They don’t have the whole songbook at their disposal; what they do have is a far more limited selection. Either Randy is clueless, or thinks we’re all naive sheeple who don’t know the truth. Neither is all that comfortable a thought.

Frontrunner? What frontrunner?: We’ll get to the details of the weekly Power Rankings later on, but first let’s tackle one thing. Why have we not granted David Archuleta the top spot in our rankings? Mention this season to Idol pundits and they will all generally agree that David is a frontrunner this season. As a rough indicator, look at the number of pages Google brings up:

1. “David Archuleta” frontrunner – 37,100 pages
2. “David Cook” frontrunner – 18,100 pages
3. “Carly Smithson” frontrunner – 4,250 pages
4. “Brooke White” frontrunner – 3,860 pages

Based on the numbers, and what we’re reading from the rest of the Idol pundit community, we are practically alone in not giving David this status. It’s a big, big tide of Conventional Wisdom we’re swimming against.

Our basic trouble with David is this. You might be tired of us harping on “musical identity” practically every week, but we have to. We think is that important. Out of all the singers to make it into the finale, there are only two good cases of not having a musical identity (Justin Guarini and Diana DeGarmo), but given the circumstances of their respective seasons, they can be considered as exceptions to the rule.

We’ve seen some steps of David moving towards establishing his musical identity, but what we do see is not completely encouraging. Imagine, Another Day In Paradise, now The Long and Winding Road – see the similarities? As done by David, all powerful ballads with something of a throwback feel. He’s had exactly one good performance that didn’t fit this description, and that was back in the top 24 – which might as well be ancient history.

Now, let’s step back a moment. Teenage singer, best at power ballads, talented as heck but no clear musical identity. Where have we seen this before? Oh right, last year! This was from last year’s Top 4 Idol Guy column:

Another problem we have with her is this curious disconnect between her singing and non-singing personas. Like most teenagers, she has this bubbly, energetic personality. Yet when she goes out to sing, she’s at her best with the slower, older songs. … What happens to her when it’s time to start recording the album? With most Idol contestants, we know what they’re going to sound like when they cut an album. … It’ll be interesting to see what the end result will be.

What does this almost year-old description of Jordin Sparks have to do with David? The same contradictions that existed with her are in the making for David – if anything, it’s worse, because youth is a much bigger part of David’s package than Jordin’s. It might not be a problem within Idol – his fanbase might put him in the finale, might even make him win – but post-Idol it will be.

You can bet TPTB do not want a repetition of Season Six, particularly on the commercial side. A David Archuleta win would practically be asking for it. His ability to sell records post-Idol is, to us, questionable. It’s quite likely that TPTB know this perfectly well, too.

One could ask, then, why is David getting “pimped” fairly heavily? David is undoubtedly talented and is a reasonably interesting personality to boot. He’s also got a well-established fanbase that will be catered to – they’ll buy the singles on iTunes, go out and see the Idol tour, etcetera. As a business, it makes perfect sense.

Down the road, however, the pimpage is going to stop. TPTB do not want a repetition of the Jordin Sparks fiasco. Yes, he’s talented, but the overall package just isn’t enough. Something… strange is bound to happen. It could be a lousy theme, or songs that mysteriously don’t clear, harsh words from Simon… you get the idea.

One more thing. People assume that he has a tween fanbase just because of his age and appearance. We’re not convinced of that. Is this really the sort of image that fangirls will swoon over? We admit the behavior of hormone-driven fangirls is not really something we claim expertise in, but we have a hard time imagining people swooning over David.

Will David go far? Yes; no one is doubting that. But is he the far-and-away frontrunner, the way Mainstream Media and the punditocracy love to say he is? No. Not by any means. Besides, somebody should ask Melinda Doolittle how much good the “frontrunner” tag did for her.

Here, have some salt: We were a little surprised to see Carly in the bottom three. However, we should take her supposed “placing” with a huge grain of salt. Why?

Last year, if you may recall, we had sources that claimed the “bottom 3″ wasn’t always the actual bottom 3 in the votes, going so far as to provide the actual vote order. If that was the case last season, it’s quite possible that the same thing is going on this time.

Assuming for the moment that manipulation of the bottom three is going on, the question becomes: why? Here’s our theory. Let us know if we need to start wearing tinfoil.

Maybe Carly is not doing as well in the groupings as TPTB want – she could be, say, right in the middle, when they’d prefer her to be in the upper third. A contestant in the bottom three who isn’t eliminated is actually at something of an advantage: their fans, knowing that their favorite is in danger, goes off to vote with increased vigor. So, wanting to boost Carly, they decide to put her in the “bottom three”.

On the other hand, Carly might well be in the bottom three legitimately. Drawing conclusions from the punditocracy and expanding that to the Idol voting class generally is something that may or may not work, so all disclaimers apply. Within the punditocracy, however, there are lots of commenters who recognize Carly’s talent, but just haven’t warmed up to her so far.

For Carly it’s a no-lose scenario in the short term, but more worrying over the long run. Her fanbase will be energized now, but the fact that it had to be boosted is something that might hurt her chances. She should keep this in mind. The last Idol winner to end up in a bottom three or two scenario along the way: Fantasia Barrino. The last three winners from Carrie Underwood onwards have never been in danger of going home.

The Idol Power Rankings: We’re fond of saying American Idol is not won or lost in a week, and this week is a perfect example of that. A couple of shakeups here and there, but the overall picture remains the same. Syesha is the big gainer, with an above-average performance and low expectations promoting her a few spots. Carly’s bottom three stint drags her down a bit, but she’s still firmly in the top half of the group.

1. David Cook (Last week: 1)
His performance this week may not have won him any new fans, but it probably didn’t cost him any either. In the absence of any strong challenges from anyone else, we still like his chances.

2. Brooke White (Last week: 3)
Yes, despite an off week Brooke moves up a place. However, that has more to do with Carly’s stumbles than anything she did. She needs to figure out how to do uptempo songs properly eventually, however.

3. Carly Smithson (Last week: 2)
As we said above, the “bottom 3″ stint is worrying for Carly. We asked last week if Carly could build a “deep and committed fanbase”. The answer, so far, is she hasn’t. Vocally, she’s talented enough that she should make it pretty far but Carly is all of a sudden looking vulnerable.

4. Jason Castro (Last week: 4)
The only people who loved his song this week were probably people named Michelle. Still, he did enough to keep his place. A Hallelujah-level performance would have moved him up, however.

5. David Archuleta (Last week: 6)
He recovered well from his flub last week. Longer term, though…

6. Michael Johns (Last week: 5)
Yet another well-sung cover… with zero personal input from Michael. If he really wants to prove he didn’t peak in Hollywood, then he should show us. So far, in his five chances… he hasn’t.

7. Syesha Mercado (Last week: 9)
With a top half of the finalists being pretty much entrenched in their spots, Syesha is the best of the rest – for now. We’re not sure there’s really any more room for improvement, however.

8. Chikezie (Last week: 8 )
Even though he had a strange number this week, Chikezie is an okay singer – which is better than you can say for some of the rest of the field.

9. Ramiele Malubay (Last week: 11)
The good: she has a strong fanbase that bailed her out again this week. The bad: she still can’t pick a song to save her life.

10. Kristy Lee Cook (Last week: 10)
There’s one consolation for Kristy. There’s only one way to go: up.

Just like the USSR: Maybe singing about a country that’s been dead for the better part of two decades wasn’t such the best idea, because just like the Soviet Union Amanda ended up in the trash bin.

For Amanda, her success was always reliant on song choice. When she found a song that used her gravelly, growling voice she could shine. Otherwise, though, she was bad. Ultimately, though, her appeal was limited to a small niche that could only take her so far – she had limited crossover appeal, at best. To be honest, we’re a little surprised that she was on the verge of making the tour. Then again, with the likes of Kristy still in it, maybe she should have.

More often than not, theme nights feature themes so frequently recycled, even the worst tree-hugging hippie would be satisfied. To mark the new set, however, our top 12 got a chance to open the Lennon-McCartney song book. Uh oh.

Most of the top 12 turned in respectable performances. The only real disaster was Kristy, whose country version of Eight Days a Week will be long remembered – for all the wrong reasons. (However, we’re not sure she deserves all of the blame. More below.) We did have, however, four good performances that in themselves covered the spectrum pretty well. It wasn’t a brilliant night, but it was by no means bad.

Let’s get the train wreck out of the way first. Eight Days a Week will forever be recorded in the pages of Idol history as the worst performance of a Beatles song possible. However, is it really Kristy’s fault? Let’s consider. Her vocals, while not outstanding, weren’t bad at all. They were typical Kristy – not good, but not bad. The real trouble was in the arrangement. It was terrible, no two ways about it. It was all cheesy, overdone, ridiculous tripe that was more at home in a Bugs Bunny cartoon than the Idol stage. Kristy isn’t really responsible for that, is she? As far as arrangements are concerned, the buck stops with Rickey Minor. He’s “Musical Director”. That arrangement should never have left the rehearsals, plain and simple.

David Archuleta should be sending flowers to both Kristy and Rickey, because otherwise his lyric-flubbed version of We Can Work It Out would have been the most remembered “lowlight” of the week. He basically lost it this week. For his fans, it may not be a particularly good sign: many good contestants have off nights, but rarely do they descend to the level David did this week. If everything goes his way, he’s brilliant. But if something goes wrong – forgotten lyrics, bad song choice, faulty arrangement – he goes to pieces.

Beyond those two, we have some performances that the best word to use would be… flawed. David Hernandez was the epitome of “trying too hard”, even if he has a reasonably good voice. Syesha was forgettable, doing very little to make her stand out. Without the power notes we’ve heard from her before, Syesha is rather dull. As for Ramiele, she continues her “tradition” of lousy song choices. She’s not as genre-locked as Kristy is, surely there was something better than this. It would have been intriguing to see Jason or Brooke do a version of In My Life, but Ramiele? No. No, no, hell no.

The next rung up would be “okay”. We also have three people in that group this week. Jason did a reasonably good version of If I Fell, but the vocals were a little rough in places. He also needs to be careful not to box himself in too much. Michael delivered more of the what we expect from him: a good cover, extremely well done, but not much in the way of originality. Amanda found a good song to growl her way through this week, but just like Jason and Michael, we’ve seen this before.

Then we have four high-quality performances. Let’s start with Brooke. It would have been easy to overdo Let It Be, but she didn’t. Her vocals were spot on; she didn’t put in unnecessary flourishes, and there was nary a bum note to be found. She did this while conveying the emotion of the song perfectly. Excellent. David Cook may not please rock purists, but on Idol that doesn’t matter much. Another superb performance keeps him right on top of the pile. The same could be said for Carly; Simon finally liked her enough to compare her to Kelly Clarkson. That may well be a little premature, but right now her vocal form is as good as anyone else’s.

And then we have the biggest surprise of the night. Chikezie. Who knew he could pull that off? Where was the guy who specialized in slow, cheesy ballads? He was as good as anyone else this week. The vocals were okay, the stage presence was there, and rarely has the Idol stage seen anyone perform with that kind of energy. Well done.

It looks good, but…: We have to say something about this new stage. We’ve got no idea how much it cost, but it does look brilliant. More importantly, it’s more friendly to audience interaction than the old one ever was, with the new mosh pit. If the producers are smart, they’ve also widened the space between seats a little – in previous seasons, it was pretty obvious that contestants starting out in the audience tended to feel just a bit crowded.

But – there is always a but – we hope that the stage sounds as good as it looks. The one thing we’re not sure about the new set is the band: it’s very unusual, if not unheard of, to have the band up above the stage they way Idol did. At the very least, it’s not how things are usually done. For a TV show, of course, this makes perfect sense: if you want something to be seen, put it out in full view. However, sound-wise that may or may not be a good idea. Certainly, Kristy’s lack of coordination with the band makes us wonder. Given the well-established differences between how the Idols sound in person and on the TV screen, we could also expect a season full of even stranger than usual comments from Randy, Paula, and Simon. Oh, boy.

Here we go again: Sometimes we feel that even though Idol is a multi-million dollar enterprise it’s run by people with IQs approximately their age. How else could we explain the news that, once again, the song choice is artificially limited? Our top 12 singers had a grand total of 25 songs to choose from. Let that number sink in. Now, to put it in terms that Simon, Nigel, and all the other Brits behind Idol would understand: are you taking the piss? Didn’t you learn anything from the multitude of bad song choices just a few weeks ago? Are you all suffering from mad cow disease?

The Idol Power Rankings: We’ve already gone over how well the contestants did this week. However, Idol is not won or lost on the strength of one week alone. How go this week’s power rankings?

Our top 4 remained unchanged. Most of the movement is in the lower rungs, thanks to David Archuleta’s sudden vulnerability and Chikezie’s surprise appearance. Keep this in mind, however: the bottom half is very close together. In any given week, anyone could go home.

1. David Cook (Last week: 1)
Another great performance keeps David in the top spot. He even got the “you could win this” speech from Simon, which is saying something. However, praise like that can be double-edged. Being perceived as an early frontrunner is something of a double-edged sword. Once you’ve been proclaimed as such, you’re now expected to perform at a higher level than everyone else. Is David up to it?

2. Carly Smithson (Last week: 2)
That was fast. Last week, we said it was only a matter of time before Carly could win Simon over. Like David Cook, she got the frontrunner praise from Simon, this time in the form of a comparison to Kelly Clarkson. The question is now: can she build the deep and committed fanbase needed to run all the way to the finale?

3. Brooke White (Last week: 3)
Quite a few people wondered why we put Brooke ahead of Jason in last week’s rankings. Well, this week showed us why: Jason is a slightly better vocalist, but Brooke makes up for it with her superior musical intelligence. Let It Be was a perfect demonstration of that. If she can keep making good song choices and not get screwed by a silly theme, she should still do well.

4. Jason Castro (Last week: 4)
Jason is brilliant at conveying the emotion of his songs, but he has to be careful. You can’t do the same thing for 12 straight weeks and expect to win. He’s good at what he does, but if Jason doesn’t watch out he runs the risk of being called a one-trick pony. He’s safe – for now, but long term there are problems.

5. Michael Johns (Last week: 6)
Michael goes up a spot largely because other people screwed up badly. Our verdict from last week is unchanged. He is the most polished contestant in this group, but he doesn’t have the presence or personality to win. Right now, though, that’s enough to bump him up a spot.

6. David Archuleta (Last week: 5)
His misstep this week did show him up a little. He has yet to convince us he’s anything more than a supremely talented voice. His tweens will keep him in it for a while, but win it all? No.

7. Amanda Overmyer (Last week: 11)
Hey, what do you know? Amanda can sing after all. Hopefully, this means Carry On Wayward Son was just an exceptional bad off day. How far she goes depends on the theme and available song list. Still, for now, you could do worse. A lot worse.

8. Chikezie (Last week: 12)
What do you know? Chikezie could sing after all. Now, he needs to do something he hasn’t so far: put together two good weeks in a row. Still, one performance can provide a well-needed shot in the arm for someone’s confidence.

9. Syesha Mercado (Last week: 10)
What was that we were saying about Syesha being one-dimensional? Well, we have to say: we were right. Again. At the rate she’s going, she’ll be out of our lives sooner rather than later. Can she pull off a Chikezie-like recovery? Maybe, but we’re not holding our breath. Still, a stint in the bottom three does wonders for exciting a fanbase.

10. Kristy Lee Cook (Last week: 7)
Last week, we compared Kristy to Kellie Pickler. This week, though, Kristy proved she’s no Kellie: the Pickler was never in the bottom three in any week before getting eliminated. Still, she might not go home right away: the themes can only get better for her, and her fan base – what’s left of it – will be energized, like Syesha’s.

11. Ramiele Malubay (Last week: 9)
Ramiele’s best song was in the first week. If that’s not a sign of how much trouble she’s in, we don’t know what is. Her song choices have been so bad, she could probably make better choices by picking randomly from the approved song list. With the other fanbases energized by their bottom 3 stay, Ramiele’s might take it easy. Barring major improvement, she’s in the hot seat.

Don’t blame the scandal: Losing David Hernandez this early was something of a surprise, and some are blaming it on his “sex scandal”, if you can call it that. What do we think? Uh, maybe, but it was far from the only reason. Elliot Spitzer he isn’t.

Mid-game boots – and you can consider the top 12 to be the start of the mid-game – are determined mostly by one thing: fanbases, fanbases, fanbases. How do you build one? There’s no simple answer, but the one thing that can be said is David didn’t. One key step is simple: distinguish yourself. You need to establish your “musical identity” early on. David didn’t. For all her faults, you know what you’re getting with Kristy Lee Cook: a country singer. Same could be said for most of the other contestants. David? You knew he had a good voice, but you never exactly knew what kind of singer he was.

That’s not to say having an identity crisis is instantly fatal out of the gate. However, David chose a bad time to be bad. The fans of singers worse than him – Kristy, maybe Ramiele – got energized. They knew their favorite was in trouble, and voted like mad. If you have a good, established fanbase, you don’t need to worry about that so much. David, however, didn’t. Did the scandal make a difference? It’s hard to say. It might have tipped a few votes away from him, but had he stood out more pre-top 12 he wouldn’t have been in a position where that would have made a difference.

The theme this week was the 80s, and all the embarrassments of that notable decade. Even the producers chimed in, bringing back Blake Lewis for a performance that could be considered embarrassing. Now, did the contestants join in this orgy of things we’d rather not remember?

Thankfully, it wasn’t. We were spared the strange song choices of the top 20, although it was replaced by traces of over-ambition. Overall, though, both performance nights were quite enjoyable. It’s a welcome change from the two previous weeks, where one gender brought their A game, but the other sung about as well as the New York Knicks play basketball.

There were plenty of standout performances on the guy’s side of the equation. To be fair, just about everyone (except Luke and Danny) were acceptable, and many of those were quite good.

The prize for top performance of the night has to go to David Cook. If someone ever made up an Idol wiki, David Cook would be in the “make a song your own” category. It was a thoroughly complete performance. You could not ask for anything more from David; he definitely took his music up to the next level. Well done.

The other real highlight for the guys was Jason Castro. We asked, all the way back in the top 24, if Jason could sing without the guitar. Last week left us convinced, but this time he left few doubters. Jason doesn’t have the big vocals to match up with the very best, but he makes up for it with good control and an uncanny ability to convey the emotions of the song, as he did with Hallelujah.

Michael Johns, David Archuleta, and David Hernandez all turned in fairly good performances in their own right. Michael is highly experienced, and it definitely shows. His performances have the most “professional” feel, and he has the kind of experience to turn anything into something worth listening too. David Archuleta came down a bit from Imagine, but the singing was spot on. As for David Hernandez, it was something of an odd song choice – Celine Dion – but it worked fairly well. The reason they’re below David and Jason, however, is that none of them really took chances and raised their game the way the two did. “Safe” would be a fair adjective to use, particularly for Michael and David Archuleta.

We had five good performances, but it all couldn’t be good. Chikezie was good last week, but went right back to the dairy product this time around. To his credit, it was decently sung, but overall it was a good time to fetch a snack or relieve yourself. It’s close to a miracle that he sneaked into the top twelve.

Our two laggards were also the two evictees. Thank you, America! Luke and Danny were, by far, the worst singers in the competition. Luke had non-existent range, and only his good looks kept him in. The same thing happened to Danny, although his “good looks” were of a different flavor. His outstanding display of Yuletide cheer (check Youtube for what we mean) didn’t help either. Neither will be missed.

Call for the divas: If we never heard another Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey on Idol, we’d be a happy man. However, that’s about as likely as Paula becoming completely sober. Even then, however, the spate of diva songs on Wednesday left us all cringing in horror.

Of course, the night did have its share of good performances. Two were clearly above the rest of the field: Brooke did exactly what David Cook did the night before: take a seemingly unsuited song choice, turn it into something that does suit you, and sound good while doing it. Carrie Underwood tried to do it the straight “power” way, and came out with mixed results (at best). Brooke avoided that minefield, and let her control and unique style do the work. Brilliant.

As for Carly, she has far and away the best vocals of the girls by far. She turned in the second best song of the night. Again, we disagree with Simon – we thought that she connected with her song very well. Lots of people may not like her, but Carly will be around for the foreseeable future, and is finally living up to the hype that came in with her.

Amanda needed a good performance to get to the top 12, and she delivered. She found a song she could use that growl of hers, and she can command the stage fairly well to boot. It wasn’t going to win her worst critics over, but compared to anything she’s pulled off before it was far better.

After that, we have a range of performances that were just okay. Not really bad, but not good either. Song choice was, as ever, critical: most of these made bad choices. Asia’h did well to pick an uptempo song, but picking a Whitney Houston song? Uh, no. Syesha can only do one thing well – hit the power notes, but the rest of the song made her sound very ordinary. Ramiele picked another big powerful female diva to do this week, and it backfired. (We’re convinced that Ramiele did not do the 80s original of Against All Odds; she did the 2000 cover by Mariah Carey.) Kristy was, well, Kristy. She’s never really bad, but she’s never really good either.

Last, unfortunately, was Kady. The song just didn’t suit her at all, and even then it wasn’t all that well sung. She hit the power notes fine, but like Syesha she was very ordinary when she wasn’t doing that. The best word that could describe it was medicore.

The Idol Power Rankings: Let’s try to do something new starting from now on. Every week, we’ll rank the Idols in terms of how fat they’ll go. Take note that artistic merit isn’t the big determining factor here; it’s primarily how far these people will go before getting sent home. If you’ve read any Power Rankings for football, the format should be pretty familiar. Be warned, though: this list has quite a few surprises in it. If you disagree with us, feel free to let us know with your impassioned thoughts. Let’s go.

1. David Cook
Some may be surprised we have him this high. He hasn’t enjoyed the promotion that others like Carly, Michael, and David Archuleta have. So why do we have him ranked so highly?

First of all, not getting pimped may work out well for him, because he doesn’t have the weight of expectations on him. He is clearly the best rocker in this group, and a good rocker can get very far. Just ask Chris Daughtry. Two more things help David here: he’s got more crossover potential than Chris ever had, and allowing instruments into performances helps him too.

2. Carly Smithson
Simon’s right with her. She can sing the phonebook and sound good. While we here are more positive about her “connecting with the song” than Simon is, there are probably enough people who feel that way that it could be a problem for her. Still, her vocals and stage presence are really a cut above the rest of the field. Winning over people like Simon is probably a question of when, not if.

3. Brooke White
Up to now, Idol has not had any singers like Brooke go very far. She doesn’t have the big voice that, historically, you needed to advance in this competition. Still, the new instruments rule will help her. The historical lack of success of singers similar to her style will probably energize her fan base significantly. They will want her to prove that you don’t need to have a diva voice to win. She’ll go further than a lot of people think.

4. Jason Castro
Most of what we said about Brooke applies to Jason, as well. The big difference is, however, experience and flexibility: Brooke has more of it than Jason has. If vote-splitting its ugly head, Jason will lose out to Brooke as things stand. For now, though, they should both have plenty of support to move forward.

5. David Archuleta
Yes, despite all the proclamations of his talent, and the claims of many posters that the Idol Powers-That-Be have made him their Chosen One, we put him about the middle of the list. Yes, we’re running against the forces of Conventional Wisdom, but humor us for a moment here.

David has a brilliant voice. In terms of natural talent, he’s probably the best in the top 12. What he does at the age of 16 is brilliant. However, that exactly is his biggest problem – he’s 16. Just because Jordin won last year doesn’t mean all the disadvantages of being relatively young on Idol suddenly went away. The biggest problem there is that younger singers usually don’t have a firm musical identity; they haven’t figured out who they are musically yet. David could go the route he took with Imagine and Another Day in Paradise, but we doubt it. Simon was right about the “gloomy” song comment. Until then, David Archuleta will be a brilliant singer, but as an artist he needs work.

6. Michael Johns
The one word we’d use to describe his performances are professional. His singing skills are excellent, his stage presence is good, and his song selection is respectable. So why do we have him this low?

The trouble with Michael is that he has the vibe of a band frontman, a good frontman, even, but not a successful solo act. Unfortunately, American Idol is looking for just that. We have a disconnect here. The second problem is even more fundamental: what kind of artist is he, really? He’s performed good covers, but what kind of singer is he? What can we expect from a Michael Johns CD? We still don’t know.

7. Kristy Lee Cook
We’re sure that Kristy’s high ranking here will have people howling in agony. Why do we have her ranked so highly?

For all the flack we give her, Kristy is never really the worst of the night – a situation that hasn’t changed with the guys and girls competing together. More to the point, however, she’s the only country singer left in this competition. Much as it is in vogue with certain circles to disrespect both country music in general and country music voters in particular, their power cannot be doubted. They can push someone who would barely make the tour, if that, into a mid-place finish. Kellie Pickler and Phil Stacey both finished sixth, largely due to country voters. Kristy will probably be no different.

8. David Hernandez
Here’s another surprisingly low ranking of someone with a good voice. His problem is similar to David Archuleta’s: he’s a good singer, but so far he has not really established his artistic sense. Yes, he’s got a great voice. Pre-top 12, that’s good enough – but not post top-12. David has all the makings of an early surprising boot. It can happen. Just ask Mandisa and Nadia Turner.

9. Ramiele Malubay
The problem with Ramiele is she’s consistently inconsistent. When she’s on, she can sing as well as anyone. She’s got good vocals, that’s not in doubt. For two weeks running, though, she’s made dumb song choices. She can get better, but it may be too late for it to matter.

10. Syesha Mercado
There’s a reason Syesha’s been called everything from Screamesha to Syscreecha around the Idol punditocracy. Up to now, all she’s proven is that she can hit power notes reasonably well. Unfortunately, she adds those glory notes when they’re not really needed for the song, and when she’s not belting out she’s downright ordinary. You can’t go far if you’re that one-dimensional.

Unfortunately, doing anything else, she ranges from the ordinary to the bad. There’s a market for that kind of voice, but it’s not that large. She will probably make the tour, but only just.

11. Amanda Overmyer
Amanda is possibly the ultimate niche contestant Idol has ever seen. Even in the rock genre, there are only so many songs that suit that raspy, growling voice of hers. When it works, it’s brilliant. When it doesn’t… well, we’d rather listen to nails on chalkboard. She’s that bad.

She has a small fanbase that kept her in through two disastrous weeks. However, with the rock vote going over to the guys, particularly David Cook, her lifespan on the show is limited.

12. Chikezie
No one really expects Chikezie to go very far. It’s a near miracle he made it over Danny Noriega and his horde of tween supporters. He’s wildly inconsistent at best, and downright terrible and cheesy at worst. He’s not really top 12 material.

On the waiver wire: Keeping up with the last segment’s sports theme, what can we say about the four contestants who the folks at home decided to waive and send back to the couch?

There’s not much to say about the exits of Luke and Danny. Both were more interesting as personalities than as actual singers. Danny’s recent moment of Youtube fame didn’t exactly help his cause. It may be harsh to say, but we’ll say it anyway: they won’t be missed.

For the girls, however, they will definitely be missed. We said last week that whoever was the weaker in each of the Asia’h/Syesha and Kady/Kristy pairs would be at risk, and we were proven right. Asia’h made the worst possible song choice possible – she didn’t have the vocals to do Whitney, and with Syesha doing a better job of hitting the power with another Whitney song she came out way below second-rate. Kady, meanwhile, is a better vocalist than most people think or realize, but never learned to put it all together. There’s a lot of potential in her, but a lot of work had to be done to bring it out. Idol is not the best place to learn such things. With more experience and consistency, Kady would have been a real long-term threat.

Not just for management: The mantra “work smarter, not harder” is a favorite of time management “experts”. Whether or not it’s true there or not is up for debate, but one thing’s for sure: it applies in the Idol world, too.

Because it is the last week before the finals and the “big stage”, there are few weeks in the Idol calendar where there’s more stress than the top 16. Naturally, the contestants want to do their best – but, in their desire to do their best, they frequently reach for songs that are beyond their abilities. The spirit is willing, but the vocal cords are weak.

This really ties in to what we said last week – most, if not all, of those who go really far on the show have a good idea of their musical identity and abilities. Blake Lewis’s appearance on the results show was forgettable from a musical point of view, but it was a perfect opportunity for us pundits.

As we said multiple times last season, Blake really didn’t have the vocal tools to compete with the rest of the finalists. To his credit, Blake knew that perfectly well and adjusted what he did all season. He could never hope to compete with Jordin, Melinda, or Lakisha when it came to singing, so he turned each and every show into a performance, which was what he did best. It may not have been resulted in the best singing, but as a strategy, it was brilliant.

The temptation for an inexperienced singer is to think, “I need to impress this time, so I should pick the biggest song I can get cleared.” The songs that get picked are the ones with the runs, glory notes, all the things that impress some viewers. Not all, but some.

This wouldn’t be such a bad thing – if the singer in question can pull off the song. However, more often than not the contestants can’t. The question in their minds should be “can I pull this off?”; instead it’s “how hard can it be?” As it turns out… very.

Just take a look at the artist choices for this week and cringe. Whitney Houston – three times. Celine Dion. Mariah Carey. Freddie Mercury. If that’s not an ambitious group of artists to pick, we don’t know what is. If you are that good, if your power and control is that good, then it’s brilliant. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. It’s hard to come out the winner from such a comparison, because you’re not playing to your strengths.

In contrast, look at David Cook at Brooke White. Neither is the most powerful singer in their gender – David Archuleta’s got that for the guys, and Carly has that for the girls. So they looked at their own strengths, and picked songs and arrangements to suit. Just looking at the song titles, one would think they were both asking to be sent home, but nothing could be further from the truth. They made the songs their own and played to their strengths. Well done to both of them.

So what’s the lesson for future contestants? It’s easy to think that power runs and glory notes equal success. Sometimes it does. But that is, at best, a chancy route. Much better to pick a song and arrangement that plays to your strengths – not Whitney’s, not Celine’s, not Mariah’s. Sing smarter, not sing harder!