Last year, Adam Lambert was (in)famous for being the ultimate Your Mileage May Vary contestant. Just as many people loved him as hated him. Based on the early returns, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a Lambert-mentored night turned out similarly. Based on the early What Not to Sing numbers, well, people’s opinions are all over the place. The only consensus is who was best and who was worst.

I’ll never get tired of writing this sentence down: “Crystal Bowersox was the best of the night.” It was clearly the standout of the night: good song choice, good vocals, and overall an enjoyable performance. I’m not sure if swapping out the acoustic guitar for an electric one helped. Not her best, but enough to win.

The best that can be said about Lee DeWyze tonight was his song was a crowd-pleaser. The worst that can be said is… it was a crowd-pleaser. Here’s what we mean: it was well sung, entertaining, and executed well. However, there wasn’t an awful lot of substance to it. It was good, yes, but not “amazing” as Randy said. Kara was on the right track, but “playful” was the wrong word; I would have used… expressive. Lee was a little lacking in that area, but that’s sort of expected from him.

Casey James, once again, had a similar performance to Lee. Except it was worse. Lee had the benefit of being entertaining. Casey was not. The vocals were good, but honestly we saw not one iota of passion or excitement. A formula for a good song this does not make.

Miracles do happen, and Tim Urban not being horrific is proof. To be fair, though, he’s found what works for him: pick songs that don’t challenge his voice, and emote the hell out of them. And look good for the tweens. Very similar to Hallelujah and All My Loving. Not bad.

Michael Lynche threw away a giant opportunity with his performance. Yes, he sang In The Ghetto well. However, more than most songs that one is about conveying emotion and honesty. And Big Mike failed there. There was no hint of emotion, no drama, no feelings the way he sang it. It was, well, dull. I don’t know what the judges saw in this performance.

Another pair with similar performances: Aaron Kelly and Katie Stevens. Both of them delivered reasonably good vocals… and completely missed the mark. As I have said too many times before in the past, good singing by itself does not a good Idol performance make. It’s about telling a story, really, and both of them failed. Katie gets the nod over Aaron for at least being entertaining, but really… it’s not much of a difference. Oh, and what is with this head slide/bob that Katie does all the time? It’s… distracting, to say the least.

It looks like Siobhan Magnus took a course in Advanced Glory-Noting from Adam. Who knew Suspicious Minds could have that many glory notes? The second half was sung well, yes, but I’m not convinced it suited the original song as well. The first half was an utter wreck – Siobhan can’t do subtle lyrics at all, and national TV is a bad place to learn how. Simon had Siobhan dead to rights with his judging this week. Fundamentally, Siobhan is a girl with an immensely powerful voice who has become over-reliant on that one skill – glory notes – to the exclusion of everything else.

Here’s a sign how badly Andrew Garcia flubbed Hound Dog. I thought Katharine McPhee did a better job on the song years ago, and it was one of her notable disasters. Maybe we should give him a new nickname: Andrew “Teleprompter” Garcia. Why? Because that is what he sounds like most of the time – like he’s reading the lyrics off one. All-around awful.

So here’s how the night stood for us:

1. Crystal Bowersox
2. Lee DeWyze
3. Casey James
4. Tim Urban
5. Michael Lynche
6. Katie Stevens
7. Aaron Kelly
8. Siobhan Magnus
9. Andrew Garcia

Fundamentally, the reason this was such a mixed bag on the opinion pools is simple. There’s not a large gap between third and, say, eighth. All of those performances had their good points, but even more so than usual the weak points were just as apparent. People, depending on their tastes, will mix and match and find different people good or bad.

A Two For One Deal: The obvious “casualty” from this week is Andrew. He was pretty awful, to be honest, has been for a while, and did himself no favors. He’s gone. Even mad power-voters can’t get him out of the two-place cellar.

The big question is who’ll go out beside Andrew. For that, well… I have no idea. There’s no good previous precedent – both of the previous double exits happened later in the season. Throw in a pecking order that is in serious chaos and you might as well guess.

If you have to guess, might as well make it an interesting one… and I’ll pick Katie to go home. No good reason, really, but my gut is telling me something’s not right here.

TIG picks: Andrew Garcia and Katie Stevens to go home.

There were a lot of shocking things on Idol this week. Aside from the amazingly good performances this week, there were two other major surprises that we learned about: first was Michael Lynche being saved from elimination, and the identity of next week’s mentor: Adam Lambert.

Last-Minute Reprieve… Or Was It?: The talk of the Idolsphere was Michael Lynche being saved by the judges this week. However, the shocker isn’t so much that Big Mike was saved; it’s more that it was he was at risk in the first place.

However, I’m not sure it was so much a surprise as it ought to be. The Sesame Street Effect was out in full force. The choice was clear between Aaron and Andrew to boot, so their fans both voted like mad. Poor Mike got caught in the crossfire, and was particularly vulnerable because his performance was very much an acquired taste. As usual, “shockers” on Idol aren’t.

As for the save… I didn’t find the decision to save Big Mike all that shocking, to be honest. Based on his total work to date, there were clearly worse contestants still in the competition. Essentially, the question raised if the save was not used would be – Big Mike is out, but the likes of Tim, Andrew, and Aaron are still in? If one of those three produced a Sanjaya-like fiasco later down the road, the question would definitely be asked – and no one would like the answers. Best to get it out of the way as soon as possible, and because Big Mike had done This Woman’s Work so well he was credible enough to be saved.

This Is Not A Drill: The real shocker of the week came well before the performances began. Adam Lambert was announced to be next week’s mentor; more recent rumors have the theme being Elvis Presley songs.

At the very least, it’s going to be an… interesting night. Adam was a uniquely polarizing figure as a contestant, and just the announcement itself was enough to start countless Internet battles. In truth, it’ll probably be something like Miley night – Adam will offer woefully generic advice, and neither will he be able to stop contestants if they really decide to do something stupid.

The most interesting case, however, is likely to happen with Siobhan. She’s a screamer; no one doubts Adam’s one as well. This will either turn out very well, or very poorly. I have no idea which way it will go. In a perverse way, that’s true for the entire night.

Now, about the flame war currently engulfing the Idol forums after the announcement… the doubters are (mostly) right. This is another attempt by 19E to pimp Adam. Truth be told, he’s not the international superstar his fans portray him as, but nor is he the flop his worst critics say he is. I’d say he’s what we saw in the season: someone who’s able to gather a reasonably-sized fanbase, but has difficulty crossing over to mainstream audiences. It’s not the best position to be in, but it could be worse as well.

As for his qualifications, yes, he may be unqualified, but honestly – most of the Idol mentors have been that way as well. If he’s going to offer useful advice, it might be more about the overall Idol experience, but unless he spends a lot of time with the contestants (doubtful, as his “mentoring” will be in Vegas and not Los Angeles) I doubt there’s much to learn. It’s a ratings stunt and pimping opportunity. Frankly, it’s the sort of behavior I expect from 19E.

Even after watching Idol for so long, some things you just don’t expect. I never thought I’d see a didgeridoo on Idol. I never thought I’d see bagpipes on Idol. To get both in the same night?

Aaron Kelly opened things off, which was just as well. He was by far the worst of the night, but let’s put that in context: it wasn’t totally unbearable. It was decently sung, but it was completely uninteresting. Aaron did what he’s been doing as well as he’s done it before. It was not good enough in a night when everyone else stepped it up.

Personally, I prefer the more subtle version of Let It Be that Brooke White did two years ago instead of the belting version Katie Stevens did this week. That said… it was pretty good. It played to her natural strengths, and more importantly she sang as well as she has to date. It was, all in all, pretty good.

What is with this singing from behind the judges that Big Mike started last week, and Andrew Garcia started? To be fair, it did get Andrew away from the swaybots, a big plus in itself. The rest of the performance… it was entertaining, pleasant to listen to, but not much else. It was the musical equivalent of junk food – good tasting, but not particularly filling.

If he does nothing else on Idol, Michael Lynche has proved he has incredible guts. Doing a song that David Cook did well, and rearranging it a lot as well? That takes bravery. Randy was right – some parts worked, some didn’t. Of course, that’s because Big Mike is one of the biggest Large Hams in the history of Idol. When he goes over the top, Big Mike goes way, way, way over the top.

Crystal Bowersox was not to be outdone in the insane risks department. Doing what may well be Carly Smithson’s signature song on Idol… that was one hell of a risk. And it worked. Like last week’s gamble, it didn’t have golden vocals (but still pretty good), but it was a textbook case of making a song your own on Idol. Absolutely fantastic.

Here’s a shocker: Tim Urban was actually competent. He was actually on the good side of things. How did he do it? He picked a song and arrangement that hid his weaknesses. Vocally, All My Loving wasn’t all that challenging. So without being exposed as a bad singer, he let his personality and likability carry the night. Overall… it wasn’t half-bad. More than decent, even.

It’s very hard to step away from the gimmicks on Idol and strip down a song to the basics and rely on vocals and emotion to carry a performance. There are not that many people who can do it as well as Casey James did it this week. There was an emotional honesty in the song that he has not showed to date. Best of the night.

I do not quite know what to make of Siobhan Magnus. The drama and the theatrics of her performance felt like she was trying a bit too hard. The glory note towards the end was quite well done. The rest of the vocals… were a little uneven. Overall, that really sums up the whole performance – uneven. Some parts were good, some not so good… and overall, not really all that interesting. It didn’t work all that well. It was okay, really, but I’m having a hard time going any further than that.

It’s a good thing that Lee DeWyze went last. I really pity anyone that would have had to follow the theatrics of having a bagpiper on stage. Really. It’s something of a well-known trope, after all. It’s hard to stop a spectacle like that. At the very least, it was one of the most entertaining performances of the night. The vocals were… not all that, but at least respectable. Still, how can you hate a performance like that, for the sheer guts of it?

Here’s how the night went for us:

1. Casey James
2. Crystal Bowersox
3. Katie Stevens
4. Lee DeWyze
5. Siobhan Magnus
6. Michael Lynche
7. Tim Urban
8. Andrew Garcia
9. Aaron Kelly

When everyone is good…: A surefire way of going home on Idol is to do poorly on a “good” night. Unfortunately, Aaron Kelly did just that this week. Everyone else’s fans will be quite motivated to vote this week; I have a hard time thinking anyone except his most die-hard power voters will want to vote for him after another pedestrian performance.

One other problem for Aaron is Tim. Don’t let the #7 ranking for the night fool you: the gap between Tim and Aaron was huge. The two of them are probably splitting the tween fanbase, but Tim doing so much better tonight will lead to a large vote swing, in all likelihood. So I’m calling it…

Aaron Kelly to go home.

Over the weekend, my friends at What Not to Sing let out one of my long-running Idol theories. I call it the Theory of the Midcard, which can be stated as:

An Idol season is thought to be good or bad based on the strength of its midcard singers.

Let’s take one step back, though, what is a midcard singer in Idol-world? Essentially, they are singers who were on the show long enough to stick in the mind of the public, but who aren’t really in the mix as far as winning is concerned.

In general, the midcard is made up of the singers who finish from 3rd to 9th. I say in general because sometimes singers who really belongs in the midcard ends up in the finale. The best example is from Season Six: Melinda Doolittle isn’t a midcard singer – and she got booted not because she sang poorly. So she won’t be in the midcard.

Before we start the heavy-duty analysis, one is tempted to ask: why? Why would the midcard singers matter? After all, it’s all about the winners, right?

Not necessarily. Even in the best of circumstances, most of the performances on any given night will come from the midcard. Rarely are there more than two or three legitimate contenders in any given season. Or, put another way: in a given finals field, even if two or three contestants are brilliant, if the rest are Sanjaya Malakars, that season will not be well-regarded. People can only tolerate so much bad singing on any given night, and over multiple nights they begin readying the tar and feathers.

The Tuesday nights of March and April set the tone for the final showdowns, and they matter more than some pundits think. The latter love to say the order of elimination doesn’t matter, but they do.

Now, let’s look at all seasons since Season Four and assess how their midcards fare. (There’s a reason I start with that season. It’s when I started watching Idol, and as much as I use statistics to prove my point I prefer to subject those numbers to a reality check.) I’ll be using the WNTS scores as my primary benchmark in determining how well they did:

Season Four
Midcard singers: Vonzell Solomon, Anthony Fedorov, Scott Savol, Constantine Maroulis, Anwar Robinson, Nadia Turner, Nikko Smith
WNTS Average: 49.5

This group was largely the sideshow to the epic Carrie/Bo duel, but even then they didn’t exactly embarrass themselves. A 49.5 average is not too bad, considering Scott Savol brings in a 32.6 average. (Without him, the average goes up to 52.6.)

The fly in the ointment is this group, though, is the lack of five-star performances. They only had six, and excluding Nadia Turner only had three. It’s a reasonable group, but definitely second banana to the top of the card. On the other hand, that’s sort of what you expect from a midcard group – they’re sort of the opening act to the main event, and in that role, they did admirably.

Score: B

Season Five
Midcard singers: Elliott Yamin, Paris Bennett, Kellie Pickler, Ace Young, Bucky Covington, Mandisa
WNTS Average: 51.6
WNTS Average (plus Katharine McPhee): 52.6
WNTS Average (plus Chris Daughtry): 54.1
WNTS Average (plus McPhee and Daughtry): 54.4

The biggest debate in Season Five is: who do you put in the midcard from this group? You could argue that Katharine McPhee rightfully belongs in the midcard instead of Chris Daughtry. Indeed, if you ask most Idol fans, the answer would be “of course Chris should have been in the finals!”

However, the answer is not as clear-cut if you look at the numbers. Katharine could be really, really bad, but when she was good she was as outstanding as anyone else. The upside is both Katharine and Chris are marginal cases. They’re stronger than your typical midcard singer, but not a clear frontrunner either. It’s a clear case of Your Mileage May Vary, which is why I calculated four averages for the season.

The real star of the midcard was not Katharine or Chris, but Elliott Yamin. He may not have had the star appeal or fanatical fanbase of the rest of the field… but did he sing well. Even more notable was his remarkable ability to not screw up: while lots of otherwise good Idol contestants have had very bad days, Elliott was able to avoid those. In some ways, he was as instrumental in the success of Season Five as the more prominent names.

Still, whoever you put in the midcard, though… this was an amazingly good group. Keep in mind that those 50+ averages include both Kellie Pickler and Ace Young, who each had average scores in the 30s. Without them, and including Kat and Chris, you’re looking at an average of 59.3. That is not a number to be laughed at.

Season Five had, without a doubt, the best midcard in the history of the show. The shows were enjoyable (mostly), and they were pretty good from top to bottom (unlike last week’s monstrosity). It’s easier to have a good show if you have six or so potentially good singers, instead of just two – even if those two are outstanding.

Score: A+

Season Six
Midcard singers: Blake Lewis, Lakisha Jones, Chris Richardson, Phil Stacey, Sanjaya Malakar, Haley Scarnato, Gina Glocksen
WNTS Average: 45.6

And from best we go to worst. As we said earlier, I bumped Blake Lewis down to the midcard because he, frankly, was not credible as a frontrunner in a singing competition. You can even make a decent argument that Jordin is a midcard singer as well.

If possible, this group is even worse than it looks on paper. Lakisha has a respectable average, but she wasn’t nearly as good later on in the season. Of course, even if Lakisha had been even decent then there was no way around three contestants with abysmal averages: Sanjaya (17.6), Haley (29.1), and Chris (38.1)

If Season Five taught us the importance of a balanced lineup, Season Six taught us what happens when the midcard is weak.

Score: F

Season Seven
Midcard singers: Syesha Mercado, Jason Castro, Brooke White, Carly Smithson, Kristy Lee Cook, Michael Johns, Ramiele Malubay
WNTS Average: 50.3

Season Seven had a lot of issues, to be honest. Having a weak midcard was one of them, though perhaps not the biggest one. (Bad themes, ancient songs, and producer manipulation come to mind.)

Still, the midcard didn’t exactly help things. The average isn’t too bad on paper, but here’s something to keep in mind. A lot of these contestants had the tendency to start relatively strong, but fade very strongly towards the end. Jason Castro left after three sub-par weeks; Brooke White was largely the same.

Season Seven didn’t have the worst midcard, but it didn’t exactly help out either. At best, it was an accomplice in the bloodbath that was the season. It could have been a lot better, but it could also have been worse.

Score: C

Season Eight
Midcard singers: Danny Gokey, Allison Iraheta, Matt Giraud, Anoop Desai, Lil Rounds, Scott Macintyre, Megan Joy
WNTS Average: 50.6
WNTS Average (without Allison): 45.9

It’s no secret that last year’s finals group was chosen to get the desired Danny-Adam finale. Outside of Kris Allen and Allison Iraheta… they definitely chose the “right” finals group to make The Chosen Ones look good.

I’ve praised Kris plenty of times in the past, but Allison was right there upsetting the apple cart too. In many ways, she was the Season Eight equivalent of Elliott Yamin – able to avoid the big trainwrecks, and being downright outstanding when given the chance. With some hindsight, I think Idol pundits tend to underrate Allison, and given how the attention (naturally) was on the rearranging Kris, the one-of-a-kind Adam, and the overrated Danny… she tends to get some short shrift.

It’s a good thing Allison was in the mix for Season Eight, because otherwise the rest of the midcard was terrible. Season Six terrible. Megan Joy was awful almost from the start; Scott and Lil floundered badly in the finals; and Danny has the dubious title of being the most overrated (and overpimped) contestant in the history of Idol. It’s not a particularly encouraging group.

So… on the one hand, you have one of the finest midcard singers to hit Idol, but the rest of the group is an utter trainwreck. Ultimately, though, you have to measure a midcard group by the impact on the show: did they provide the at least decent performances needed to “support” an Idol episode from week to week? I have to say… no. Allison did her part, sure, but I can’t ignore the rest of the field.

Score: D

So, from best to worst, the seasons go:

1. Season Five
2. Season Four
3. Season Seven
4. Season Eight
5. Season Six

All told… that’s not a bad way to rank the five Idol seasons we looked at. You can argue that last year was worse than Season Six, but a lot of that had to do with last year’s blatant bias, not necessarily the singing.

So… if the midcard represents the fairest “grade” for any Idol season, how is this year’s group shaping up? Let’s see.

Season Nine
Midcard singers: Lee DeWyze, Michael Lynche, Casey James, Aaron Kelly, Andrew Garcia, Katie Stevens, Tim Urban, Didi Benami
WNTS Average To Date: 47.23

Oh boy. It’s not quite the horridness that was Season Six, but… we’re close. Until he leaves the competition, Tim Urban will be close to an assured disaster. (I cannot take seriously someone whose praise from the judges is he was “mostly in tune”.) Katie is not much better. Andrew has little room to maneuver, and despite his one-week rehabilitation from awfulness is still a questionable quantity.

That’s not to say all hope is lost. There’s some good upside to this group. Both Lee and Casey are sound singers; they just need an injection of charisma to really shine moving forward. Big Mike also has some upside – consistency is his main problem. If somebody from the midcard manages to challenge Crystal for frontrunner status and relegates Siobhan to the midcard, she’d at least be interesting to listen to.

Unfortunately, however, the real problem is there are too many lead weights in this season to turn this into at least Season Four, where a decent supporting cast kept the shows entertaining for the most part. As the WNTS crew pointed out last week, the awful top 16 results will haunt the finals for weeks to come.

Consider the possibilities if the top 16 results would have been saner. At the very least, we’d have been spared Paige’s Against All Odds; a Lilly-for-Lacey trade would have made things interesting (putting pressure on the weaker contestants like Aaron, Katie, and Andrew); and if you wanted the “nice guy with potential” to do well Alex Lambert had more potential than Aaron did.

Ultimately, however, we’re stuck with the finalists we have, not the ones we could have gotten. The analysis of how we got here will be done on another day. Here’s one thing that needs to be said loud and clear, though: the top 24 has to be made up of the best singers from the audition crop, period. Compelling shows are produced by good singers, period. This is a simple, simple lesson that seems to evade Idol‘s PTB.

On the other hand, as the old saying goes, the hardest person to wake up is someone who’s already awake.