Top 20 - Gals

Here are the top 10 ladies!

Carly Smithson- So we are reminded in Carly's secret files video that she owns a tattoo shop. But did we know that Carly also works at an Irish bar?!?!?!? NO! Down the street from her ink shop is this pub she serves drinks in. And not just any drinks...these drinks have little shamrocks fucking etched into their foam. Hell yeah! Also, Carly is extremely neat which is shown to us by her making of a bed. Hooray!

She comes out on stage looking much better than she did last week. Her makeup is done more delicately and she looks way prettier. Oh, and she's rocking knee-high boots which look so super hot on her. She's singing that "Crazy On You" song which I would never imagine in a thousand years that she would sing. Not only is she great at handling them low notes, but she has quite good control over her higher belting range. Never getting too wild, she has her voice trained real well and the performance is absolutely amazing. She does some perfect rock screeches and I am left speechless. She still has that cursed goblin face that she makes whenever she opens upo wide, but whatever, she's amazing.

Randy lies and says that she has some trouble with low notes. Paula says that she's glad Carly is healthy (was she sick?). Simon then points out the fact that Carly is panting and proceeds to make fun of her for it. Better than last week? Yes. But for some reason, Simon is still a dick to this girl. He says that she didn't seem connected to the song and that even though she is one of the best singers in the competition, she hasn't found the right song yet to really showcase her talents. I dunno...I thought she fucking blew it out of the water tonight.

My Grade: A


S-YES-ha Mercado- Her secret? She's been in commercials. Boring. We are shown a clip of Syesha sitting on a beach yelling at some dude to find her a shell. I dunno. Whatever. She thinks she's an actress and I've just about rolled my eye seven times already when...holy hell...she does an impersonation of a baby that seriously scared the living shit out of me. Dead-on, she sounds like an infant. WHAT?!?!??!?! This is probably in my top three of the most unnerving thing I have ever seen.

She is singing a revamped version of "Me and Mrs. Jones". She is afrotastic with her big hair wrapped all up by the sassy headscarf. She looks like the beautiful nubian goddess that Tyra Banks kind of wishes she could be. Anyway, Syesha and her big hoops start the song off slow but quickly gets to the good stuff and starts belting. She makes great eye contact with the camera and really seem to connect with the song. Near the end of the song she does some interesting stop-and-go belting before hitting the last note. Sadly though, the last note is completely sharp and she knows it and the note goes on and on forever and really flubbs up the ending.

Randy basically says that because she is good at belting, she should never ever do a slow soft song. Kind of shitty advice. Paula goes the nicer route and says that when she belts (the right notes) she "pierces"...which I think is Paula's word of the week. Simon calls it indulgent, which I don't think it is. I think she has a humbleness about her which is very appealing. She was "silly" to pick this song, he says because the song is meant for a guy. Damn, since when have the judges been such sticklers for people staying completely confined to one type of song. You know damn well that if she just sang belitng songs or if Amanda only sang Janis Joplin songs, they would bitch about those as well. You just can't win.

My Grade: B


Brooke "Organic Greens" White- So in her video, Brooke and her mermaid hair tell us that she went to beauty school to become a hairstylist. Blah blah. She then gets mad corny and quotes "Grease" by saying that she is a "beauty school drop-out"...oh wow, didn't see that one coming.

So she starts the performance on the death-stool which has yet to do anyone any good this season. She's singing...NOOOO! "You're So Vain" aka one of my favorite songs ever. Damnit! Don't ruin it bitch. Oh...too late. She is seated like a flower child with an acoustic guitar on her lap. Xtina makes a good point by saying she looks like Sheryl Crow and that the song sounds like a poor cover by Crow of Carly Simon's song. Brooke's voice gets really lost in the chorus and doesn't seem to get in pitch during the low notes. It seems like she realizes it is going poorly cuz she makes these little weird smile faces every now and then where you know in her head she's thinking "Ah FUCK." Then she stops playing the guitar and just sings and it's like...was it even necessary then? Looking more like a prop then an instrument to advance the song, she just holds it. The camera close-ups to her face and she looks a little frightened and her starts to bob up and down and it's weird. To her credit though, she does sing the verses reasonably well, but the chorus is just a really muddled. She ends the song with a guitar strut and then looks up at the judges with this big-eyed "please don't kill me" look.

And to my surprise, they don't. Randy thought it was boring, but good and then coerces Brooke to say she was singing it to Simon. Hahaha. Shut up. Paula said that it suits her, whatever that means. Simon thought it was really really good and that she made a wise choice in using the guitar, and I'm dumbfounded. I thought it was mediocre at best and I can't believe that the worst criticism she got was that it was "boring." Um...how about "out of tune during the entire chorus"???

My Grade: C+


Ramiele Maboobaloooooo- So Ramiele and her oddly puffy face try to convince us that it is unexpected that she knows how to Polyensian dance. Duh...and shut up, Sanjaya Papaya already used island dancing as his secret last year, bitch. She then tells us that she can move her hips without moving her shoulders and I still don't care. Oh, and if she picks an upbeat song (TREAT!) she will dance for us! Ug...I hurl.

She sings "Don't Leave Me This Way" which LaToya London sang ace season three. Ramiele has a decent voice, though he hand gesutres/facial expressions and overall performance is a little too overly animated for the slow quiet beginning of the song. When the song picks up she gets into it and it is actually quite good. She has earplug earrings that dangle next to her face and her hair looks filthy and gross. For such a great Polynesian dancer, though he doesn't really move around too much. Just shaking her hands around and bouncing up and down is about the extent of her performance. She belts at the end and it is a nice ending to an okay performance.

Randy gets really skeevy and say that all the male contestants in the audience (sans Archuleta, Miley Cyrus and David Hernandez) thought she was hot. Ew. He then wonders why out of all these great 70's songs she chose this one. Basically, since he hates this song, he hates her performance. Ha. Paula steals a line from Simon and says that Mabooobaloooo is "one to beat," which Simon has already said about like 5 other contestants. Paula then says she was flat throughout a lot of the performance, before saying "you were perfect." She makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Simon thought it was forgettable and lame and stupid and then he screams at the audience cuz they start to boo him.

My Grade: B


Kristi Lee Cook- So her secret is that she's basically a redneck that likes hunting and fishing and killing. But she just LOOOOOOVES horses! We are shown shots of her feeding forces and riding them in water up to the horse's head. How sweet.

She is singing "You're No Good" which I have never heard before. Firstly, she is wearing the ugliest thing I have ever seen ever. Her shirt looks like some sort of shiny plastic or something with her boobs EXPLODING out all over the place. Her pants are this pseudo-velvet like material that glisten when under just the right kind of light. Throughout the performance she keeps squating and all her kibbles and bits start flying out and it's disturbing. It seems like many of the contestants this season don't know how to handle themselves on stage, so they resort to walking in circles, making goofy faces and squating constantly as an alternative to actually performing. Kristi makes one flirtatious face into the camera after another, but instead of looking hot, she just looks kind of constipated. The thing is, this is probably a good song choice for her, but her voice just isn't as strong or just plain good as the others in the competition. It's weak and feeble and not memorable in the slightest bit. Her last note is croaky and she sound congested when she is singing it.

Randy says that it was 100% better than last week (note: he never says it's good though). Paula in her tortilla shirt say that Kristi's "back", as opposed to being kidnapped after last week's show and being smuggled over to Mexico to where we would never see her again. Simon thought it was an improvement, but says that she is not really clear on what style-boxof music she really wants to be placed into.

My Grade: B-


Amanda "the Cowardly Lion" Overmyer- So just like male rocker David Cook, Amanda's big secret is that SHE LOVES TO READ. What kind of books? Biographies of rockstars...duh! We are then shown a painful clip of Amanda talking about how she loves to read about the music industry so she knows how it is...blah blah...whatever.

She will be singing that "Carry On Wayward Son" which is a song I would never ever ever think would be performed on Idol. And for good reason...it's not really a singer's song. The instrumentals take up a lot of the spotlight and I can't imagine a good shorter arrangement of the song ever being successful pulled off. And I am pretty much dead on. Amanda comes out with her hair that looks like Bride of Frankestein meets the Lion from "The Wizard of Oz." The song starts and she already seems a little off the beat. The low notes of the verse are really bad for her and she actually sounds retarded when hitting them because they are so out of her range. Her outfit is a terrifying mess and her eyes bug out constantly and it is quite painful to watch. And I am a fan of Amanda and I must say that it was TERRIBLE. The chorus is decent, mainly because the background singers are there to salvage any chance that this song has of not bursting into flames due to it being godawful. During a short guitar solo she gets funky and dances around and it's pretty cool how into it she is, but you can tell that she knows she's fucked up REAL bad. She tries to belt at the end, but it's just a loud horse scream and it is just a fucking disaster. NO AMANDA!!!

Randy thought it was a bad song choice and doesn't understand why she would choose a song with too much melody and too much instrumentation. Paula goes the nice route and comments on her dancing to which Amanda looks embarrassed. She then says that Amanda should stick to Janis Joplin songs (though as mentioned before, you know the second she sings a Janis song, she will be murdered). Simon thought it was contrived, thought her hair and outfit were hideous and basically said the entire performance was terrible. And sadly, I must agree.

My Grade: D


Alaina Whitaker- Her fun fact is actually quite disturbing. Alaina is uber-OCD with food to the point where she has trouble eating different kinds of food if they touch each other. She HATES juicy vegetables as well. We are shown shots of her eating rice and segregating food on her plate and this entire clip is completely worthless and weird.

She is singing that "Hopelessly Devoted" song from "Grease" and I automatically think it is a bad idea because that song is way too slow and old-fashioned and kind of boring to be performed on American Idol. Alaina comes out with 6 hoops hangling from her ears and getting tangled in her dirty looking hair. She has this abused dejected look in her face and has her arm sitting crippled up next to her for the first ten seconds of the song and it's creepy. She sings well, but once again, this song really does NOTHING for her. It only offers a few spots where she could really belt or showcase some power behind her voice, and she blows it by going sharp and each part.

Randy likes the song and Olivia Newton John, but doesn't really like Alaina and he says that it was pitchy. Paula does her new favorite thing this season, which is ask the contestants if they like the song they sang, instead of actually commenting on it. Alaina says she LOVES IT...blah blah. Simon actually likes her, but thinks she's being to "pagenty" which I totally see. He suggests that she might be a robot and has been programmed to act and perform in a specific way, but that she is actually a good singer. He then calls her a "dark horse" to win the competition, which is a total lie cuz this girl has the stage presence of a wet sock.

My Grade: B-


Alexandrea Lushington- She still has that annoying?/awesome? and a questionable sexuality. Her secret? She used to sing for firemen, or something. I don't really understand but we are shown pictures of her with her dad and then we see a video of her looking like a dog and singing at Ground Zero or something.

She will be singing "If You Leave Me Now" and I yawn. She is dressed like a blind (male) college student with cargo shorts and a hooded vest. Her man legs are planted to the stage and she just kind of swivels around on her hips. The "Wooo"s are really outta wack. I think this is the worst song for her to sing ever, cuz it has 0% heart and soul. It's vapid and boring which is totally not what Lushington is all about. She isn't tender enough to deliver a song like that so it just ends up sounding forced. Kind of like if Hulk Hogan was to sing a Mandy Moore song. It just doesn't work.

Randy forces her to admit that she bombed, which she obliges. He then laughs and says that it was funny...hahaha...MEAN and UNNECESSARY! He then calls it safe and makes a comment about her chest. Paula thought she let go, which I don't know if it is meant to be negative or positive, but then I remember that Paula is speaking, so it doesn't really matter. She said that she made the song "relevant" which I don't totally get either. Simon cuts the crap and says he used to like her, but now hethinks she has "stumbled." He calls the song too "old-fashioned" and says that she was in & out of tune. GOOD CALL.

My Grade: C-


Kady Malloy- So Kady's talent is actually cool. Aside from singing like Britney Spears and singing poorly as herself on the Idol stage, she is an opera singer. We are shown her singing in front of a mirror and damn, she is pretty fucking awesome. Wonder why she doesn't bring that power in her voice to the voting stage. She then says that she's sure Simon will hate that she sings opera, which I don't understand for I never have recalled him ever saying ANYTHING about Opera. Whatever.

She's singing "Magic Man" and the song starts all chipper with a tight beat. Kady though, is a mess. Firstly, she's wearing an outfit that is encrusted with these huge ass stones all over it that looks absolutely ridiculous. Secondly, she begins descending the flight of stairs trying to look all flirty. Thirdly, I can't hear anything she says. I don't know if she is completely on-mic or not, but between the drums and bass in the beginning it is hard as a fuck to hear her sing in the verse. It doesn't seem like she ever real finds the right pitch, and she kind of just bounces along. It's quite bizarre and there are a lot of parts where she coyly speaks instead of singing and it's not cute or sexy or anything other than irritating and confusing. Like seriously, it's performances like these that make me wonder if they even practice before going out. And if they do, don't they realize how awful and just plain weird they sound? Don't they have people listening to them and guiding them that could lay down the law and say..."YO THAT SUCKS, pick another song"? The whole fucknig thing is a mess except for the last five seconds where she belts nicely, but it is totally not enough to save this shitfest from rotting.

Randy thought it was an interesting choice, but said that she never really found her pitch. So true. Paula points out that she was okay when she belted...also true. Simon says that he really likes her personality, and I do too, but when she gets on stage, all of that just disappears. It's like two completely different people. On her videos she seems so funny and cute and awesome, but on stage she is boring and off-pitch and irritating. And sadly, I don't think she is gonna get another chance to prove herself, cuz after last week's performance and this week's performance, I think her time is up.

My Grade: C-


Asia'h Epperson- Closing out this mediocre night is Asia'h, who is, to our surprise, a cheerleader. She loves fun and dancing and cheer camp! Shut up! Whatever, let's get this shit started.

She is singing "All By Myself" and I am immediately turned off. This is such a big song that I don't know if even Carly would be able to nail it. First off, her haid is straight and it's not a good look for her. The verses are fucked up. Too low, she seems to be really nervous and just kind of flatly sings all these really flat notes. Pretty painful, but not nearly as much as when she starts to sing the chorus and her voice refuses to even sing part of it. Cracking and screeching, most of the performance sounds like a 6 years old girl singing at her family's Christmas party and everyone claps and is impressed because, hey, she's fucking 6 years old and is singing, but damn...Asia'h isn't six, and this performance blows. She knows it too, cuz at one point she fucks up with the pitch and she makes the "oh, shit" face we've seen thirty times already tonight. Thank God for the good belt at the end, cuz this was a pretty dismal performace edging on ecruciating.

Randy knows she's sick and said that he actally thought it was good. WHAT?!?!?!?!? FUCK OFF. Paula whispers and mimes her hands all over the place and is made that she had to even listen to that shit. Simon says that this song is for Divas only, and that Asia'h isn't and never will be good enough for this song. HHahahahha. Basically calling her a sub-par singer, he crushes all of dreams and it's funny.

My Grade: D+


Safe?
- Carly Smithson for being the best of the night.
- Syesha Mercado for not completely bombing and for having "YES" in her name.
- Ramiele Mabooobaloooooo for picking an upbeat song that didn't completely drown out her vocals.


In Danger?
- Lushington for singing with zero commitment/involvement with the song.
- Asia'h Epperson for sounding like a partially deaf adolescent and having ugly hair.
- Kady Malloy for singing badly and not having Amanda Overmyer's kookiness to keep her interesting.