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LIL - Lil seems like a nice woman. Lil seems like a nice singer. That seemed like a nice performance. It was all very nice. It was not exciting. It was not "wow", but it was nice. The performance would have been helped immeasurably if they had brought +###+@$ Juanita out of retirement to strut around in the background - for the chill'ren, of course… Honestly, I was much more interested in Lil's body than in her performance. Now THAT is a true "hourglass" figure. The only thing bigger than her "T" is her "A", and somehow, the two are connected by that tiny waist…

SCOTT - Scott has a really nice tone to his voice - except for when he went into the shrieky falsetto - he just needs to learn to actually hit the right notes. It was woefully old-fashioned, but I don't get the judges' surprise at that fact. Everything Scott has ever done on this show has been old-fashioned, and he doesn't show any signs of having it in him to be anything BUT old-fashioned… I threw up in my mouth a little when Paula waxed rhapsodic about his "instrument" at his fingertips. LISTEN TO YOUR FILTHY MOUTH, YOU FUCKING WHORE! This is a family show. We don't need to hear about Scott's masturbatory habits!!!

DANNY - That was disappointing. It doesn't help that I've always hated that song. I give Danny points for bravery in confronting the dorkiness head-on, but it was all a little too shout-y for me, even though I generally like the gravel in his voice. His dancing, while certainly not the worst in the top 13 (I'm looking at you, Megan), is not a strength and didn't really add to his performance. In all, it was nowhere near the epic train wreck of the Guarini version, but neither was it very good… I do think that Danny's humility and self-deprecation with the judges was charming. Not that those who hate him would ever ADMIT that, but for the sane people in the audience, that should be a winning quality.

MICHAEL - Michael comes off as an abject amateur. Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing if played right, but Michael tries too hard. He's not a natural performer, so he has got to go the less-is-more route, and he did not do that tonight. I think I even saw Michael try to 'eye boink'! Ewwwww! I hated most of the changes he made to the melody, and I found his performance very oversung and karaoke. And, Michael, the word "you" should be pronounced 'yoo', not 'yeee-ewww'! Michael is not without a good voice, but as of now, he has no idea what to do with it (including staying in tune). I'm not too sad to say that he probably won't have enough time to really learn how to harness whatever talent he's got.

JASMINE - While this was not a perfect performance, there was an awful lot about it that was really, really good. First off, she looked great. She sang throughout her range without sacrificing the lower range for the "money notes" (or vice-versa). Most importantly, she made it seem natural and easy (despite the fact that some of the notes and runs were challenging). I resent Simon calling her "robotic". I thought that what she was instead was REAL. Her sweet smile and connection to what she was singing was perhaps the most human thing we've seen on that stage all night. Did she miss some of the notes? Yeah. However, in the bigger picture, it didn't bother me all that much. And I would say that the last 20 seconds or so was right up there with the best singing we've heard all season.

KRIS - I'm with Simon that the guitar (and for that matter, Kris himself) went against the style of the song. I don't like this song and actually prefer simple, vanilla Kris, but if he's going to DO this song, he has to make a better effort to marry the two. Otherwise, it becomes extremely awkward and uncomfortable. For the first half, Kris' vocals were perfectly acceptable, but then his voice broke and went off key on some of the shoutier moments. If Kris is such an MJ expert, he certainly blew it here with song selection!

ALLISON - I don't think I've ever heard this song before, and it's a tribute to Allison that I can't even imagine how Michael does it. I guess that's what they mean by making the song her own. Overall, it was good, but Allison has some bad habits that really bug me. The word is "okay", not "hhhho-kay". The word is "me" not "maaaaaay". Overall, I only understood about a third of the lyrics outside of the chorus. And she also pointed to herself when singing "me" (or, in her case, "maaaaay"), which is an unforgivable crime in my book. Also, I wasn't sure if it was possible, but they made her hair look even worse!

ANOOP - I had read spoiler threads prior to watching the show, and I honestly expected Anoop's performance to be way worse than it was. I actually thought that he DID show that he was a good singer during the verses - although he called to mind Glenn Frey in his Miami Vice days way more than Michael Jackson. His voice got swallowed by the band and the background singers on the chorus, but the chorus of that song is more an excuse for a dance interlude rather than any great singing opportunity, anyway. What was missing from Anoop's performance to me was that little wink that showed that he recognized how campy it is for him to be doing this Michael Jackson song on this ridiculous show. Had he had that, it would have elevated above serviceable and approached the sublime. I'm fairly sure, though, that with Simon's [intentional?] cruelty, Anoop will be back next week.

JORGE - He started the song SO DAMN CREEPY that I just could never get past it. Honestly, it seemed that the person to whom he "never can say goodbye" is the prisoner he has stalked and kidnapped and is now sitting bound and gagged before him. He's just so icky on stage! There were good moments vocally and some individual notes sounded lovely, but it wasn't consistent and there was a lot of rocky pitch in between. I would have a hard time overlooking the creepy performance, anyway, but maybe if he had a PERFECT vocal, it would have done something to get me past it. This was far from perfect, and I was with Simon in hoping it would end sooner rather than later.

Megan - Just to get this out of the way, Megan has no business being here if this is, in fact, a singing competition. I contend that it is not. I contend that it is an entertainment show, and I'll be damned if Megan didn't entertain me. Simon and Randy are 1,000,000% wrong. This was not a "stupid" song choice - it was a brilliant song choice. She clearly went through the Michael Jackson catalog and found the ONE SONG vocally easy enough that she wouldn't make a complete fool of herself singing it. I mean, five-year-olds can sing that song. And then what did Megan do? She turned around and made a fool of herself with it anyway - not by singing it so badly, but by being such a ridiculous goofball, that her sheer dorkiness became infectious! I mean, "caw, caw"? Seriously? Seriously?! She is Sanjaya 2.0, but on a much, much higher level. She is making the case that singing is overrated and entertainment is where it's at! I hope that for as long as she is here, she does not challenge herself vocally (we've seen where that takes us and it's not pretty) and instead picks the simplest songs she can find and injects her own special spin into them. Rock! Crazy bitch!!!

ADAM - Paula is totally right about the fact that Adam is the only one able to integrate everything - wardrobe, choreography, vocals & personality - into a Michael Jackson song in a way that's convincing. I just wish he sounded better doing it.
Adam's voice - particularly on the bridge (which was nonetheless my favorite part) - has a strangled, almost strident quality to it. It's not so bad that I can't listen to him, but it's bad enough that I can never go along with the hyperbolic praise they shower upon his singing. I know that most will disagree, but I firmly maintain that CONSTANTINE sounded better than Adam every time he sang…

MATT - I'd give Matt the same less-is-more advice I gave to Michael but for the opposite reason. It's not that Matt is an amateur who doesn't know how to make his voice do what he wants - it's that his sensibility is downright awful and he'd rather caterwaul in an atrocious falsetto than sing beautifully. I'm convinced that Matt is ridiculously talented and could be one of the best singers here. But left to his own devices, he has a tendency to butcher songs rather than just sing them! The first third of the song was okay. He was only doing about 120% of what he really needed to do. Halfway through, he went off-the-rails, though, and began giving us about 3,000%, and it was awful!

ALEXIS - Other than the horrible ending, the vocals weren't bad here. Not that this was a real vocal challenge - it was mostly speak-singing - but she brought the right attitude and the right growl, and I can't imagine many previous contestants with the balls to go for what she did. She needs to be a bit careful not to go over-the-top. She is not Tina Turner. Still, I thought it was pretty good and I was entertained.



The show was way less horrible than I expected. Going into tonight, I expected the boys to own the girls, but looking at my rankings, the exact opposite was the case:

1. Jasmine
2. Alexis
3. Allison
4. Megan (for all the wrong reasons that are somehow oh, so right!)
5. Adam
6. Lil
7. Anoop
8. Danny
9. Matt
10. Kris
11. Scott
12. Jorge
13. Michael