Lisa picking the most popular Idol winner ever and singing her song.....

That, Miss Kellie Pickler, is BALLSY!!

What's a ballsy?

Just like I thought, I had no idea what songs these people were singing. Still, nobody sounded great.

I've always liked Paula Abdul, but has she contributed anything to the show this season except her prescription medication gibberish and meaningless compliments?

Well, something was wrong tonight. Had to be. So far this season just about everybody has at least sang in tune each week. Tonight everybody with the possible exception of Taylor was out of tune for at least part of their song. Almost every performance including from rock solid performers like Mandisa, Katharine, and Chris were horrible and out of tune. And also, believe it or not, the show felt rushed with choppy arrangements of all the songs to get everybody in. Just a terrible show all the way around.

Taylor was the best tonight followed by...no one. Everybody else was horrible. I believe Lisa goes home by default but I would not be surprised if there were a surprise. Somebody like Elliott may go. I bet they don't brag about the vote count after that debacle

With the "Keep them safe" option, the program votes for the lowest ranked idol on your list (based on busy signal). To spread your votes choose the "Dial idols evenly" option.

Wow. Was really looking forward to tonight's show now that a pothole (Chicken Little) has been cleared from the road, but it looks like I'm better off just popping in a DVD tonight.

Sounds like anyone could get voted off tomorrow.

Hmmmm. Some surprises over at dialidol so far - not the loser, Lisa - but Katharine in the bottom 3 ??? Mandisa only a hair outside the bottom 3??? Of course Taylor and Pickler are at 1 and 2 like every other week so far.

Nah, I'm confident he'll mix it up and show a new side ... with some Nickelback!

Yes. Once. Last week before Kevin got the boot.

And really, yes, that's all.

I'm still sad that Kevin was voted off, so I didn' call in for anybody tonight.

If I had to guess (which I did), I'd say that Lisa is going home tonight.

Although if you look at the raw number of votes, Katherine has the most.

How did Lisa fall from grace so quickly?

She kept singing?

And that from one of her early supporters

I knew this had the potential of a trainwreck due to it being songs from the 2000-up, and it did not disappoint. Then again, I'm cynical in thinking there's a very small number of really great songs in the past 6 years, and none of the contestants picked any of them.

No one was above average, so let's start with:

Average:

Elliott - this is the song that Chris should have sung, Degraw's vocals are more piercing, and Elliott's voice is all wrong for this song.

Katharine - got nasally in spots, and it's not all that interesting of a song to listening to.

Taylor - at least he was on-pitch for a so-so song choice.

Below average:

Paris - yeeeshhh, that was painful to watch, and her vocals just don't do well with contemporary songs.

Mandisa - again, unless she's belting out the chorus, her vocals just don't hold my interest in terms of her phrasing.

Kellie - horrible song choice, this ain't a Sunday school sing-along. Her long notes got a little too high pitched.

Chris - that was just too much of a scream-fest. What if he dialed it down, and showed some vulnerability?

Going home suspects:

Ace - that song was too big for his voice, and it totally exposed his vocal weaknesses.

Bucky - just doesn't know what to do song choice.

Lisa - provided another Star Search performance, which made her performance too stiff for such a sad song. I don't think she has the maturity to add her own spin to songs at her age, so that works against her.

It was the worst overall night I can remember. What made it worse is the relative quality of this season compared to the last couple. Taylor is the only one deserving of a vote tonight.

fixed

I don't know if changing his singing style is Chris's best strategy. What I think he should do is choose a song that DOESN'T fit with his rock performance and give it a rock spin. As an example, I REALLY liked that clip of his performance during the auditions where he sang "First Cut is the Deepest". That way it'll feel more original.

Really weird that tonight was so bad for everyone. Even Randy and Paula weren't really feeling it.

Simon's comments about Elliot were dead on. Great song, but the arrangement sucked. The rhythm was very static and boring compared to the original. He would've been better off doing a replica of the original. I agree that Chris would've been better suited to the song.

It really is bizarre. I almost wonder if something tragic happened in her life. She looks and sounds deflated. I just re-watched her audition performance of Whitney Houston's "One Moment in Time" and it's a complete 180 from how she's performing now. Her voice was powerful, in complete control, and the dynamic range was just amazing. I'm casting a few votes her way in the hopes that she somehow gets "it" back next week.

I HAAAAAAAAATED her the second I saw her, with her overpracticed Star Search routines, and her annoying stage mom.

BTW, the American Idol band REALLY sucks.

Rickey Minor is a douche

It'll probably be Lisa or Bucky, although both did better than Kellie and Ace. If Ace sticks around I pray that he tries something different at the end of his songs. It hurts to watch.

Still don't get all the criticism for Lisa. I think she's pretty talented.

That was really bland tonight. No one stood out for me.

When I could actually hear Elliott sing I enjoyed his performance. I knew when he said what he was singing that it wouldn't sound like Gavin DeGraw's version. They're very different vocally. I liked his take on it, I just wished the band hadn't drowned him out the first half of the song. Seriously wtf was up with that arrangement? No human lungs were capable of singing over that wall of noise. He did screw up a line early on, but no big deal. He gets my votes this week.

Chris growled his whole song, and I agree with Simon. What if, what if, what if he was in the bottom three b/c people are tired of the same old 90s post-grunge/alt-rock sound every week?? That's all this guy can do. I see him making a dull album of Nickelback-like radio rock and selling less than Bo Bice.

I didn't have a problem with Kellie's song choice; it was just nowhere near as strong as Sara Evan's original. It really showed how thin and average her voice is. I felt bad for her when the judges were railing on the song. I thought it suited Kellie's style. It's a cute, fun song and was a pretty big country hit. The problem was simply that Kellie's voice stunk.

One thing that has irritated me since season one of AI is when the judges bash a song choice just because they're not familiar with it. All three did it with Kellie, and Paula did it again later with Taylor. She obviously had no clue who Ray LaMontagne was. Telling Taylor he was showing the younger kids his influences made it sound like she thought Ray was some old blues singer who is still making records. I'll bet she had no clue he just came out in the last few years and is probably around Taylor's age. I thought these people are supposed to be "in the know" in the music biz! Sheesh...I don't even keep up with newer music all that much and I recognized all the song choices. Granted, Ray LaMontagne isn't in heavy rotation on MTV and I got into his album through positive word of mouth, but Paula could've at least said "i wasn't familar with the song you chose..." instead of talking out of her ass.

Taylor is the only person I actually enjoyed, but I got to say, I missed the tics. Everyone else ranged from boring (Lisa) to bad (Kelli) to WTF?? (Elliott). People I usually love (Chris and Kat) didn't even do it for me tonight. It was like a really boring trainwreck, but yet, I couldn't stop watching.

Not a fun night, and Ray LaMontagne, at least pick something that someone in the audience has heard of. You know Sufjan Stevens or something I think taylor was going for crazy obscure.