For this week of Amer­i­can Idol the singers got to choose songs from the year of their birth. It’s like Eight­ies Nite all over again, only with fewer songs to choose from. Which was prob­a­bly a good thing.

Randy was a lit­tle harsh this week, and Paula was wear­ing some weird armwarm­ers with dia­monds on them… I think. Her sense of style clearly stayed in the Eight­ies with her career. There seems to be a flu bug or some­thing going around, though Ramiele hur­riedly dis­counted that as hav­ing any effect on her (bad) performance.

I got to think­ing, while watch­ing the show, about which of these singers could get me to part with actual cash for an album of theirs. Of these ten con­tes­tants, I would buy albums from Brooke (she’s my fave!), and David Cook. That’s it. Carly has an out­side chance, if she gets her­self together after a cou­ple of bad weeks (noth­ing a pro­ducer couldn’t fix, but I’m not sure what her musi­cal style would be). Turns out they actu­ally do full-length, stu­dio record­ings of their songs (as they showed us dur­ing the results show iTunes promo). I might actu­ally buy one or two.

Per­for­mance of the week (of the sea­son?): David Cook absolutely knocked it out of the park with his Chris-Cornell-inspired ver­sion of Michael Jackson’s “Bil­lie Jean.” Wow. We went and found the Chris Cor­nell ver­sion later, and if they post the stu­dio recorded ver­sion of this song, I will most cer­tainly buy it. It’d be infi­nitely bet­ter than the Cor­nell ver­sion (and it already was a lot bet­ter than the orig­i­nal, sorry Michael). Con­sid­er­ing that of the absolute stand­out per­for­mances of the sea­son so far, Cook already has two… the judges may be right that he’s the odds-on favorite now. Also of note, Chris Cor­nell called, and he is adding him­self to the David-Cook-covered-my-song fan­club, join­ing inau­gural mem­ber Lionel Richie. Speak­ing of the favorites: Two weeks ago I listed my final five or six, and since then some of them have had a rocky road. Carly got Bot­tom Three’d for her cloth­ing, Chikezie went back to Luther and punted, Brooke fum­bled her sec­ond Bea­t­les song, and Jason dis­re­spected the grav­i­tas of Idol (I know, I know, what grav­i­tas?). The only two to have risen since my pro­nounce­ment are David Cook and Aus­tralia, and Aus­tralia seems to have a pen­chant for gim­micky arena rock. The new order is Cook, Aus­tralia, Brooke, Carly, and Jason. Sorry, Chikezie. God Bless the USA: Kristi Lee Cook, in a des­per­ate bid to avoid going home, pulled out all the stops in her song selec­tion rou­tine. She went for Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” It was a judi­cious, canny, insight­ful, clever, totally annoy­ing, per­fect choice. Which means some­one else must have cho­sen it for her, right? She did a pass­able job, but she draped her­self in the flag to try and pull votes from all the patri­ots out there (not to men­tion Amanda’s Southern-country crew, now that she’s out). That, and Lee Greenwood’s bless­ing, took her over the top (into fourth from the bottom?).

The Bot­tom Three this week were:

Chikezie, falling off his own band­wagon. We were all on the Chikezie! Express: young, hip, ener­getic, and fun, and then he went back to the Luther Van­dross well, and it sucked. The song (“If Only for One Night”) was ter­ri­ble, though the singing of it may have been fine. I couldn’t tell over the sound of his career shat­ter­ing into a mil­lion pieces. Sye­sha, who report­edly sang well (“report­edly” because the judges appar­ently heard some­thing I didn’t) but chose yet another R&B tune (once sung by Gladys Knight), which just doesn’t fly with today’s youth. I don’t think we’ll be see­ing a Motown theme night this year. Jason, who has indeed been coast­ing since “Hal­lelu­jah,” and pretty much coasted all the way to the Bot­tom Three, elic­it­ing a bored “meh” from me with his Spang­lish ver­sion of Sting’s “Fragile.“

I was hop­ing Sye­sha would be the one to go, because she has done noth­ing but bore me to tears, but Chikezie took the hit he deserved. You don’t turn your back on who brought you, and Chikezie did more than that, he took all the fans who voted for him because of his pre­vi­ous two per­for­mances, and he spat on them. Too harsh? I don’t think so.

Next week we’ll have guest men­tor Dolly Par­ton. Should be another ban­ner week for Kristi Lee Cook, as she rides the coun­try music bronco all the way to the bank. I’m expect­ing a train wreck from most of the others.

[Actu­ally last week’s episode, but it was Spring Break, so sue me. Danny.]

If the first night of Bea­t­les (really the Lennon-McCartney Song­book) was a glo­ri­ous show­case of all things good on Amer­i­can Idol, then the sec­ond night of Bea­t­les (actual songs the Bea­t­les recorded) was just the oppo­site, a flop-heavy col­lec­tion of mediocre per­for­mances and dubi­ous tal­ent. Even the judges were off by a coun­try mile, as one of their few picks for best song of the night was dumped into the Bot­tom Three by the unwashed masses.

The con­tes­tants didn’t help them­selves much, with a series of strange deci­sions: Aus­tralia chose his song because it was a dead friend’s favorite (beau­ti­ful sen­ti­ment but stu­pid); Brooke let out a whoop! on stage, and then did an awk­ward hip­pie dance; Cook used a voice box (like a fancy kazoo?); Carly wore the most hor­rid thing ever (see below); Jason gig­gled through “Michelle”; Chikezie played the har­mon­ica; and Ramiele chose a song called “I Should Have Known Bet­ter.” Really, guys.

By far the best sin­gle moment of the entire week was the iPhone/AT&T/Coke pro­mo­tion in the mid­dle. Ryan sees a “ran­dom audi­ence mem­ber” with an iPhone and asks to see it. She gives it to him and he stands up there with it, extolling the virtues of Idol part­ner AT&T, while behind him on the megaplex-screen there are videos of the iPhone in action. Mean­while, Ryan is press­ing and swip­ing on his “audi­ence” phone, which is off. Com­pletely dead. Blank screen. And after this bit of forced promo-play, he turns to the judges and says, “Cheers, judges!” and the cam­era turns to them and they all have their bright-red Coca-Cola cups up in the air, with great big pro­mo­tional smiles plas­tered on their faces. It was fun­nier than it sounds. If only that were avail­able on iTunes.

Best sar­to­r­ial per­for­mance of the week: In lieu of good singing per­for­mance (since there was none) this week I’m hand­ing out the best cloth­ing award to… Syesha’s boobs. Not that the com­pe­ti­tion was chal­leng­ing here, but the dress she chose in which to sing “Yes­ter­day” was quite clearly design to point out that she has boobs. And she does. Quite. At the other end of the spec­trum were Brooke’s hideous flower-child-meets-flapper sunny dress, and Carly’s mater­nity rose-collar, red silk gunny sack ensem­ble. Oy. Best song choice: Amanda actu­ally chose the song best suited to her, “Back in the USSR,” though it appar­ently did her lit­tle good. Aus­tralia sang “Day in the Life” which is one of my all time favorite Bea­t­les songs, and while the judges panned his choice, I loved it. But I have to give the award to Lit­tle David, who chose “The Long and Wind­ing Road” for his treacle-smeared ballad-happy fans. It was the per­fect song for him. Worst way to pick a song: Kristi Lee Cook actu­ally admit­ted in her video clip that she chose her song because she liked the title. She had never heard it. She didn’t ask to hear it. She picked it, with­out hear­ing it! I think, just maybe, she’s not even try­ing any more.

This week’s bot­tom three were:

Carly, who wore the afore­men­tioned smock from the dis­count rack at Burling­ton Coat Fac­tory but did a pass­able job on “Black­bird,” so I have to think it was every­thing but her singing that brought her this low. Kristi Lee Cook, always a brides­maid, but never booted off the show, she gave a bor­ing, wooden, unin­spired ren­di­tion of “You’ve got to hide your love away,” that caused the judges to yawn and elicited the deadly “this is the best you’ve ever looked” from Paula. Amanda, who did exactly what she had done every week prior to this, singing her song like she was open­ing for Lynyrd Skynyrd in some arena in Arkansas. Simon warned her that she needed to branch out, and she pub­licly dissed that notion from cen­ter stage.

And it cost her. Amanda was the con­tes­tant with the fewest votes (Kristi Lee Cook escapes again!) and seemed per­fectly happy with that result. I don’t think she was all that excited about being an Idol. And she just missed the inden­tured servi­tude of the Idol tour, too. After her sing out, when the con­tes­tants storm the stage in a group hug, she looked decid­edly uncom­fort­able with all that closeness.