American Idol logoIt’s 1960s British Invasion week, so we get Peter Noone and Lulu to help the singers. And every time I see Lulu advising a contestant, I think I’m watching Twiggy on AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL. Just to help add to the confusion, the producer of GREASE is sitting behind Noone in the studio, so I keep waiting for Austin to show up, stick his well-toned arms out to his sides, and start belting out pop songs like they were show tunes. Confusing night.

But we’re talking the music of the 1960s, which included groups with names like “Jerry and the Pacemakers.” I suppose members of that generation look at the 90s and think, “Goo Goo Dolls? And you’re making fun of The Pacemakers?” Good point.

Truth be told, there’s a lot of really cool songs from this period, and we heard a few of them last night. Those little pop songs are such little bits of confectionary perfection. They’re catchy. They have melodies. They often include harmonies. They’re so deceptively simple that you can’t help but remember them. And, best of all for the contestants, they’re malleable. You can mess with them, keep them recognizable, and still have fun with them.

Haley Scarnato got the “You Go First” kiss of death from the producers. She went with “Tell Him,” which is a perfect song for her vocal range. As Lulu told her, you don’t have to have the Big Voice to do well. And Haley did well last night. She looked confident on stage. The dancing may have only been a half step removed from a stripper’s pole at times, but it was much more comfortable to watch than last week’s performance. Simon called her a “naughty little thing.” I suppose Kelly Pickler removed the word “minx” from his vocabulary for good last season.

She did well, but she went first and wasn’t over-the-top great. She’s in trouble.

Chris Richardson did “Don’t Let The Sun Getcha Crying.” Or “Catch Ya Crying.” I’m still not sure, but I know I’m not a fan. He was whiny and nasally again this week. It’s a boring ballad song that, though the judges complimented him on his restraint, was still too vibratto-filled. He added syllables in too many places. I hated it. But he’s safe. Simon called it his best vocal — well, duh, that’s because he actually SANG last night.

Stephanie Edwards failed where Nadia Turner shone a couple of seasons back. Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me” is a great song. Nadia made it come alive. Stephanie started out strongly with some real emotion behind the song, but came up short in the second half. She didn’t go far enough with the song. She played it safe and it got boring when it should have been nearly manic. Simon called it “cabaret,” and I’m not sure I’d disagree.

Blake Lewis did his thing, dawg. Like I said at the top, these are songs that can survive reinterpretation. Blake was mellow and restrained in his beat boxing around “Time Of The Season,” but kept the dance moves alive. He was entertaining and performed well. I’m not sure his vocal was spot on. He was drowned out by the background singers on the power parts, and it looked like he was running out of breath to sing and dance at the same time once or twice. But the guy can move, does have a voice, and brings something new to the show that hasn’t been there in the six years so far.

LaKisha did the first of two Shirley Bassie songs on the night. I never thought I’d type in a sentence like that, but welcome to IDOL 2007. This one was the Bond song, “Diamonds Are Forever.” I thought it was a little karaoke in parts. She phrased parts just like Bassie, but Bassie was unique, so it didn’t work for me. Her voice was still strong and she stood up to a tough song, but it was boring in the end. This is the first chink in the LaKisha armor that will send her home early in a massive upset in a few weeks. They can’t all be songs created to blow rooves off studios. And I think people will quickly take her for granted.

More after the break, including the best and worst performances of the night, and predictions for tonight’s results show.

Phil Stacey can’t decide if he’s Bo Bice or Chris Daughtry, so he mixed up both and screamed along with “Tobacco Road.” He still can’t move on stage. I didn’t buy it at all. Is this who he is? Is he a rocker? It ain’t gonna work. And to make things worse, he went over Simon’s head and appealed to the crowd. Like the studio crowd will ever be anything less than 100% excited by everything the contestants do on stage, even when they miss every note. ::sigh:: It was SO Justin Guarini-ish. Justin had to apologize for his outburst, though. I don’t think Phil needs to. He didn’t direct it at Simon, and Simon has become his own cartoon character now, so it’s tough to not give him a hard time.

Jordin Sparks is the dark horse in this competition. She’s too quickly left out of discussions over who’s the best singer in this show, but then she comes back to wow you every week. This was a HUGE winning week for her with the Shirley Bassie hit, “I Who Have Nothing.” (I like the Tom Jones version, but that man can do little wrong.) She felt the song. You could see it in her face that she knew what she was singing about. It was powerful, as was her voice. In the words of Randy, “She can blow, dawg.” Amazing performance, and the best of the night overall.

One odd moment, though: While Paula was talking, the camera showed all three judges, and Simon looked to be winking at Ryan. What was that all about?

Sanjaya Malakar came out next. I don’t know why I bother wasting time typing this up. He embarrassed himself with The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me.” Yeah. Sanjaya rawked out. It was just as laughably bad in a grade school talent show kind of way as you’d expect. This really is Kevin Covais 2: The Return of The Suck.

And the camera couldn’t stop cutting to a little girl in the audience crying at the end of every other lyric. Little Ashley, we came to find out later, cried over every contestant and so wound up on stage with all of them at the end. (Another little girl in the audience looked rather ticked off that it wasn’t her on stage. Hey, kid, Ashley made for better television.)

Said Simon of Sanjaya’s performance, “the little girl’s face says it all.”

Indeed. Sanjaya is super safe this week.

Gina Glocksen played the rocker chick card again this week by covering a Vanessa Carlton song. No, no, I know that was a cover, too. “Paint It Black” is a pretty cool little ditty, but Gina spent most of the time screaming around it and, honestly, using mannerisms that Nikki McKibbin used in the first season. That weirded me out. She also warbled a little bit. I wonder if all that running around the stage didn’t get her too out of breath to hit some of the notes as strongly as she wanted to. I don’t know if I’d go so far as Simon, who said she had moments of complete torture, but it wasn’t great.

But she gets credit for answering a question during the Coca-Cola(TM) Moment by mentioning “a lot of critiques we read in blogs.” HI GINA! I’m just keeping it real, dawg.

Chris Sligh went with “She’s Not There,” and got distracted a little by the crowd. He opened the song standing in the middle of the audience, and slowly walked through them, trying to be the sexiest man in rock. Not quite sure it worked too well. He looked too distracted at all the high fives he had to give while he sang, and the sultry look into the camera didn’t quite work for me. That said, his vocals weren’t bad, and he didn’t remix the song this week like he did last. Judges criticized him for ignoring the crowd. They’re right — he was too busy playing to the camera to remember to play to the people around him. Haley managed to do both while shaking her booty earlier in the show.

When Ryan gave out Sligh’s voting number, Sligh clapped his hands and yelled, “Fro Patrol!” That cracked me up.

Melinda Doolittle closed things out with a torch song, “As Long As He Needs Me.” It was mostly boring, but she can sing. It picked up in the second half, as Simon pointed out, but I’d still have preferred something more exciting to finish. Like LaKisha, though, Melinda could sing the phone book and sound confident and be perfectly on-key with every line. It sounded to me like the last note started off a little wrong, but she covered it so quickly that I doubt anyone noticed. She’s a smart performer, on top of everything else, with enough experience to know when to adjust her voice and how to do it quickly.

I did chuckle briefly early on in the song when the camera zoomed in on her and you could see the spittle flying out of her mouth as she sung. It’s all about the lighting, folks.

And the clip of her in the final phone number montage was either from rehearsal, or reversed. She was holding the mic in the other hand when she sang the song.

I think Jordin won the night, actually, with Blake and Melinda right behind her. LaKisha is right behind them. Chris Sligh is solidly in the middle of the pack. (”Remember, you don’t have to outrun the bear. You just need to outrun the other guy.”) Haley had a great week for her, but was still outgunned. Chris didn’t forget any lyrics or miss too many notes. I hate his style, but he still doesn’t deserve to be ranked much lower than this. Gina and Phil did about the same, and I’ll rank Stephanie a half rank lower for not living up to such a great song. Sanjaya, of course, brings up the rear.

At the end of the show, I started coming up with a list of names I thought might be in trouble this week. I wound up with Haley, Stephanie, Phil, and Gina. I think you’ll definitely see Haley in the bottom three this week. Going first is a death sentence. Phil will be back in the bottom three. And that third slot is very tough to call. Gina is the only rock chick, so she has a solid demographic voting for her. I guessed Stephanie last week, but got burnt with it. Screw it — I’m throwing Stephanie in the bottom three this week. Without the scare of being in the bottom three last week, her fans are a bit lazy and probably didn’t vote enough for her last night.

Sadly, Haley goes this week after her strongest performance in a while. And guess what? That means she doesn’t get to go on tour. Damn shame, that.