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American Idol: 10 Girls Compete

By Claire Zulkey | March 4, 2010 | 5:45am

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This was a bad night for me to watch Idol late because while I was fighting the remains of jetlag, most of the girls picked the sleepiest, most boring songs, which, as the episode wore on, made me feel a strange combination of sleepiness and anger. Can we come up with a name for that emotion? If I were on the show, especially early on, when you're more likely to slip away into oblivion without having the chance to make your mark, why wouldn't you pick something you at least have fun singing? So many of the choices were so blah it made Randy's head explode: it clearly pained him to be the downer tonight but secretly I like the dawg more when he's pained.

It wasn't all bad. Crystal Bowersox sure didn't sing like she was sick yesterday. I like her a lot: she has a certain gleam in her eye that makes her compelling to me. She seems very confident in herself, and the girl can sing. I didn't love her song choice of CCR's "Long As I Can See the Light" but she's so talented it didn't matter to me—she's clearly in for the long haul. Simon gave her his blessing by comparing her to Kelly Clarkson. Randy put it more specifically however by saying "Truth is reality. You are the truth, you do what you do."

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I also liked Paige Miles a lot. I didn't remember her from the audition process but I like her rock/soul style. I had never heard the song she sang, "Walk Away" by Kelly Clarkson (penned by Kara, no less) but I dug that it was funky and unlike most of the songs tonight, upbeat. Apparently she is even better than this, since some of the judges wanted to hear more from her so I look forward to hearing her do better because I liked my first introduction to her.

There were two other performers who the judges liked but who I wasn't as keen on. "A Change is Gonna Come" is one of those songs I could live without ever hearing again on Idol so I wasn't psyched to hear Lilly Scott cover it. She can sing but I thought her voice sounded a little grating on this particular tune. The first three judges adored it but Simon got it right by saying it was good but he wasn't crazy about it, and that she wasn't as good as Crystal.

The other was Siobhan Magnus. What I liked most about her tonight were the pictures of her with her mohawk (although is it normal to give yourself a mohawk?) I thought she sung "Think" okay but I didn't think the song fit her at all, was too big for her and while she might have technically hit that big note at the end to me it was screechy and Adam Lambert-esque.

But the rest. Were so. Boring. Haeley's "The Climb" was slow and showed her weaknesses as a singer. Lacey Brown added nothing to "Kiss Me" (nice of Randy to say "good song choice" when Kara had specifically recommended it). Ellen nailed her advice to Katie Stevens saying she didn't want to hear her sing any songs she'd hear at the dentist's office (I know Ellen is already a better judge than Paula since she's getting booed so much). Michelle Delamor sang "With Arms Wide Open" by Creed which I think says all there is to say about that. Katelyn Epperly's "The Scientist" was a goddamn dirge. And Didi Benami's "Lean On Me" was so unremarkable and poorly sung that it made Randy laugh in discomfort and forced Simon to make her cry with words.

The chicks basically need to sing like they want to be there. Like last night, it's hard to pick which two should go home when there are about six of them.

—I'm not jealous of Simon's double-decker trailer because I'm positive it reeks of Newport smoke.

—It hurt me tonight to hear Simon say "misunderestimate" and for me to almost not notice it.

—Ryan's been picking on Simon for saying mean things, as if he suddenly just started watching this show.

—Do we think Ryan mentioned Justin Bieber to Katie as a joke or because he's Justin's pimp?