American Idol 9: The Power (or Not) of 10 – The Guys

Most of us expected that the top 10 girls would be singing for us tonight, but due to a medical emergency involving hospitalization(!?), Crystal Bowersox was left unable to perform. So, in order to give her enough time to recover, the boys agreed to step in at the last moment. Hopefully, she'll be okay and we'll see her Wednesday night. For now, let's have a look at what the men had to offer.

Michael Lynche took a bold step with James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" (even though he said it was called "This is a Man's World" – did he not actually know the song?). Anyway, THIS is was what I pictured for Big Mike. It was definitely miles ahead of that insipid Maroon 5 performance last week. This is who he is. Randy gave him the standing O. Ellen said it was educational. Kara wondered what he ate (a lot, apparently). Simon said he evolved from a pussycat to a lion in one week and that it was the best performance he's given in the competition so far. Well done, Mikey.

John Park cured America's insomnia by snoozing his way through John Mayer's "Gravity." Gravity, gravity, gravity. . . zzzzz. . . Jessica Simpson. . . zzzzzzz. . . Twitter. . . zzzzzz. . . napalm. . . zzzzzzzz. . . Jennifer Aniston. . . zzzzz. . .

Casey James threw in his best guitar chops on Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Wanna Be." The playing was cool enough, but his vocals seemed really clipped. It was obvious he was concentrating more on the strings than his voice. I remember Bo Bice absolutely killing this number. Casey's take was just aight for me.

Alex Lambert might share the same last name as last season's runner-up, but he is his polar opposite in every way. Alex suffers from extreme stage fright, which totally contradicts Adam's pronounced cockiness. There's no way anybody will ever get the two confused! Anyway, he sang John Legend's "Everybody Knows." Unfortunately, it did nothing for me. I just don't get this bland, out of tune, pablum kind of singing. He seems like a nice, NICE guy, and it was a definite improvement over last week. But whatever. Kara figures that there isn't a person out there who isn't rooting for him. Really? He received many kudos from all four judges. Okay, well, at least he doesn't make my skin crawl.

Todrick Hall came next with his adapted version of Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It?" The judges all slammed him pretty hard (Simon called him Tondrick and felt he gave a theme park performance – there's a few sips for the drinking game). I can actually hear this version being played on the radio, although not on a station I'd listen to. Again, not my thing.

Jermaine Sellers, or to be more precise, "I am Jermaine Sellers. . . and I rocks my onesie," told us that his dad used to turn the heat off in the house so that the temperature dropped to "zero below." Does anybody here want to explain absolute zero to Jermaine? Anyway, he presented us with Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On." Holy crap, it was REALLY awful! What's going on? Indeed! He believes God will keep him on for at least another week. We'll see.

Andrew Garcia yawned his way through James Morrison's "You Give Me Something." What? You couldn't find anything MORE boring? I don't get this guy's hype. Randy kept going on about Jason Mraz? Okay, here's the deal, from this point forward, the "Three JMs" (Mraz, Morrison and Mayer) are Banned From Idol (TM). Enough's enough! I've got a bottle of melatonin in my kitchen cupboard, I don't need this too.

Super sweet kid, Aaron Kelly sugared his way through The Temptations' "My Girl" (also BFI, btw). This kid can sing, but he was offering too much vibrato. I think he might be going home.

Tim Urban tossed in the night's penultimate performance with Matt Nathanson's (yeah, I've never heard of him either) "Come on Get Higher." Can I ban this one too? Wow, that was just really generic. I don't know if it was any good. But then again, I don't shop at The Gap either.

My favourite of the night had to be Lee Dewyze (hence the photo) with his take on Hinder's "Lips of an Angel." I truly DON'T like this song, but it seemed in keeping with his style. I like his raspiness, and even though he was somewhat off-key, it felt right. It was ALMOST on. I really like this guy a lot, and I'm rooting for him. Ladies and gentlemen, I present this season's Dark Horse.

So when it was all said and done, I'd say the show started and ended on the right track. The others have some work to do, especially when it comes to song selection. Let's see what the girls can do on Wednesday.

CANUCKGIRL delivers the thrills and spills of America’s favourite singing competition direct to your monitor. CanuckGirl is NOT a professional journalist, nor does she play one on television.