Ellen has dressed up more tonight and Kahra’s not so dressy.

01 Crystal Bowersox has a twin brother, whom she describes as a square. Yeah, well my sibs call me the same thing, so he must be awesome. She’s singing CCR’s “Long as I Can See the Light” and plans to put a gospel twist on it. I love how she has her dreads pulled back in a bulbous ponytail. No, I really do love it. She looks so much cleaner tonight. And holy smokes, her voice. She’s brilliant, and this is brilliant, and she’s kind of the one to beat this year. RANDY: Yo, Crystal. I gotta say this. To me, in life, truth is reality. You are the truth. You do what you do. I just love that you’re not trying to be anyone else. I love that girl. That girl is hot! ELLEN: That is pure, raw, natural talent. There’s nothing forced, nothing pushed. I was so scared for you, and I’m so glad you’re here today. KAHRA: You completely recovered from last week. It just didn’t fit you. This is who you are. You are Americana rock. Tonight, you actually hit a new level. SIMON: I know how sick you were, you really were ill, and I didn’t know if you were gonna be back here this week. What I like is that you didn’t play the whole sympathy thing, you chose a great song. I completely misunderestimated you from last week. This was like the moment we realized with Kelly Clarkson that we’ve got a serious artist here. And I think we’ve got a really serious artist with you. Congratulations. SARAHK: Ok, I have to say, she just looks a whole new level of gorgeous tonight that she hasn’t looked in the past. She has like a glow. Oh, also? I’d love to see her do something by Dave Matthews Band.

02 Haeley Vaughn is singing Miley Cyrus this week. I hope it’s that one Miley song out of all of them that I actually like. And it is. “The Climb.” She makes headbands and puts giant, ugly flowers on them. And then wears them onstage. She doesn’t know how to not smile, but she’s gonna try not to smile as much onstage tonight. I’m not loving this. It’s hella pitchy, and when she tries to do this high note at the end, she gets cracky. RANDY: You want me to keep it real, right? It didn’t work for me, man. It was excruciating. It was so pitchy and just so not right for you. You had no connection to the song at all. ELLEN: First of all, don’t ever stop smiling. You’re adorable. I did not feel you connected to the song. I didn’t feel like it worked out. KAHRA: You have kind of the Alex Lambert factor, you have people rooting for you at home. You’re real, and you’re a really good performer. Unfortunately, honey, you need about a year of strengthening your instrument. Because you do have talent, but it’s very inconsistent. SIMON: Look, I agree, I don’t want to make this any worse than it already is. Because it was a complete and utter mess. In theory, it should have worked. There’s a bit of an irony in you singing that song about climbing, when really, you fell off. SARAHK: Yeah, it was bad. And I’m sorry that Kahra did the condescending “honey” thing with you. No one should have to endure that.

03 Lacey Brown. I love her hair and its fiery redness. She likes to antique shop & refurbish old furniture. “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer. The vocals are good, it’s kind of boring, and she sometimes drops into this weird twang that doesn’t fit with the rest of her singing voice. I don’t know. Weird. Also, I hate her puffy sleeved ’80s shirt. RANDY: Listen, you know. I think it was a good song choice that would have worked for me, but it was karaoke. You didn’t do anything special with it. ELLEN: No, you didn’t change it up or anything, but I thought it was adorable. It was a good song choice. KAHRA: Last week, I felt what we were losing what was special about you, which was your tone. And this song, especially at the beginning, brought that back to the audience. But I have to say that you have to step it up from here. This is you. Happy, smily people. SIMON: It was marginally better than last week. I get the feeling with you that you’re taking part in a competition rather than that you’re showcasing who you are as an artist. Compare you to Crystal, who is showing who she is as an artist, and you come on, bounce around the stage, since a quite happy song. And that’s the problem. SARAHK: You gotta act like you wanna win, girlfriend.

04 Katie Stevens can say “give me a kiss” in six languages, including English. Her personality annoys me, I don’t know why. She feels like “Put Your Records On” is a younger song than last week’s “Feeling Good.” I actually always think it sounds like a remake of some old jazzy tune. For most of the song, she’s trying to sound too much like the original. Soundalike, if you will. But then when she lets that go and sings with her own voice, it’s much less distracting. It’s good, I’m just bothered by the soundalikey parts. RANDY: A’ight, so yo. There were some bright moments, right after the bridge when you went into your upper register. I know you’re young, but you can tackle a lot more difficult things. When you got to your sweet spot, it was cool. You can tackle some bigger songs. ELLEN: You have a great voice, and I liked it. It still feels like I want you to feel younger. I don’t wanna hear something like I would hear in my dentist’s office. You’re not singing something that’s right for your age. KAHRA: I’m so frustrated with you. SARAHK: I’m so frustrated with YOU! KAHRA: You’ve gotta be doing your own thing from the first time you open your mouth. Certain songs are great songs on the radio, but on stage, they’re just not. SIMON: My issue is, if you came into my record label and asked what you should do, I would say a) get some experience and b) tell me what kind of artist you want to be. And you’re not doing that. You need to research that.

05 Didi Benami was her middle school mascot for two years and then eventually a cheerleader. She prays and meows before hitting the stage. She actually looked up self-indulgent after Simon called her that last week. She’s singing “Lean On Me.” I love her top. Loving the performance. She’s taking it soulful, gospelly, not that it isn’t already that way. The judges will hate it, but I love it. RANDY: Listen, man. I don’t know what’s goin’ on tonight. I just would not have chosen that song. I didn’t think it really worked. Shows more the stuff you can’t do rather than heightens what you can do well. ELLEN: First of all, I love your voice. You have a great, great voice, great presence. I don’t know that that was the greatest song choice. Hopefully people see through the song and vote for you. KAHRA: It wasn’t good, it really wasn’t good. If you’re a singer-songwriter, sit down with the guitar. It was like a karaoke bar. SIMON: At least you continued the cat theme throughout the song, because that’s what it sounded like. It was screechy, bad choice of song. AUDIENCE GIRL: Boo! SIMON: You’re kind of a cool artist, and then you do something generic. It’s a wasted opportunity. DIDI is barely hanging on, trying not to cry. SARAHK: Simon, we’re on a break. Again.

06 Michelle Delamor is a children’s choir director at church. So everyone prays before every show. She’s singing “With Arms Wide Open” by Creed. Ooh, that can be interesting. Ok, she’s wearing weird half-gloves. Not the ones that cover the palms but not the fingers. These gloves cover only the fingers, and they’re very distracting. I’m not loving what she’s doing with the song. Sometimes it’s unrecognizable. And the end is just meh. No, I didn’t like it. RANDY: The outfit is hot. I sound like a broken record tonight. You just didn’t do enough with it. It was a great opportunity to make it something different, but it fell flat to me. ELLEN: Yeah, you do look fabulous. I think you did do a lot with the song, and for a few moments, I forgot that it was a rock song. There were a couple little pitch problems. It almost worked but not quite. KAHRA: My favorite performance of yours ever. SARAHK: Huh. KAHRA: It may not have been technically perfect, but it was believable. I bought you on this one. I get it. SIMON: I’m kind of with Kahra on this actually. I thought the first half was much much stronger than the 2nd half. To be fair, we give a lot of contradictory advice. You didn’t choose a safe song, and you made 80% of it work. Regarding the outfit, we’ve got Vera Wang in the audience, what did you think? AND THEN they pan to Michelle’s family instead of Vera Wang. SARAHK: I hate the outfit, if you’re wondering. Anything poofy just doesn’t do it for me.

07 Lilly Scott plays lots of different instruments. She’s trying to be unpredictable with song arrangements. Uses a throat spray before she goes onstage. She does not explain the hanging-birds-from-the-ears fetish. She’s doing Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Tonight’s birds are very colorful. Maybe something from the parrot family. She’s doing a great job on the song, but she’s gone almost screechy at a couple of spots and actually sounds nervous, which is new for her. But it’s mostly great. Oh, now they find Vera Wang in the audience. RANDY: This season has some of the most unique contestants we’ve ever seen. That song’s one of the hardest in the world to sing, but dude. You worked it out, you did your thing. My favorite performance so far tonight. ELLEN: I don’t know what *it* is, but you have got *it*. By far the best performance of the night. SARAHK: I’ll give her 2nd best, easily, but y’all are ignoring the nigh-screeches and the nerves. Not better than Crystal. KAHRA: You just had your first… *moment* in this competition. I was just riveted. Thank God you tried out. You are gonna change the game. SIMON: Yeah, this really makes the point when we’re talking to some of the other contestants about how you become relevant, how you use the show as a showcase. I thought it was good, I wasn’t as crazy about it as the others compared to last week. I thought you oversang the song in the middle a little bit. I will compare you to Crystal, because you’re similar artists, and I thought Crystal was stronger than you, personally. But it was still great. SARAHK: Dead parrot notwithstanding, I love the outfit.

08 Katelyn Epperly is wearing horrifyingly BAD earrings. Before Idol, she was studying to be a recording engineer. She’d like to open her own studio someday. She likes to be goofy before her performances. This week she’s sitting at the piano and singing “The Scientist” by Coldplay. That could be interesting. I hate her hair tonight. It’s pulled back in a bun, which makes it look really short and poofy from the front, and it doesn’t work for her. She seems really nervous in the beginning. Once she gets going, she’s really good, and the nerves back off a bit. Yeech, bad last note. She should have kept that one mellow. Also, this was unbelievably slow, probably because she wasn’t that confident on the piano part. Much better tonight, and now’s the first time I get why she made the top 24. RANDY: I really liked it. It was really way slow, but. It was great until the last couple of notes, but it kind of fell off pitch at the end. ELLEN: I like that you were playing guitar… You weren’t playing guitar, you were playing piano. I fell kind of asleep, it was so slow. Way too slow. If I’m home babysitting, you’re helping me out, because the baby’s asleep, but sleeping people don’t call in. KARA: I understand what Randy and Ellen are saying. I love you. You have an amazing instrument. SARAHK: Can we call it a voice now and then? KARA: Blah blah blah. Figure out who you are real quick, but I really really like you. SIMON: Did you hear the Natasha Bedingfield version of the song? KATELYN: Nope. SIMON: Ok, because that’s almost identical. I thought it was a smart choice of song, made you contemporary. What you’ve got to work on is that you’ve become quite corny when you perform. It was a million times better than last week, and I think you may have put yourself back in the race.

09 Paige Miles likes to color w/ crayons and markers. That’s her preshow ritual. She’s doing Kelly Clarkson’s “Walk Away.” The vocals are good, the earrings are awful, the performance is a’ight. Kinda forgettable. Kara cowrote the song. RANDY: You wanna be this rocker girl, right? I liked it, I wasn’t over-the-top in love with it. It has so many words. SIMON: Like Kahra. So many words. SARAHK: Hahahaha. RANDY: You’ve got one of the best voices. I wanna hear you sing the big notes. ELLEN: I totally disagree with Randy. I loved it. KAHRA: I can see you having a hit with that song. If you knew the guy that I wrote the song about, you wouldn’t have been smiling all through that song. It’s kind of an angry song. We weren’t smiling when we were telling the guy to take a hike. SIMON: I’m going to agree with Randy. I’m afraid 2 weeks in a row you have failed to choose the right song for you. And I’m afraid you’re getting lost in these songs, it’s like the songs are overtaking you. You’ve gotta nail the song next week and put your marker down as the one to beat. You didn’t do it with that song, and it was forgettable.

10 Siobhan Magnus used to have a mohawk. She just HAD to have one before she was 30. Before the show, she does lip drills. She’s doing Aretha’s “Think.” Risky. Her dress is weird. Blue / white polka-dot tshirt on top, then it’s connected to this navy satin dress? She’s good on this, but her voice is just a smidge not powerful enough for this song. Oh, I take it back. She just hit a note that proves she has the voice for it. The end was brilliant. First half of the song wasn’t great, but the 2nd half brought it home. RANDY: Yo. Check it out x3! You picked the dopest, coolest, greatest singer of all time. You were so dope and so fearless, it was dope. I loved it, dude. I loved it. ELLEN: I loved it too. Most people would say don’t take on such a big song. But they also said don’t mix sleeves with a blanket, and look at the Snuggie, it’s huge! KAHRA: I can’t get over the note. I don’t know how you hit that note. SIOBHAN: I learned how to do that in the shower singing Kelly Clarkson. SIMON: Once again, you are such a strange person, and I mean that as a compliment. I love your film, it made you interesting. I thought there were parts of the song that were terrible, and then that note made you incredible. It was like two halves. SARAHK: Yeah, it was weird, I’ve put her in 4 different places in my top 5 before settling her in a spot.

01 Crystal*****
07 Lilly***
10 Siobhan*
02 Didi*
08 Katelyn*
04 Katie
09 Paige
06 Michelle
03 Lacey
02 Haeley

Hrm. Going home… I think Haeley goes for sure. And then… either Paige or Lacey. Probably Lacey. So Lacey and Haeley.