American Idol - The Top 24

So I used to amaze and astound my friends with my uncannily on-target American Idol breakdowns and predictions. Granted, these were friend who either agreed with me but weren't interested in taking the time to voice their own takes first, or didn't watch American Idol anyway. But still, I've been told I have a knack, and I've been encouraged to revive that tradition, so I recommence here!

I'm going to include the rankings for the first couple of episodes before I get to the current episode. I know they could have been back-adjusted, but why would I bother, really? I'm already wasting time including them here, do I really want to waste more time?

Week One

• the girls

1. Siobhan Magnus, singing "Wicked Game." I don't really like the changes she made to the lyrics, and she bugs me in general, but her voice was the best.
2. Katelyn Epperly, singing "Oh Darling." Yikes! The outfit. She's escaped from a 1983 cheapie music video that took place in a bordello. And her mugging bugs me. But again, she's tops.
3. Lilly Scott, singing "Fixing A Hole." Good. Reminds me of someone else, and she's still doing what she did with the Ella song in tryouts, but still better than most.
4. Crystal Bowersox, singing "One Hand in My Pocket." Which I hate (the song), and she's someone who actually give peace signs, so. . . ugh. But yet again, good singing.
5. Haeley Vaughn, singing "I Want to Hold Your Hand." I disagreed with the judges here. Although she was at times a little uncontrolled, I really liked what she did with the song and her ernest energy. Sweet.
6. Didi Benami, singing "The Way I Am" would have scored higher had she sung more and schticked less. Her mouth was literally caging in her voice during several parts of the song. Why? To be soundalike?
7. Katie Stevens, singing "Feeling Good." I hate you, Michael Bublé, for covering this song. You suck. Katie Stevens was okay, although she emotes like a drama clubber and I agree the song wasn't very fun for a 17-year-old.
8. Michelle Delamor, singing "Falling." Eh. Cute getup, cheap lite Whitney version of what is a soulful and grittily emotional song when Alicia sings it.
9. Paige Miller, singing "All Right Now." Yeah, what? "All Right Now" when you've got the whole Billboard Charts catalog at your fingertips, and you're a soulful chick? I don't get it. But she was passable.
10. Janell Wheeler, singing "What About Love." Oh NO! Why would she have chosen this song? And why would she have worn those legging-jeans? Both wretched choices, pulled off badly. A shame, because she has real talent. What a waste of a try on American Idol.
11. Ashley Rodriguez, singing "Happy." I never understood how this girl made it, because she just isn't as good as other people. It was always her "look" that got her through, from the very first audition in front of Poshy Vic. This was better than I'd have expected, but still not good enough.
12. Lacey Brown, singing "Landslide." A nightmare. It was like a QVC jewelry salesperson suddenly started giving birth to a snake and decided to sing Fleetwood Mac through the labor.

Although my assessment would ideally put forth the worst singers as the most likely to be eliminated, that's not always the case, and wasn't here. My top choices for elimination were, in order, Lacey Brown, Katie Stevens, Janell Wheeler, Ashley Rodriguez, and Paige Miles. I'd have guessed Haeley or Michelle would be next in line.

• the boys

1. Casey James, singing "Heaven." What a perfect song choice! And great shy-but-sincere delivery. What a charmer!
2. Andrew Garcia, singing "Sugar We're Going Down." I don't know what the judges were talking about. I thought this was exactly the kind of thing he did with the Paula Abdul song, and I thought it worked well.
3. Joe Muñoz, singing "You and I Both." I hate Jason Mraz, but this was well done. I'm surprised he made it through the tryouts with his looks, since they seem to prize that above other factors, like his great voice.
4. Alex Lambert, singing "Wonderful World." He didn't perform as well as he could have, but he's got an easily heard good voice, and a unique one at that. He's also the cutest this year, in my opinion.
5. Lee DeWyze, singing "Chasing Cars." Very good, although his voice is a tad rough and a bit too uncontrolled at points.
6. Aaron Kelly, singing "Here Comes Goodbye." His voice was surprisingly good, but he seemed nervous and just looks way too young. I almost feel like it'd have been better if he'd come when he's older.
7. John Park, singing "God Bless the Child." I thought it was all right, but he could have chosen a jazzier, more modern song, or at least had some more fun with it. I hate it when people choose sentimental songs for their first. What, you think you won't get another chance to sing it? Well, sing it and you might not.
8. Michael Lynche, singing "With This Love." Unexpected, and good, but the unexpected part sort of made the whole thing slightly comical, which wasn't so great.
9. Jermaine Sellers, singing "Get Here." Definitely could have been better, but you can hear this guy has a good voice.
10. Tyler Grady, singing "American Woman." Yikes. I never understood why they let this guy through at the auditions---again, another one they seemed to like for his "look," which seemed to me like that one guy in the other dorm at college. You know, that guy. The one with the Doors poster who has leather lace-up pants. Okay, so maybe I didn't know that guy at college. I went to a small college. I'm sure he's at most colleges. He's certainly at most dive bars. Not singing.
11. Tim Urban, singing "Apologize." As soon as I heard the song choice, I was scared. So when Mr. 90210 got to the part where the high notes were supposed to be, I was almost ready for the epic fail. It still was a cringe.
12. Todrick Hall, singing "Since You've Been Gone." Mr. Hall only landed below Mr. Urban because Mr. Urban did sing some of his song, and did okay in those parts. Todrick Hall---I don't know what he was doing. Chanting?

I didn't know who to guess would go home from the guys, because you sort of have to gauge who the girls think is cute this year. Certainly Tyler Grady should go home, but was he cute to people? You just can't tell until you get a sense of things.

It turned out people must not have thought he was cute, because he got the boot. 90210 Tim must be high on the hottie factor, though, to beat that nightmarish performance. And sad to say, Joe Muñoz was this year's Jorge Núñez. Not appealing enough, for some reason, to win the votes his voice deserved. It's crushing when someone who really could sing beautifully is shunned by America because he doesn't fit the "idol" image. But the show is called American Idol, I guess.