American Idol Season 9 featured the Top 12 guys performing. Follow the action after the jump…

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American Idol is a cheesy, glorified, over-hyped talent show. It’s also been the highest rated show in America for almost a decade. This contradiction seemingly compels some people to loudly announce their opinion of the show every time they get the chance – even if that opinion is “I never watch that show. It’s garbage!”

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Last night we were serenaded in ways that varied from boring to compelling, weird to wonderful, and all points in between. Unfortunately that all over the map delivery failed to live up to the high expectations set by the judges raving about this being a “girls year” on Idol. The walk didn’t match the talk. Or… actually the walking was mostly fine. But in a lot of cases the singing was another matter.

In any case what’s done is done. The Top 12 girls performances are history. The votes have already been cast. And now they’ll sit and watch to see if the Top 12 boys make a stronger statement for themselves.

Once again the theme is “Top 100 Billboard hits since roughly the Pleistocene,” so the risk isn’t one of no options, it’s the risk of poor song choice. Traditionally, and for whatever reason, Idols don’t fare their best when they choose their personal favorite songs to perform. That’s something at least a couple of last night’s girls stumbled over.

Todrick Hall is this season’s representative of from the world of musical theater. He’s shown one of the stronger male voices so far, but he’s not going to win on showtunes. He sings “Since You Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson. Umm… odd. It’s cast as this kinda super R&B talk-sing kinda thing. His head is poppin’. He’s got vocal riffs flyin’. But he forgot to bring anything like a song to the party. The judges kind of rave about him while hating on his singing.

Aaron Kelly threatens to be the new David Archuleta only maybe more so. He actually won his audition not by standing in line like everyone else, but by winning the “American Idol Experience” at DisneyWorld. Like Archuleta he’s only 16 and seems set up to claim the Tiger Beat vote this year, provided he doesn’t fumble over his lyrics like he did in Hollywood week. He sings, “Here Comes Goodbye” by Rascall Flatts. And… I want to hate it more than I do. I could make fun of his body language and facial expressions I suppose. But that’s not going to stand out especially in this crowd. Bah. It was just okay by me. The judges fawn all over him, predictably.

Jermaine Sellers is cast in the model of the ever-popular male Idol R&B song stylist. Rarely does one of these crack into my personal favorites, but whatever. He has shown a good voice and may have a trick or two we haven’t yet. He sings “Get Here” by Brenda Russel. Yes THE Brenda Russel. And guess what? He makes it all R & B with lots of unnecessary vocal twills as if he wants you to forget how he chose to sing a really freakin’ lame song. It didn’t quite work. Though his high pitched screaming near the end caught the attention in a fire alarm kind of way. The judges were… less than impressed.

Tim Urban is the replacement Idol for the contestant booted from the competition after making the top 24, Chris Golightly. As such, he’s had little to no camera time, so we know very little about him. He sings, “Apologize” by OneRepublic, which is going okay right up until you realize he forgot to pack his falsetto. And this song is (painfully) half sung in falsetto. Ugh. I wanted to like him. But… ouch. The judges all gang up telling him to go home in their various ways.

Joe Munoz looks like a nice guy. And you know where nice guys finish. Certainly Joe has finished among the last in camera time so far. He sings “You and I” by Jason Mraz. And you know, he sings better than the past few we’ve heard. This, ladies and gentlemen, is called “damning by faint praise.” Use it in a sentence for bonus points! It’s dull. He hits the notes but you won’t remember them tomorrow. The judges are almost as boring in their responses.

Tyler Grady is like Robert Plant. No, no… Roger Daltry! No, no… Jim Morrison! No, wait… he’s kind of like all of them. On purpose. He’s consciously aping their style. But can he translate that into good solo performances? He sings, “American Woman” by the Guess Who, which makes a tad bit more sense than Paige Miles choice last night, but only because he’s dressed for it. Meh… it’s still just an act. The kid wants to play 70’s rock front man. We get it. If you want to see someone doing that, Tyler is your guy. The judges ask him to do something other than the thing that got him into the top 24. Have to think it’s a little late to make that suggestion at this point.

Lee Dewyze is notable among this group of singers for being the only one who thinks American Idol Season 9 is set in Seatle circa 1992. He did, however, produce a decent rendition of “Ain’t No Sunshine,” in his initial audition, so maybe he’s not as one-note as his image was cast in Hollywood round editing. Except that he’s singing “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol as interpreted by a dude with nothing but Soundgarden on his iPod. It’s about how I just described it. Simon raves about it for reasons known only to his accountant. It was pretty neutral to the rest of us.

John Park is probably the only guy rivaling Casey James (seen in a moment) for audition round notoriety based on a female judge’s cougar-like predation. There was no “strip for me” moment in John’s case, just a string of sexual sounding double-entendres from Shania Twain which left the rest of the judges giggling like seventh graders in a co-ed health class while a puzzled looking Park was informed he was going to Hollywood…. a Hollywood round in which we never saw him until the final 24 were announced. He sings, “God Bless the Child” by a lot of people long past their prime when John was born. Good lord was this dull. You know what American Idol doesn’t need more of? Slow tempo baritones with moves like his feet are encases in clay. I never realized this until John tonight. So I can thank him for that.

“Big” Mike Lynche has gotten camera time galore so far, both for his singing, and the little sub-plot of becoming a daddy over an AI sponsor’s product placed phone in Hollywood. The singing has been surprisingly subtle for a guy built like a nose tackle so far. He sings “This Love” by Maroon Five. He does it while holding an acoustic guitar as if threatening to play it at some point, though we never actually hear it even when he makes a half-hearted attempt to “play.” I kind of liked his vocals here. He turned the song a lot more R&B than I expected, but he made that a good thing. One of the night’s better performances. I think the judges kind of agrees in parts, but I had started tuning them out by this point.

Alex “Don’t Call Me Adam” Lambert has become well known from the previous rounds for having a last name sounding like the glam-rock guy who finished second last season. And that’s about it. He also kind of looks like Aaron Kelly, so maybe he’ll pick up some confused supporters from Aaron’s camera time. He sang “Wonderful World” by James Morrison, which… umm… is a song, I’m told. It was… not good. Not at all. Even the judges raving about his as-yet-undisclosed talent at the end couldn’t rescue this pile of dog doo from the stage.

Casey James is never going to live down the “shirtless” moment he experienced in his initial audition when Kara DioGuardi, drunk with power or something, demanded he disrobe for her amusement. And he did. Mimbo or not, he’s sung well thus far. He’s singing Bryan Adams, “Heaven.” A quick aside. I wish that just ONE time on American Idol I would hear that someone is singing a Bryan Adams song and NOT be able to predict that he’s singing “Heaven.” Anyway, this was not going to be that day. Casey sang while self-accompanying on acoustic guitar, and sounding pretty good, actually. But you know the weird thing? He didn’t sound like Bryan Adams much, but he DID sound like Bob Seger quite a lot. Huh. Didn’t see that coming.

Andrew Garcia is easily my favorite of all the contestants making it to the top 24 this season. His deconstruction of Paula Abdul’s old hit song, “Straight Up,” was as innovative and polished as some of Kris Allen’s best performances last season – and he unleashed it in Hollywood rather than waiting for the finals. Bold. In the pimp slot he sings, Sugar We’re Going Down” by Fallout Boy. He’s got the guitar. He’s playing with the arrangement. It’s actually pretty good. But what it’s not is the kind of “blow you away” thing, we’ve heard him do before. Andrew is a victim of the high expectations only set by his own prior heights. It’s still one of the night’s best. I have a feeling he’s just getting warmed up.

So, to wrap up, the guys start was pretty much as rough as the girls. Nerves ran rampant. Song choices often left something to be desired. But once again, we saw some great potential emerge.

My picks for best of the night, in no particular order, are Mike Lynch, Casey James, and Alex Rodriguez err… make that Andrew Garcia (thanks to scout_101 for catching my late night brain fart).

The bottom is a close race tonight. I’d pick Tim Urban, John Park, and Adam Lambert.

As for who’s going home, I’m going with Tim Urban and Adam Lambert. I think Park will coast by virtue of his audition round for another week, but that’s it.

Previous Idol Season 9 Posts:

Top 12 Girls