I like watching "American Idol," I really do. I like the psychology of it, I like the way the writers mess with the contestants' heads to maximize the on-camera breakdown count, and I like the unambiguous, open and cheerful way that everything and everyone on the show is for sale. "Idol" doesn't make any excuses for what it is, with one glaring exception -- the judges' regular insistences that it's a singing competition. It isn't! It's a popularity contest! We all get it! It would be boring and predictable otherwise. The judges play favorites every season, but I think we're approaching the point where a line is being crossed with cutie-patootie David Archuleta.

Tuesday night's show had better songs across the board than last week's men's night, but there's still a number of boys in the field who just don't get it. The songs still aren't matching up to the right singers in the way they ought to do. It is becoming more clear that the hype about this season's cast being more talented than the last few isn't entirely smoke and mirrors. There were a lot of very good technical vocals last night -- apart from Michael Johns the guys only hit a blue note or two apiece. Archuleta's one major pitch mistake however was right at the climax of his piece, and came after a kind of shaky, weird interpretation of a song everybody knows by heart. And one the judges praised him effusively for... I don't know. For being adorable, I guess. I see nothing separating Archuleta from five of the other male semifinalists, and the judges have already openly named him the favorite to win the whole thing. If they are going to keep judging David A. on a completely different curve than the entire rest of the cast, I don't know if I'm going to enjoy watching anymore. The judges were pretty kind to Jordin Sparks last year, but she earned it -- her "I (Who Have Nothing)" was the performance of the season, and up until that point she took her lumps the same as everybody else.

Of course, since Archuleta is seventeen, the possibility exists that all of this praise will mess him up and he'll completely flub a performance sooner or later. Sadly, this will not get him voted off. At least we have comebacks from a lot of guys written off last week -- David Cook, Chikezie, David Hernandez -- to make the competition among the rest of the guys interesting.

With "Idol" remaining more or less unchanged in format since its inception, save some cosmetic things like allowing contenders to play instruments while performing, a recurring theme of these posts seems to be unsolicited suggestions for keeping the show fresh. I think there should be more nights in the semifinals where the producers or the judges pick songs for the contestants, because clearly the majority of the singers are way too stupid to be trusted with anything so important.

Michael Johns One good thing about the judges' obsession with Archuleta is that they no longer seem as excited about the Australian Johns, who is by a wide margin both the best looker and the worst singer left in the men's field. Johns is going to take some better vocalists down before he himself bows out, but the chances of him outlasting anyone who genuinely deserves to win are decreasing with each shouty, pitch-approximating performance. Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" wasn't a bad song choice -- Johns has a little bit of that vibe that Lindsey Buckingham has where you don't know the guy, but you just kind of suspect he's obnoxious for no good reason -- but he's out of his league compared to everybody else in the field. Johns choked on some notes, swallowed some words, and hit more notes flat than the rest of the field combined. He has his moments, but frankly, everybody this year among the guys is capable of being good for at least a few lines, and the infrequency of such runs from Johns is shocking. And what's more, he's not a very natural performer -- he doesn't have the ease about himself that most real good-looking guys have. Johns is going to stick around a while, but his best moments I suspect are behind him in the Hollywood shows. 5

Jason Castro I like Jason Castro a lot, and I'm not totally sure why -- and that's why I think he's a dark horse. The guy just screams authenticity, and while the little introductory montage Tuesday regarding his camera-shy attitude might have oversold it, no one has ever really made a deep "Idol" entirely on the virtue of humility before. It would be interesting to see him try. I have no idea where Castro got the song he did last night and although I have to give him a little credit for playing the deep strategy route and going in the complete opposite direction from last week's winning "What a Day for a Daydream" this time a stop-and-start arrangement with Castro strumming a guitar too loudly and out of sync with the band didn't show the dreadlocked Texan in his best light. It will be interesting to see how things will develop if both Castro and David Cook continue to bring their guitars on stage with them. The producers seem like they haven't thought the idea through all the way -- it wasn't Castro's fault that his guitar was mixed completely too loud in relation to the rest of the band, and Cook also started off too loud and then was mixed down to the point where when he actually started doing some cool stuff you could barely hear him. Of course since I'm a player it matters to me that Castro and Cook can genuinely play, but my impression is that it will work against them for most voters. It's just confusing figuring out what if any credit you ought to be giving them, and while not impossible it's harder to move with authority and personality on stage when you're weighed down by an instrument. (Typified by Cook's kind of unintentionally hilarious walk over here... now walk back move.) Castro should have put the guitar down this week -- I think if he'd done the exact same vocal without it it would have seemed better to everybody. And he probably would have sung better. Both Cook and Castro need to be very careful about picking an unfamiliar song one week and spending more time learning a guitar part than concentrating on making their vocals great. 7

Luke Menard Oh, is he still here? Menard just doesn't have any appeal at all. He was a lousy choice for the final 24, although there seem to have been far fewer of those this year than last so maybe we should count our blessings. Menard's "Killer Queen" illustrated everything that's wrong with him -- he's got no distinctiveness to his voice (despite an excellent technical performance of an extremely difficult melody the whole thing just lay flat and sat there) and he has the self-awareness of a bug zapper (how can you possibly sing a Queen song, if you'll excuse the pun, straight?). There's a reason that we don't hear a ton of Queen songs on "American Idol" -- their songs aren't all that good. Their appeal is totally wrapped up in Freddie Mercury's voice and persona. Menard has a voice, but is a complete zero on the "it" factor scale and he can start packing his bags for home right now. 6

Robbie Carrico This is an interesting one. Carrico, as we all know by now, is a former member of a prefab boy/girl pop group who grew his hair and beard out after their failure and was anointed by the judges during the preliminary cutdowns as the "rocker" of this cast. I'm not entirely certain whether Carrico should be held responsible for this or not, but once the label stuck he did seemingly make a decision to go ahead and adhere to it. That's what led to his Tuesday night version of "Hot Blooded," a dumb pop song that has loud guitars in it -- not a rock song. Carrico has better instincts than the judges, because I think that is the milieu in which he'd be most marketable. But he might be toast because whatever the reality may be, the perception is that he was posing as something he isn't and the judges "caught" him and called him on it. That's ridiculous -- Carrico the rocker was utterly an invention of the "Idol" machine's own devising. I don't know why he should pay for their sins. But I think he's going to. Maybe not this week. Carrico's voice lacks the edge, scruff, whatever you want to call it to come across as a "real" rocker. He sang "Hot Blooded" fine but the overall effect was terrible -- it's a dire song anyway and without a little mischief in the singer's voice it plays as completely irrelevant. Next week Carrico has to completely reinvent himself, no mean task. That's if he survives, which I think he will -- by the skin of his teeth. 7

Danny Noriega I kind of like Danny -- it's hard not to feel for a kid so young who has such a winning, positive attitude about his own uniqueness -- but David Archuleta is going to poach his whole constituency. Noriega lost a ton of my sympathy by singing a really great song, "Superstar," and blowing it -- the song is pretty much all subtext and Noriega crooned it like a straightforward love ballad. I wonder if Danny knows that Sonic Youth's fantastic 1994 cover is on the bestselling Juno soundtrack. Not that I am saying huge walls of feedback was the right way to go for "American Idol," but if Thurston Moore and his four-note range can sing the tune convincingly, Danny Noriega ought to be able to do better than a torturously slow, needlessly schmaltzy "Star Search" shiny-suit train wreck. Also, what happened to Danny's stage presence? He was so animated and cheery last week and this time around he was just boring. I just don't see him having built a big enough crew of loyalists by this point to survive. 6

David Hernandez Hernandez is so generic he should have a bar code tattooed on his left butt cheek, but no one can say that he hasn't seized the "Idol" semifinals as an opportunity to show everything that he's got. The judges tell the singers to treat every performance like it was their last one and yet the contestants hardly ever do -- it's fascinating how they all claim to be huge fans of the show and yet one by one become complacent and flame out. Hernandez was working it on his reading of "Papa Was a Rolling Stone," using every bit of his range and uncorking some good roars. Some parts of his presentation were clearly overkill -- the odd arrangement of the tune, with some grafted-on electric drum clicking serving no purpose other than to sound self-consciously "modern," kept David from ever getting into fourth gear. He desperately needs a hook, any kind of hook, but he's not going to find one. He's this year's version of Phil Stacey. 8

Jason Yeager A few guys who were lucky to make it out of last week came back really strong. Yeager was not one of them. He's not a bad singer -- really, this cast is better than last year's, I think a great deal of last week's disappointments can be chalked up to widespread illness and unpreparedness among the Top 24. Yeager richly deserves to be one of the first to get sent packing, and yet he's not all that bad of a singer. He's absolutely not a star, though, which both his choice of "Long Train Running" and a pinched, imitative vocal on it proved. What's funny is that even though the song doesn't tax a vocalist very much, Yeager didn't put it in a key that would have allowed him to sing it at maximum force. That's hugely revealing. I really wish they had a show on somewhere that documented the "Idol" contestants working out their arrangements with the band. I think the contrasts would be huge -- the more musical folks in the field suggesting ideas, collaborating with the players, picking up instruments to demonstrate their thoughts versus the nonmusicians coming in and singing off the chart as if the backing band was a reel of tape. Yeager was shown playing guitar and piano in his introductory footage, but being able to pick out a tune by ear on a guitar does not make you a musician. Being a good musician is every bit as much about listening as playing, and if Yeager is listening to himself his hearing isn't working right. How else could he choose such a repetitive arrangement, in such an unflattering key, on a make-or-break night for himself? Yeager thinks he's all about soul, but more than anything soul is about confidence and autonomy, and Yeager has neither. You know who has soul? Danny Noriega. Too bad we can't now put Yeager's pipes in Noriega's throat. 7

Chikezie The one-named soul merchant from L.A. has one thing in particular going for him among this cast: he's completely uncowed by Simon Cowell. Last season Chris Sligh built a whole fanbase around his ability to banter wittily with Simon and even come out on top occasionally; Chikezie is more confrontational than witty but at least this week his righteous anger about Simon's disapproval of his personal style was backed up by a pretty good vocal performance. Last week Chikezie was corny and pitchy, this week he was all over the place but more killer than filler. Like Hernandez Chikezie really went for it and while there were lumpy bits, they were outnumbered by some genuinely excellent moments. He can rip, and last week there was no sign of that. Last time around you wondered what he was even doing on the show. Now there's no doubt -- Chikezie belongs. Maybe even in the finals, but he needs to work harder and he should stick with the casual look, which somehow makes his vocals more convincing. 8

David Cook Somehow the producers picked Robbie Carrico and not Cook to carry the flag of rock into the round of 24, and we're only getting hints as to why now -- even though Cook has a background of playing in bands and as it turns out is a not half-bad guitar player, he's also a bit of an egghead who likes doing crossword puzzles and uses more big words than an "Idol" frontrunner really ought to. You got to love when the "Idol" machine decides somebody's unmarketable before they've even gotten a minute of a screen time. It's a little hard for me to put aside my developing kinship for Cook and rate his vocals objectively -- he looked way cool up there with a Les Paul and a Marshall stack. It was a totally new thing for "Idol" and Cook bravely even gave himself a little bit of a flashy lead guitar figure to play. In front of that band? Man, I've been playing guitar since I was 12 years old and if I was ever on "Idol" I would probably be too afraid to try and play an instrument with professionals like that watching. I think the vocal was pretty good, but I had to rewind it and listen to it with my eyes closed to really be sure. I don't know if everybody watching will do Cook the same courtesy. That's my worry for him -- that his skill with the guitar is only going to distract folks from his singing. Last week it didn't seem like that was such a bad thing, but now I'm not so sure what I think. There's Archuleta way ahead of everybody, there's a couple of cannon fodder dudes still lingering, but then in the middle there's like six guys who are all evenly matched. This could be a pretty good season after all. 8

David Archuleta Listen, I went back after the judges all but came out and gave Archuleta a little crown, scepter, and ermine robe to wear: his vocal sucked. Sucked! Only Michael Johns' was worse. He freelanced way too much with a timeless melody (John Lennon's "Imagine"), he fluffed the biggest note of the piece, he over-arranged a song that barely needs any instrumentation at all, and what's more, he doesn't seem to comprehend what his appeal is even though it's as plain as day. Why choose a tune you clearly don't understand when all you basically have to do to not lose is smile and wave whenever you hear your name? Archuleta is more talented than Sanjaya Malakar, but that's not saying anything. He's being done a huge disservice, in my opinion, by the judges, because he is talented enough to become the "Idol" winner if he gets some helpful advice. Right now everyone's just falling all over themselves to say how great he is, and I'm bewildered by it -- what is it, a reverse-psychology thing from the Sanjaya debacle last year? If "Idol" is interested in continuing to crank out "winners" whose post-show recording careers last all of one album, they're doing the exact right thing by anointing little David before he's accomplished anything (or even proved he's any better than like 15 others in the remaining cast). Man, I'm mad about this. I sure hope girls' night goes better. 6

Picking the losers this week is hard, because there's three obvious candidates and we may only choose two. On the theory that more often than not one of the eliminated is a slight surprise, I will say Luke Menard and Danny Noriega instead of Menard and Jason Yeager. Hard to imagine the completely uninteresting Yeager drawing enough votes to survive two weeks in a row, but I feel like what's left of Noriega's support will be jumping on the Archuleta bandwagon at this point.