amanda overmyer

(S07E18) This '80s theme has been very good with the contestants this week as these past two episodes have been the most satisfying of the season so far. And other than a heavy leaning on Whitney Houston, I think the girls really stepped up their game this week. Honestly, the way it's looking, we may honestly be able to believe the hype that this could be the best Top 12 ever. Just get the vote right, America!

It's that time of year again. The time when American Idol settles down with it's Top 24, we start singling out our favorites, and the media starts digging into these people's pasts and presents looking for juicy secrets like they're presidential politicians, too. Other than the expected mug shot discovery, two have surfaced this week that are certainly generating a lot of buzz.

One features Robbie Carrico, who has been called out as inauthentic in his attempts to be a "rocker" week after week thus far on the show. The other, the handsome but otherwise dull David H., who had a great week. Of course, Idol and FOX aren't saying anything about it. In order to not spoil the fun for those who like to avoid this kind of thing, you'll have to follow me to know more.

(S07E15) The theme again was "Songs from the '70s," and for the most part I think the girls handled it better than the boys last night. And they also remained consistent with their performances last week to the most part. That is to say that the girls who struggled last week seemed, at best, to do only marginally better this week. The only surprises for me were some of the girls who blew me away last week turned around and struggled with their vocals tonight.

(S07E12) I have to say tonight's show was a mixed bag for me. There were a lot of surprises for me with the girls' performances, some good and some bad. I went into the show with a few clear favorites and a few that I didn't have high hopes for and it all got turned around on me. There wasn't as much of a "Wow!" factor with any of the girls and actually none of them earned the patented DOUBLEPLAY, but that's not to say there weren't some great performances.

I give Idol a lot of crap, and most of it is pretty well deserved, but one thing they've been hyping is absolutely true. This Top 24 has the deepest pool of talent, and if we (that means you and me) can truly get rid of the twelve weakest singers we're going to have the most amazing Top 12 we've ever seen. If that happens, I guarantee you the ratings questions about Idol being down this year will disappear as those ratings shoot right through the roof.

So are you, like me, pissed that we have no idea who Jasons Castro and Yeager are? Upset that we've never seen Luke Menard before we saw that he was in the Top 12. Well, if you're reading this then you're online. And if you're online, then you can run on over to AmericanIdol.com and see introductory videos of the entire Top 24, as well as a clip of the photo shoot that brought you our fantastic Top 24 gallery.

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Now that we know who they are we can see how they've been cleaned up by FOX and photographed. And that crazy Top 24 promo photo featuring the contestants hiding behind Simon masks has been replaced with the above photo, minus the masks. Oh those wacky kids over at FOX. They're so creative!

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(S07E10) Looks like Idol's getting an early start with the cheesy blatant endorsements. They opened this episode with an incredibly corny Jumper intro featuring Hayden Christensen and Ryan Seacrest. But tonight is all about about the chair and final judgment for the contestants. No more singing; no more chances to prove themselves. It's simply a matter of sitting down and hearing if they're in the Top 24 or headed home.

A couple of days ago, the purported list of the Top 24 contestants spilled across the Internet. Monday, I took you through the list of Top 12 Boys, so now we're going to look into the Top 12 Girls. And let me tell you, after researching these 24 (whether they're the accurate Top 24 or not is still up for debate), I can tell you that American Idol is definitely NOT about finding great undiscovered talent this year.

After the lackluster response to last year, they were determined to get better singers on the air, so it makes sense to look for people who've already had major record deals and have already been signed by major labels and stars, but whose big debuts just kind of fizzled. You know they've got talent because they were already signed once, they're just not signed now. So it's "Unsigned Talent" that's more important than "Undiscovered Talent." I just wish they'd be more honest about it on-screen instead of pretending these people just walked in off the farm.

[UPDATE - Now updated and with additional audition video! - j/h]