sing me a love song...

Six. It's down to six. That's half of 12. And they're charged with singing "classic" love songs, whatever that means, with the help of Andrea Bocelli.

It's the last week of single songs, as next week the remaining five will get to double our pleasure with two performances each, but at least we get to double the phone lines this week in the hopes of hearing something besides busy signals and that terribly annoying er Er ER...all circuits are busy...hang up and vote for somebody else business.

It's gonna be tough to top last week's standards, but, considering love songs and standards pretty much cross wires, it's a possibility. But it's easy to figure out early that this ain't last week's show. What was good can be bad again. With some exceptions, of course.

So here they are, subject to review and revision and, as always, from worst to first:

I wish people would stop trying Unchained Melody, if only because it's a long song so the arrangement to 90 seconds really messes it up. But it doesn't mess it up as much as Pickler does. She hits a bad note in the front of the song and seems never to find the right note after that. Randy says the only note on pitch was the high one. Hell, that one was like nails on the proverbial chalkboard. David Foster tells her that the song without passion is the most boring song ever. She had more passion in the pre-song interview, pandering for a boyfriend. Paula says yuck. Simon is so critical the music cuts him off before the Pick can draw tears. That was a disaster beyond even Pickler proportions.

Katharine starts off the show and wallops us over the head with Whitney's I Have Nothing. Her dad is in the audience, crying as usual when his girl sings, and everyone else is just ducking as she appears ready to beat the crap out of anyone crossing her spotlight. The parts of the song she doesn't scream she goes off tune and the parts she doesn't scream or go off tune, she's okay. Randy says ick. Paula says yuck. Simon reminds her that she's no Whitney. But at least she looked pretty.

Taylor is very "interesting" according to Bocelli and the one with the most charisma, according to David Foster. But according to the judges, his version of Just Once is the equivalent to a Holiday Inn lounge act. While it's better than the two-third of the women combined, it doesn't have the flair or the originality of earlier Taylor performances, and, while not bad, not the best song he could have selected, considering the thousands of available titles.

Maybe Paris should have watched the movie The Way We Were before deciding to smile throughout the title song. I'm a little scared right now that I'm going to totally agree with Paula that Paris totally oversang the song. Perhaps these kids need to remember that the people who've done this for a living know what they're talking about when they say less is more, as Foster suggests to her, but, in comparison with the other women, she's a dream. The judges give her a lukewarm reception, and none of them mention how cute her hair is. This week.

Chris once again avoids the rock and wisely shows the love with Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman, delivering with ease one of the two top performances of a dreary night, ending with a mere three minutes until House, giving the judges only enough time to shout "great" and "love" before being shuttled off stage by Ryan. Chris is consistently reminding me why I initially selected him to win this whole thing.

Okay, so today's my birthday. And I told one of my bestest friends that all I wanted was for Elliott to have one of those Idol moments. He takes on Donnie Hathaway's A Song For You, complete with Donnie's daughter on backup. Randy hates the arrangement but thinks Elliott is the bomb. Paula tells him, through tears, that he is an American Idol. Simon calls it a master class in vocals. I just say Happy Birthday. I adore this man.

Okay, I'm going to do a bottom three long before DialIdol can skew my thinking. I'll see if tomorrow my views change.

Who I want: Pickler, Pickler, Pickler
Who should: Pickler, Katharine, Paris
Who will: Paris, Katharine, Pickler

Who will go? Despite a decent performance amid some not so decent ones, I fear Paris will be remembering The Way They Were.

Your turn.