The contestant you're gonna mock me for digging: Megan Joy Corkrey. Look, my mom made a lot of macramé plant-holders when I was a kid, so it's entirely possible that the shoulders of Megan's sexy red minidress took me back to some happy part of my childhood and made my ears all confused. But from my couch, I really thought Megan nailed just about every note of ''Rockin' Robin,'' and interpreted the fusty old number with enough swing and sass that it wouldn't have sounded all that odd sandwiched between cuts from, say, Duffy and Nellie McKay. Yes, the ''caw! caw!'' at the end was crazier than those old Heckle and Jeckle cartoons that really still ought to be on TV — man, kids today are missing out! — and yes, Kara's blurb about the cover being ''so Megan'' was atroshe, but it worked. Megan even seemed to have a little rhythm, and....

We interrupt this paragraph for a very important HOT MOM ALERT. Megan's mom? 1-800-Whoa-Mama! That is all.

On the flip side of Megan, we have The contestant you might mock me for not digging: Matt Giraud. Okay, okay, I get it to a degree. The opening half of Matt's ''Human Nature'' was tender and in tune, and followed heart-tugging footage of Matt's dad crying. (What can I say? I'm a sucker for misty-eyed dads on Idol.) But, if Simon is right that the performance was ''meat and potatoes,'' then those falsetto runs toward the latter half of the song represented some truly inedible gravy that sullied half the meal. For me, Matt is drawn to too much of the same vocal excess as Adam, except without the undeniable technical mastery. Still, he seems like he's at least aware it's 2009, and that he's coming out and doing his best to make a seven- or eight-way race of it.

Which brings me to the five contestants most deserving of winding up in the bottom three on Wednesday night: Michael Sarver, Scott MacIntyre, Anoop Desai, Jorge Nuñez, and Jasmine Murray.

Of the quintet, I'm guessing Michael and Scott are least likely to flirt with elimination, and deservedly so. In fact, Michael's rendition of ''You Are Not Alone'' was actually a major improvement, pitch-wise, on his grasping semifinal rendition of ''I Don't Want to Be.'' I loved how Randy praised Michael as ''one of the best'' of the night, even though he was only the fourth singer to take the stage tonight, but that's exactly the trouble in some ways. It seems like at least half the field outshines Michael at this point in the competition, and we all know from experience that decent but undistinguished vocalists (like Chikezie and Gina Glocksen, for example) often get booted earlier than later.

At least Michael was more on pitch, and chose a far better song, than Scott, whose ''Keep the Faith'' sounded like the kind of insipid background music you might hear while watching a late-night testimonial about some miraculous new anti-acne cream. The problem is, as Kara said while trying to praise Scott, that he's not the most dynamic performer (understatement alert!). Yes, he seems like a heckuva nice guy, and it's inspiring to see how he hasn't let his visual impairment hamper him from pursuing his dreams, but his vocal was flat, both in terms of pitch and emotion, and I think if the dude wants to achieve his dreams, he'd better start fighting for a slot on the Idol tour, rather than get his hopes up about going all the way.

NEXT PAGE: The grades

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