1) "What About Love?" – Melissa McGhee

Poor Melissa. Her first time on screen was at the Top 24, giving her a major disadvantage over the other contestants. She was the first AI finalist to be booted off the show after she forgot the words to Stevie Wonder’s "Lately," and she gets my vote for the person who was probably most susceptible to Ace Young’s post-elimination seduction (Besides Ryan Seacrest, of course). All that being said, I was a pretty big Melissa McGhee fan and rooted for her over Ayla Brown only after she pulled out this Heart number during the last round of the Top 24. The “magic” that existed, by all accounts in my mind alone, doesn’t necessarily translate well onto CD. Melissa sounds just fine, good even, but come on, she’s no Ann Wilson. And if she’s not going to do anything different with the song (like Carrie Underwood’s season 4 version of Alone – chills), then this is just really good karaoke. Which, Melissa my dear, is a lot better than really bad karaoke.

Ryan Seacrest Cheesiness rating: 8

2) "Superstition" – Bucky Covington

The First sign of the Apocolypse?

You knew you were going to have to hear from Bucky Covington at least one more time, and at least now you don’t have to see him. It’s shocking, but Bucky actually equips himself favorably on the country-rock version of the Stevie Wonder classic. This coming from someone who fast forwarded through 95% of his performances. His voice is actually a lot better when you don’t have to look at him or watch him swirl his microphone in his hand. Of the American Idol losers he surprises the most.

Ryan Seacrest Cheesiness rating: 6

3) "I’m Every Woman" – Mandisa

I never fully jumped on the Mandisa bandwagon, but you’ve got to be deaf not to acknowledge the fact that she’s got a massive set of… pipes. What did you think I was going to say? I hate this song, probably because I’m not every woman, and I didn’t freak out when she sang it the first time in round three of the Top 24. Here it’s actually quite worse. Her voice is strong (on recording they can remove those bum and sharp notes she used to hit quite often), but the production is pure cheese. Unfortunately for Mandisa, I don’t know how far she’s going to go now that she’s announced that she’s not a big fan of the gays (and it was no coincidence that this little tidbit led to her immediate ousting on the show), which is a shame because you can almost see how well this song would play at Vito Spatafore’s next house party.