Singer: Paige Miles
Song: "Against All Odds"
Monkeys As Critics' Take: This is a song that has never been good on "American Idol" before, so why not try again? And why not try with a singer whose sense of pitch is as iffy as Paige's? Oh right. Common-freaking-sense. Oh well. That's out the window here. After being far better last week, she's back to the Paige who should have been forcibly sent home at the end of the semifinals. She's brutal. She's nowhere near the melody. She's bleat-y and unsure of most of the notes. This is awful. Oh, Lilly Scott. I'm so sorry about what America did to you. Last week, Paige sang well despite not having any voice at all. This week? I don't know if she's still sick, but I hope she whips that out as an excuse. If I'm listing, I dunno, the 12 Worst "American Idol" Finals Performances, this one makes the cut.
Randy, Ellen, Kara and Simon Say: Yo. Man. Yo. Wow. Really? Honestly? Randy calls it terrible. The audience can't even bring itself to boo. "I'm gonna start with a positive... you didn't fall down," Ellen says. She's referring to Paige's heels, but it's the nicest thing she could say. Kara says that Paige's mistake was to stop listening to the judges' advice. Kara calls it the worst vocal of the season, possibly. Simon asks Paige how she thinks she did. Even Paige knows she was an embarrassment. "It was like there were five of you singing that song and it got progressively worse each one," Simon says. He says that she's in trouble. Ryan's in one of those awkward positions where even he can't try to protect her.