Singer: Katie Stevens
Song: "Big Girls Don't Cry"
Monkeys As Critics' Take: It's hard to believe that Miley Cyrus and Katie Stevens are the same age, perhaps because it's hard to believe that Miley Cyrus isn't 35. She's tackling Fergie, which is contemporary at least. There's some wobbling on the verse, but she finds the chorus in full stride. It's a pretty smart song choice, one where she can pretend she's connecting to it on a personal level -- "I'm a big girl now!" -- without having to mine any true emotions. It's the second straight week of not-at-all-bad singing from Katie.
Randy, Ellen, Kara and Simon Say: Randy doesn't know if it was Katie's best performance. Which one was Katie's best performance, Randy? But he likes that Katie's listening. Ellen disagrees, calling it Katie's best performance yet, calling her "The Dakota Fanning of 'American Idol.'" Kara thinks this is the lane that Katie should go down, but she still notes Katie's "mad pitch issues." Simon says meeting Miley was the best thing that could have happened to Katie. He says that the way she looks now compared to weeks ago is "chalk and cheese." That's a Cowell favorite and it probably has no meaning at all to poor little Katie.