Singer: LIL ROUNDS
Song: "The Rose"
Monkeys As Critics' Take: You thought Lil was going to do Whitney Houston this week, didn't you? Admit it. Instead, she goes with a little Bette Midler. It starts off down-the-middle, with Lil searching for some of the notes. In the middle, Lil pushes the song into gospel territory, but even still she doesn't seem confident with the melody. There's a lot of warbling. 
Mean Joe Green, L.C. Greenwood, Ernie Holmes and Simon Say: Paula loves the song, goes into a prepared speech that says nothing, as Simon rolls her eyes. Simon tells her the song was too soft for her, even if she had some nice moments. "You are not the artist I believe we met seven or eight weeks ago," Simon says. After five or six weeks of promising to do whatever the judges wanted, Lil tears into Simon, insisting she sang the song she wanted to sing and did it the way she wanted. I prefer Lil with a backbone, but is this too little, too late? And speaking of too late, we're four minutes over.