I missed out on reviewing last week's AI with being on holiday, but I did catch it, I did mentally divide the group into "good," "bad" and "indifferent," and I did get two of the bottom three correct. But I expected Megan Joy to leave whereas the Great American Public decided to dispense with Michael Sarver. This week, they caught up with me.

I thought at first the producers had decided against having a theme this week. But what Seacrest meant was that the singers had an open ticket to pick anything they liked from the 100 top iTunes downloads.

Even this wide choice of material didn't serve many of the contestants well, as they continued to struggle with song choice. For the record, my split of the pack went like this:

The Good

Danny Gokey was up third with his version of Roscoe Flatts' What Hurts the Most. He gets a lot of passion into his singing, but he's still not leading the pack for me at the moment.

That space is taken by Adam Lambert. My notes on his performance this week read: "WOW (AGAIN)". Right now, for me, he's in a different universe to the other contestants. Paula's comment that he was in the same league as Mick Jagger in terms of stand-out originality of performance was bang on. His voice will do whatever he commands, and his stage presence is electrifying. Barring accidents or prejudice, he's already won it this year.

Running a close second is Kris Allen. Yes, bland, ordinary, Kris is coming out of his shell and delivering some powerful and original music. Ain't No Sunshine is not an easy song to put a new spin on, but he managed to make it both new and interesting. So they were my top three for this week.

The Bad

First into my bottom three, and first up singing on the night: Anoop. A boring Usher song, sung boringly. But at least it was relatively tuneful, unlike Megan Joy's effort with Turn Your Lights Down Low. Absolutely piss-poor. Whiny, shouty and bland. Like watching paint dry, said Randy, but I've watched paint dry and had more fun than I did listening to her. She should have been gone long ago. Alexis Grace was way better than Megan. Another good point from Randy: just because you love a song doesn't mean you'll be able to sing it well. How true. Anyone who's ever tried to sing one of their favourite songs in public knows this, so why doesn't she?

Third place in my bottom three went to Matt. Although I had to take issue with the judges' comments about him not knowing who he is. They swing from complaining that an artist is "becoming like all these different people in the hope of staying in the competition" one week, to complaining that they're too same-y and not versatile enough the next week. They can't have it both ways. But either way, for me Matt is just not growing at the same pace as the front runners, and his performances are always forgettable.

The Indifferent

Middle of the pack this week started with Allison, whose rock vocals strained for expression when singing No Doubt's "Don't Speak." A great song not really given the oomph it needs. She was joined by Scott who despite exciting the judges with a pitch-perfect version of Billy Joel's Just The Way You Are still doesn't do it for me. His idea of "mixing it up" is to stay sat behind the piano, but do without backing singers or orchestra. Fair enough, but HE is still doing the same thing, so it really doesn't look that different.

Making up the middle three was Lil Rounds. A surprise entry into the middle group, as I've always rated her, but this week she attempted a Celine Dion song - I Surrender - and I wish she had surrendered. She sounded more like a sea lion than a Celine.

The Result

So when reality caught up, Allison took Matt's place in my predicted bottom three. Did her fans think she was safe, or did they just think - as I did - that she simply didn't sing the song very well and others did better? Dunno, but at least Megan was the one to leave. Finally. Notice that after five eliminations, three of the leavers have been wild card choices, leaving only Matt and Anoop surviving from the wild card round. Is it worth it? I guess we'll have to reserve judgement when we find out how far these two go.

The theme for next week? Songs from the year the contestants were born.