American Idol Season 9 Top 24

It took them three hours stretched over two evenings, and it competed with the Olympics (or vice versa; I actually watched the Olympics while I waited for Idol to finish recording), but American Idol finally revealed their Top 24. I'm not sure whose not-so-brilliant idea it was to present them the way they did, but it made for tedious viewing (or judicious fast-forwarding!) through the time-wasting segments where they showed us for the umpteenth time the biographical snippets, the first auditions, the hand-wringing and pacing as they waited. If I were in charge of editing the show, I would have showed more of the singing and less of the agonizing. They had two hours to play with on Tuesday, and they wasted most of it drawing out the process of waiting when they could have been showing us more good (or not-so-good) music. There are people on this list whom I do not remember at all, and since I'm not a professional entertainment reporter (I just play one on Blogspot), I don't have all the shows since the beginning of the season stored on my computer. However, there's always YouTube.

Anyway, here they are, the lucky Season 9 finalists, copied from the AI website, where they're listed alphabetically by first name:

Aaron Kelly, age 16, Sonestown, PA. He has a powerful voice and a lot of talent, but he's very young.

Alex Lambert, age 19, North Richland Hills, TX. Too bad he shares a last name with last season's Adam; their names are so similar it might be confusing. Frankly, I don't remember anything Alex sang.

Andrew Garcia, age 24, Moreno Valley, CA. He won my heart with his arrangement of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up". He's one of my favorites, one I picked last week.

Ashley Rodriguez, age 22, from Chelsea, MA. A local girl! She graduated from Berklee School of Music right here in Boston. I liked her audition, and I'm glad she made the Top 24, but I don't think she'll make the Top 10.

Casey James, age 27, Fort Worth, TX. I'm already drooling, just thinking about Casey. Eye candy! He can sing, too, but he's not really American Idol material; his voice is a little rough around the edges. I wonder how far along he'll be carried by the fact that he's so attractive. He can take off his shirt for me any time! He's one of my picks.

Crystal Bowersox, age 24, from Elliston, OH. Make that The Next American Idol, Crystal Bowersox. She is my current favorite. Amazing, charismatic, talented. I'm looking forward to what she'll do on this show.

Didi Benami, age 23, from Hollywood, CA. I guess "You're going to Hollywood!" didn't mean anything special to her, since she already lives there... She's a good singer, but she tends to be shrill and squeaky. I'm not sure how long she'll last, but I think she might do better than expected.

Haeley Vaughn, age 16, Fort Collins, CO. She's such a charming girl that even I'm willing to overlook the fact that she doesn't always sing in tune. She can be shrill and grating, but she's so enthusiastic and smiley and young, I'm going to enjoy watching her anyway.

Janell Wheeler, age 24, Tampa, FL. She auditioned with "House of the Rising Sun", which was good, and her first solo was "American Boy", which was brilliant. But for her second solo she chose a Taylor Swift song, "Love Story", and it didn't show off her voice well. You can hear Kara say "wrong song." Even so, they put her through.

Jermaine Sellers, age 26, Joliet, IL. I'm not really sure why he got through and not the other one, Jermaine Purifory, whom I liked better. He (Purifory) performed in a group with Top 24 members Casey James and Janell Wheeler, and it was awesome. But Jermaine Sellers kind of yodeled his part in his group performance of "Carry on, wayward son". He did "Man in the Mirror" for his final solo, and was pretty good.

Joe Munoz, age 20, Huntington Park, CA. I don't really remember him, and YouTube isn't any help.

John Park, age 21, Evanston, IL. He's got a nice voice, but I don't think he's the next American Idol.

Katelyn Epperly, age 19, West Des Moines, IA. I was surprised they let her through. IMHO, she was firmly in the come-back-in-a-couple-of-years category, when she'd had a chance to mature a little.

Katie Stevens, age 17, Middlebury, CT. Portuguese-Grandmother-Girl. (They did a segment on her relationship with her grandmother, who has Alzheimer's.) She's got a good voice, but I don't really feel she has star quality. I guess time will tell.

Lacey Brown, age 24, Amarillo, TX. Interestingly enough, she almost made it last year; instead, they let in my least-favorite finalist of last season, Megan Joy. I wasn't overly impressed with Lacey, either.

Lee Dewyze, age 23, Mount Prospect, IL. I don't remember him at all, and from what they showed last night, he's cocky and not all that talented.

Lilly Scott, age 20, Littleton, CO. One of my picks. She's unique - a little jazzy, a little eccentric, with that white hair and those peacock-feather earrings.

Michael Lynche, age 26, Astoria, NY. I really like his style. He's one of my favorites so far.

Michelle Delamor, age 22, Miami, FL. I don't remember her at all.

Paige Miles, age 24, Cypress, TX. I don't remember her at all, either.

Siobhan Magnus, age 19, Barnstable, MA. (they listed her as an "apprentice glass blower".) She's got a lot of talent, but needs more confidence. Ellen asked her to lighten up, and she did; I hope she'll go far.

Tim Urban, age 20, Duncanville, TX. Why is he here? It was supposed to be Chris Golightly. I'll be interested to hear how he got on. Oh, well, he'll be gone pretty soon.

Todrick Hall, age 24, Arlington, TX. I really like Todrick. If he keeps up the way he has been going, he should be in the top 5.

Tyler Grady, age 20, Nazareth, PA. He's good, but I don't have any real clear memories of him from before last night.

I'm writing this at work and I really have to go do my real job, so I'm going to leave it at this.