Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Maybe American Idol should invite Dolly Parton to coach its cast of singers every week.

Or else have them sing country music every week.

The bottom line: Last night’s performances were far superior to those last week, when the final 10 sang songs from the year of their birth.

And they were better than the ones from two weeks ago, when Idol decided to have the top 11 take a second crack at Beatles classics.

The rundown from Tuesday’s show.

Best of the bunch

David Cook continued his string of strong performances. Hearing his take on “Little Sparrow,” you never would have known it was a country hit. And David Archuleta bounced back from last week’s disaster, again proving that he has one of the best voices of the final nine with a nicely controlled version of Dolly’s “Smoky Mountain Memories.”

Deserves to go home

Ramiele Malubay, on the other hand, has no business singing country music, was a mess again and got far better reviews than she deserved for a peppy version of “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind.” There wasn’t a single memorable note in this week’s dash of Malubay cuteness.

Please keep her

Syesha Mercado turned in the best female vocal of the night with “I Will Always Love You.” So what if it didn’t match the Whitney Houston version? Hello, Simon. Hello, Randy. There’s no one named Whitney in this competition. And Syesha deserves more credit than she’s getting.

Baffled by the judges

All the judges went ga-ga over Michael John’s performance of “It’s All Wrong But It’s All Right.” I hated it. It seemed flat out all wrong.

Best line of the night from the judges

Simon to Carly: “You’ve got to have a word with whoever’s dressing you. You have to start looking more like a star.” Hey, Simon, it would also help if she started singing more like a star. Sorry, I don’t get Carly at all. She oversings everything and did it again last night.

Surprise of the night

It wasn’t a pleasant surprise. This week should have been a piece of cake for Kristy Lee Cook, the only country crooner in the top nine. Instead, she sang a Dolly trademark, “Coat of Many Colors.” And all I could think of was how much it paled to the original. Bad, bad choice, Kristy Lee.

Prediction for Wednesday night

Ramiele deserves a ticket out of here, but she’s yet to finish in the bottom three. Jason Castro has finished in the bottom three, just last week. And last night, smile and dreads aside, he proved he can’t come close to matching the Davids in singing ability. And that’s supposed to be what this competition is about.