Last night was the infamous country night; the night that makes or breaks it for many Idol hopefuls. Martina McBride was their coach and seemed totally excited to be there. Now, I’m not a huge fan of contemporary country music, in fact I kinda hate it, so it’s always a challenge for me to review this genre each season. However, I’ve done my best to be objective and not let the cheesiness of country music taint my opinions of the Idols’ performances.

That said … I have finally figured out why Phil Stacey bothers me so fucking much. I mean, in addition to him creeping me out with his naked fleshy bald head and corpse-like coloring. He’s meant to be a country guy. A cheesy, generic, super-white-bread, soul-less, groove-less, cookie-cutter contemporary country singer. Because although his performance of “Where the Blacktop Ends” was mediocre at best, he did appear more comfortable and at least tried to show more personality. Hell, he even threw in a little kick at the end. And his choice of the country-music, standard-issue black jeans and shiny striped black button-down shirt looked appropriate on him. He wasn’t trying to be something he’s not, didn’t look like a poser for once. Good for him. But he still needs to figure out a way to cover his head that isn’t with a very dumb hat. Wonder how a black cowboy hat would work?

Jordin Sparks was next and stole every last twitch of thunder from Phil, bringing the house down with her powerful yet graceful performance of “A Broken Wing.” All I could say was “Oh, my fucking god, she’s amazing.” Girl looked fabulous, sounded incredible, and her facial expressions were spot-on, telling the story of the song in such a convincing fashion that I have to admit I almost started crying. I didn’t even care that it was a country song, didn’t even really notice, because she gave it so much emotion that it didn’t matter.

Oh, Sanjaya. My first thought when he walked out? “Nice bandanna, douchebag.” He pulled out another hairstylin’ trick by wearing a huge, pointy red bandanna, which if it were white, would have looked a little bit like a KKK hood or the Pope hat. If his strategy has become to distract the audience with his stupid hairdos, then it was an excellent choice. His song choice of “Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About,” on the other hand, was ri-goddamn-diculous. It was weird and screechy and I swear if Bonnie Raitt was in the audience, she would have bum-rushed the stage and strangled him. And I’m still trying to figure out if he doesn’t give a shit or if he still thinks he’s good. This week it seemed like he thought he was good, which is a little sad. He was strutting around the stage like a plucked peacock who doesn’t realize he’s plucked. It’s so obvious to viewers that he looks like a jackass, is it possible that he really doesn’t know that too?

So we got the Sanjaya Malakar spectacle over with early this week, moving on to Lakisha Jones, who sang Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take the Wheel.” First off, I hate this fucking song. I like Carrie, but I hated this song when she sang it too, so Lakisha would have had to do something great with it in order for me to like it. Unfortunately, she didn’t. She came close, invoking a teasing bit of soulful flavor, but it just wasn’t enough to make it great for me. However, she still sounded good just because she’s Lakisha. She also looked fantastic in a perfect chocolate brown dress with even more perfect shimmering eye makeup. Even the metallic gold boots worked somehow. And it takes balls to pull off gold fucking boots, people.

I was wondering how Chris Richardson was gonna work the country this week, but his choice of “Mayberry” was actually pretty good. He didn’t get all over-stylized, and looked casual and comfortable. His performance started off a bit shaky and it sounded like he was forcing his voice in spots, but overall it was okay. Definitely not his greatest showing, but I did love the na-na-nas. He looked a bit stressed afterwards, but when he interrupted Ryan to send love and prayers to his friends at Virginia Tech I remembered that he was from Virginia and was probably feeling some kinda way about the shootings down there. Must have been hard for him even to perform this week.

Melinda Doolittle took a sassier route with “Trouble is a Woman,” and although this is one of those stereotypical country songs about “a woman getting fucked over by a man, causing a ruckus, then leaving town in a big truck to get over the asshole and find a better life” that I really fucking hate, she did an excellent job. Her voice was strong and convincing, and she moved around the stage with confidence. One little critical note: Melinda, honey, your boobs are WAY too big to be wearing one of those stretchy strapless tops. Those girls need support, best to keep ‘em strapped in.

We finished out the show by watching Blake Lewis moody-up the Tim McGraw song “When the Stars Go Blue.” That’s Blake’s peg; he can work that moody, sexy, broody vibe. But who wears an argyle sweater vest to sing country music? Or ever? Blake … and somehow he rocks it, too. He sang sweetly and softly, and I absolutely loved the up and down falsetto he used in the chorus on the word “blue.” I can still hear it in my head this morning. I don’t know the original song, so I don’t know if that was the way Tim sang it or a Blake thing, but either way it was a beautiful melody.

I must admit, country night didn’t suck nearly as bad as it has in the past, and I actually truly enjoyed some of the performances despite their country-ness. I’m still praying Phil goes, but Chris was in the bottom 3 last week and he was a little stinky last night, so I’m a bit concerned for him.