Tonight's theme is songs from the years the contestants were born, years that range between 1983 and 1995. Ah, the eighties and nineties. Not only do they represent the birth years of the Top 12 11, but each decade represents important times in pop music history. During the 80s, New Wave/Electronica, Rap/Hip-Hop, and Heavy Metal revolutionized American music and culture. In the early 90s, Rap/Hip-Hop matured and established itself as a solid genre, and three musical pioneers known as Nirvana changed the face of rock with a new sound known as Grunge. Heady times indeed.

However, this is American Idol, so we will hear none of this tonight.

The show starts with Ryan explaining that some information has surfaced that will cause one of the Top 12 to be eliminated on the spot. He says that anything can happen during a live show. Anything, that is, except something interesting, based on how this season has gone so far.

If seeing a bunch of amateurs doing karaoke versions of ballads from the 80s and 90s isn't excitement enough for you, tonight we may finally get to see an Idol contestant dragged away by police. Ryan tells us the fuzz ratted Jermaine out to the show, who seem to have the same people vetting their candidates as John McCain. The contestants are doing songs from the year they were born and have Will.I.Am here to mentor them on how to properly use the autotune machine. Phillip is first and we learn he was a premature baby and almost died, but he would live on to fulfill his true destiny of becoming a completely non-descript entity. Phillip seems to have some serious problems with his bowels and is turning into this season's Casey Abrams except one can't shit while the other can't stop.

TMZ is reporting that one of the Top 12 is going to be eliminated tomorrow due to concealing "multiple crimes" from the show's producers. According to the article, not only does this person currently have outstanding warrants for at least one violent crime, but said contestant was confronted on camera, with the footage to air tomorrow.

This would be the first time a finalist has been disqualified since Corey Clark was eliminated for allegedly boffing Paula concealing his record during Season 2. Who do you think is going home?

Edited To Add: Jermaine just tweeted that he will no longer be on the show. Looks like he's the one who's shitcanned.

It's time for the first finalist performance show! I was very excited over this, because this is the stage where, during most years, the contestants were awkward and nervous in new surroundings, making for some awesome train wreck performances. As the show starts, we see Ryan, the Top 13, and the judges sort of dancing to Stevie Wonder's 1966 classic "Uptight (Everything's Alright)". It's a fun, peppy song, so everyone's getting hyped up, not knowing that this would turn out to be the most fun moment of the night.

VFTW's season really begins tonight as it's time for the Top 13 to perform. We're told this is the show's 400th episode, which means there have been about 200 since Idol jumped the shark years ago. We see the girls, who look pretty, and the boys, who do not. And there's a twist tonight as the girls are doing Whitney while the boys are doing Stevie Wonder and the lowest voting boy and girl will make up the Bottom 2 tomorrow night, with the judges deciding who's going home. And we got a good idea of who that may be as the judges shamelessly pimped their favorites (ie. Jessica) while they gleefully threw the ones they hated under the bus (Shannon). And tonight's show was more lifeless than Whitney as this is shaping up to be the most boring season ever.

First up is Joshua...

Part of why we still remember James Durbin is the winning interviews he gives. It all started when he tweeted that Colton Dixon's semifinalist performance "looked kinda familiar", referring to a performance he did last year. The Hollywood Reporter followed up on this by asking him to elaborate, which James was more than happy to do:

“I was definitely implying something...He said, ‘I’m going to surprise people.’ So he’s sitting down at the piano, and it’s kind of like, ‘Ok, this is not surprising.’ But then he jumped up on the piano. And as all my fans know and anyone who watched last season would know, I jumped up on a piano. I did the whole piano bit and set it on fire and did my homage to Jimi Hendrix during Elton John Week. By the way, the outfit that I wore for that performance is now on display at Graceland…”

James goes on to say, among other things, that Colton stole his haircut, and in general is completely unorignial. This is hilarious coming from a guy who made a career from being on a karaoke contest, who gets endless comparisons to his predecessor, Adam Lambert. James, we completely embrace your inability to hold back in interviews. More, please! Although I have a feeling that the next news about James Durbin is going to be something about one or more of Colton's rabid fans and a restraining order.

After what felt like 5 months of auditions, puking and collapsing, it's finally time for these people to actually sing. I won't be providing most of the judges comments from tonight as it's just 12 rounds of J-Lo kissing everyone's ass, Randy saying Yo and Steven Tyler saying something unintelligible, then being creepy. We see the Top 12 Boys and let's just say no one tuning in for the first time will confuse tonight's show with a Brad Pitt look-a-like contest. We're told the Idols have chosen their own songs, which is code for Nigel choosing the songs that'll best favor his chosen ones. Someone who may be VFTW's chosen one, Reed Grimm, is up first. He tells us he's from Cheese Country but all the cheese in Wisconson doesn't add up to the amount in one of Reed's performances. He's doing a slowed down version of Moves Like Jagger that is more spazzy than jazzy. Reed's picking up VFTW points all over the place, whether it's him swearing, playing percussion or dancing like a general fool. Reed's having spasms that are making him scat, or is it the other way around?

Now that this year's Top 13 have been determined, it's time to speculate on who is going to last and who isn't going to last. Up until now I've been saying "Phillip is the winner. Give him the crown", but this may not necessarily be the case, despite American Idol's track record...on the other hand, he could easily win. Now, I'm going to break it down in a more scientific manner to see who has potential to win.

I find it to be kind of useless to predict the exact elimination order, even though that's exactly what I'm about to do (because I still have fun doing it once every season). Based on history, even chosen ones aren't safe for more than the first few weeks (more on that later), and even though I'm compiling a Top 13 list, even one person leaving early or staying late would change the entire game.  None of this is arbitrary, and again, even if I'm off by one person, it changes the entire dynamic. With that said. this is for entertainment purposes only.

It's time for the Top 25 results. Ryan enters and says that getting down to 13 contestants will involve a massive cut, but her fails to mention that it will also involve two hours of what only the producers think is suspense. Meanwhile, the rest of us are banging our heads on the table as there are rarely any surprises on results nights.

So, in light of that, I am compelled to format tonight's recap a little differently. I'm going to post some highlights from the show (rather than my uberdetailed blow-by-blow). After all, it was full of clips from yesterday's show, there are no musical guests, and you already know how this show ends by now. Besides, it's 10PM and I just now started watching. So, here are some of the things I noticed.

If you're like me, you're still laughing from the VFTW Woodstock that was last night's boys performances but it's time to settle down as it's time for the girls. Ryan tells us there hasn't been a female winner in five years, and it's going to be six as the only people remaining watching this show are raging tween tard girls and penis-starved housewives. Ryan wishes us Happy Leap Day, and let's celebrate by having Big Bang Theory leap this show in the ratings. We meet the Top 12 girls and we really see the influence of Adele as we don't have to worry about any anorexics in this group. The lucky winner of the Death Spot is Chelsea Sorrell. She's shooting a gun, so obviously she's a country singer. She's doing Cowboy Cassanova by Carrie Underwood and while she's capturing Farmbot's inanimateness, she's doesn't have the voice thing. And low and behold, after licking the males for two hours last night, we finally get our first bit of something resembling judge criticism when J-Ho points out Chelsea was nasal.