American Idol's Top 9 Worship at the Altar of John and Paul

Remaining finalists have hit-or-miss moments with the Lennon-McCartney songbook

Paul McCartney wasn't on hand to personally mentor the American Idol top nine, but he did have a message for the bright-eyed hopefuls as they tackled the Lennon-McCartney songbook: Don't screw this up.

Well, Sir Paul was actually far more eloquent than that, telling the contestants to "get out there, go for it, enjoy yourselves."

But you get our drift. McCartney and John Lennon's prolific work contains recipes for both delight and disaster, as evidenced by Idol's inaugural Beatles night a couple years ago. Amateurs singing these sometimes deceptively profound classics can either make you want to put your hands together…or cover your ears.

So which way did the pendulum swing tonight?

Aaron Kelly: "The Long and Winding Road" is not a 16-year-old's song. Even when McCartney sings the piano ballad in concert, critics tend to have a hard time with its sleepy-time quality. Plus, it was just one more satisfactory moony love song from Aaron. The judges didn't really go wild for it when David Archuleta tried it two years ago, and they weren't any more enthusiastic tonight. Kara DioGuardi observed correctly that Aaron's been giving the same performance week after week ("Angie," "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing," etc.). "You've got to become young and relevant," Simon Cowell warned him.

Katie Stevens: There were shades of Katharine McPhee in the 17-year-old's performance of "Let It Be," though coming after that long, winding road, it didn't have the oomph to blow us completely away. Her voice sounded beautiful, however, and she should be able to break that bottom-three streak she has going. "To me, this is your best performance ever," raved Randy Jackson. Simon didn't want to take "all the credit," but he took some, judging her sound to be more country tonight. "I think what needs to happen is we need to clarify which country you're speaking about, right?" Ryan Seacrest quipped happily.

Andrew Garcia: His funked-up version of "Can't Buy Me Love," an already incredibly upbeat pop song, sounded positively giddy in his guitar-strumming hands—perhaps a little too much so. Randy found the arrangement "interesting," if a bit corny at times, and Simon found it, well, completely corny! "I think you and the band got this all wrong tonight," he said, noting that the band "completely overpowered the whole arrangement." That they did. Meanwhile, Simon isn't going to have a friend left in the TV band business, having already taken a dig at Dancing With the Stars' house singers last week.

Michael Lynche: How many songs did Lennon and McCartney write? And yet here the top nine were, picking the same stuff the contestants sang in season seven. David Cook, no less, tackled Michael's choice for tonight, "Eleanor Rigby." We adored the beginning, which combined all of the big guy's best velvety traits. But while he excels at the falsetto, his midrange isn't all there. "I thought that was fire!" raved Kara. "You made that song commercial today." (Which, we all know, is the point.) Simon, on the other hand, found it theatrical. Well, there's always Cirque du Soleil's LOVE...

Crystal Bowersox: Of course Crystal was going to rock the half-chant, half-sung "Come Together." It's just what she was born to do. She sounded better than everyone, as always, completely ready to go from the stage to the studio. And who doesn't dig some cool didjeridoo? Ellen DeGeneres was again left struggling "for a new way to tell [Crystal] how great" she is. Kara praised her for being "more accessible" this week. Simon was outside gassing up the limo to take Crystal to the studio. And then the bank.

Tim Urban: We're getting whiplash from this kid! We really liked his at-times standard but also charmingly indie-pop version of "All My Loving," one of our faves from the Beatles earlier days. He sounded a million times better than he has the last couple of weeks, and everything about his performance was pleasing, from his guitar to his Paul-channeling mop top. Randy called it, somewhat condescendingly, a "good Tim performance." Simon shut his fellow judge down, meanwhile, judging it a good performance by any standard and commending the 20-year-old punching bag for hanging in there in the face of so much negativity. "If you have to take a few barbs along the way [to becoming famous], so what?" he said.

Casey James: It's more a testament to John Lennon how current "Jealous Guy" still sounds, but Casey put an admirable country twist on it. We picture hearing the acoustic guitar and cello-backed tune on an alt-rock station, right after Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt." Kara of course praised the vulnerability he showed out there—she loves those emotions!—and Simon called it, simply, "the best performance of the night so far." (Casey's blonde ringlets were a little bit out of control tonight, though. Better he stick to more subtle waves.)

Siobhan Magnus: We gladly herald the return of Siobhan! Her voice was once again beautiful on "Across the Universe" and, you guessed it, there was no opportunity to inject a scream in there. (Although that would have been interesting.) "From a purely singing perspective, you hit the notes," Kara said, though she also called it "restrained and polite." She apparently wanted to hear a scream. They all continued to love her unpredictability in the meantime.

Lee Dewyze: Having had the Moment last week, Lee scored the revered closing spot, which he chose to fill with an acoustic-guitar-led version of "Hey Jude." It was... fine. There's only so much you can do with the sing-along standard without making it sound weird. So all you really have left after that is serviceable bar version. (But bonus points for the bagpipes!) "Even when that guy got separated from his parade...you didn't even get rattled," Ellen joked. "It was like he turned up on the wrong show," laughed Simon. Eh, no big deal, Lee's not going anywhere.

One of these nine gets the boot tomorrow night following performances by Rihanna, Jason Derülo and David Archuleta.