Parity has struck in American Idol and I think it makes for a more watchable product.

I started watching Idol three seasons ago and have enjoyed it quite a bit. I have never been into music but it's a great formula and
a very easy watch with a dvr.

I am anxiously awaiting Mark's post on the show. It was pretty cool to see so many of them do well.

I'm a little worried about David Archuletta, not that he has any chance of being voted off, just for him personally. It seemed the big stage and performing in front of so many of people screaming for him threw him off. I hope he bounces back next week. I'd hate to see him develop the biggest case of the yips in television history. Plus it seems like the judges are consciously trying to state that the competition is wide open, after all the love they threw to Archuletta early on.

That song, along with their cover versions of "Matchbox," "Long Tall Sally" and "Slow Down," were originally an EP released in England and are, to me, the best representations of the Beatles as a performing band available. They were just on fire that day, apparently. Ringo is especially hot. If anyone says they don't get why Ringo Starr is considered a great drummer, those four tracks clear up the matter. This was also the period when John was the Beatles' leader. Some of the best vocal performances of his career were delivered in the band's early years on songs like "Twist and Shout," "Rock and Roll Music," "Money (That's What I Want)," "Dizzy Miss Lizzie," and the two tracks that were on this EP, "You Can't Do That" and "Slow Down." Paul's vocal on "Long Tall Sally" is equally intense -- maybe his best rock vocal ever, even though it's all stolen from Little Richard, that would be like me picking up my violin and "stealing" Isaac Stern. If you can do it, it's really not stealing.

All these tracks are on Past Masters, Vol. 1, which is a great document of their rock and roll phase. The later Beatles, the creative Beatles, the Paul-led Beatles, the Beatles who stood for love and peace -- great stuff. But before all that, they were the world's best four-man rock combo.

End of completely irrelevant editorial.

I thought the show was the best of the year too- for the same reason I preferred Rock Star. Songs songs songs. I get enough of Celine, Whitney, Mariah at the dentist. Eleanor Rigby rose to the elite level of the immediate Tivo replay with higher volume. My second favorite performance since Josiah did that Grace Kelly number.

Grace Kelly?

George Martin once said that John Lennon was the best rock vocalist he'd ever heard and that Paul was a close second. That seems a little hyperbolic to me, but has there ever been a band that had two front men that were that strong? Any band is very lucky to have one vocalist that good.