When it was announced that "American Idol" Season 12's first live results show, on which the top 10 finalists would be revealed, would be a full 90 minutes long, I assumed that meant there'd be some wiggle-room for a few Wild Card performances. I mean, how else was Nigel Lythgoe going to pad an entire hour and a half?

Oh, but I should not have doubted Fox's ability to find new ways to make a process that could have been completed in five minutes feel like five hours. No, people, there were no Wild Cards on this Thursday's semifinals results show. There was, in fact, just a top 10. And every single one of the top 10, upon hearing their good news, did a victory song. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.

And then each contestant was critiqued by the judges, just to kill more time--except the singers weren't really critiqued, since having Nicki Minaj say, "That wasn't it, ladybug," or Randy Jackson exclaim, "Dawg, that was a mess!" probably would've sucked the wind right out of the contestants'

When quirky, jazz-handy ginger Charlie Askew first appeared on “American Idol” this season, he was depicted as a merry misfit, an adorkable urchin who happily marched to the beat of his own hippy-dippy drum. But when he performed on “Idol” Season 12’s live show this Wednesday, he revealed the startling darkness behind his sparkly manic-pixie-boy persona, when he suffered a minor meltdown after receiving his first (overly) harsh critiques of the season.

They say anything can happen on live television, and never was that old adage more apt than it was this Tuesday—and not just because judge Nicki Minaj complimented busty contestant Tenna Torres’s cleavage on the air (a bold move that would make even flirty old man Steven Tyler blanch), or because she told the viewing public that another contestant, Kree Harrison, was her "wife." No, the most unpredictable part of “American Idol’s” first live episode of the season actually came during its first five minutes, courtesy of—who else?—zany Zoanette Johnson.

Tuesday’s top 10 girls show opened with Zoanette, the wild lion queen of Season 12, so of course it was time to expect the unexpected, no matter what. But c'mon, even with that being said, I had at least expected Zoanette to remember her lyrics.

photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagicBillboard has released its ranking of the top 100 “American Idol” singles of all time, based on Hot 100 airplay, and unsurprisingly, orignal Idol Kelly Clarkson is still the hottest of all, nearly 11 years after her Season 1 win. Kelly’s music in fact accounts for literally half of the list's top 20, with 10 charting singles, four of which made the top five. Take that, Clive Davis!

However, there is one Idol who managed to break Kelly’s top-five hot streak. No, not Carrie Underwood, as you might expect, but Jordin Sparks, whose 2008 hit “No Air (a duet with a wholesome, pre-Rihanna, pre-scandal Chris Brown) came in at number three.