The remaining eight boy-toys sang for their supper on Tuesday night to the tune of the 1980s, despite a notable absence of Jessie's Girl.

Luke Menard again missed his cue to go Loggins, choosing Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go over Top Gun’s Danger Zone.  Sure, it might not have been on the list, but I bet Footloose was.  Paula was happy to see he’d opted out of the Dolphin shorts.  

Ms. Abdul is also now convinced that David Archuleta is a human being because he pitched-out during his piano-playing, Phil Collinsish, gloomypuss performance of Another Day In Paradise. 

Tainted Love reared its purple-streaked head in the form of Danny Noriega, who gave the already pretty gay song a deluxe WeHo treatment in tight pants.  As expected, Simon praised the little queenie with encouragement like, “hated the arrangement, hated the performance, hated the vocals.”

David Hernandez's revealed on video that his most embarrassing moment was (not being recently outted as a stripper at a gay club in Arizona, but rather) this one time he had a booger.  Then he went all Meat Loaf power ballad with It’s All Coming Back To Me Now.

The simple minded Michael Johns did his creaky, old-man dance while singing about detention with The Breakfast Club soundtrack favorite, Don’t You (Forget About Me).  He also confessed to being pummeled once while dressed as a kangaroo.  I swear it wasn’t me.

David Cook did Lionel Richie proud with a fuzzed-out guitar rendering of Hello.  He received triple brilliants from the panel and a bonus story from Simon about seeing Mr. Richie at Whole Foods a few days earlier and one of them was buying the carrots, the other, cereal.  Randy also used the word emo. 

Best of the night was Jason Castro who finally put down the guitar and went for it.  Hallelujah!  He brought an effortless sincerity to the Leonard Cohen master work -- a ballsy choice considering that the Jeff Buckley version is among the most revered songs in our modern canon.  The triple threat LOVED IT, praising the dreadlocked wonder with “you keep getting better and better.”

Chikezie closed the show with a Vandross/Houston interpretation of All The (Wo)Man That I Need.  It was warm, and vocally strong, and Simon still hated it. 

Now, ladies night...