FOR THE SECOND WEEK in a row, the "American Idol" judges beat up on Utahn Megan Joy. It wasn't just that they thought her rendition of Bob Marley/Lauryn Hill's "Turn Your Lights Down Low" was bad on Tuesday night, they thought it was boring.
"Megan, I really like you but I think you're in trouble," judge Kara DioGuardi said. "It's just not the song choice for you."
DioGuardi even called Megan Joy's voice "irritating."
"There was no falsetto. You have a beautiful falsetto -- you never use it," she said.
"Megan, the problem was ... that the song was boring," Simon Cowell said. "It was indulgent, it was monotonous, and all the things we liked about you are disappearing," Simon Cowell said. "You are actually becoming indulgent. Nobody's going to like that song.... It was so boring."
"It was like watching paint dry," Randy Jackson agreed. "It took forever."
Paula Abdul tried to offer constructive criticism, telling the Utahn she ought to sit on a stool with a single spotlight "with no distractions of movement or anything like that" -- an obvious reference to Megan Joy's odd dance moves -- and "just sing a sensitive, vulnerable ballad that rips the hearts out of everyone."
"OK. I can do that," Megan Joy said, battling back against the criticism and even, to some degree, rejecting it.
"I think that the audience was feeling it. And I think my fans were feeling it," she said of her performance. "I understand what (the judges are) saying and I fully intend on bringing what they have envisioned, because I can understand that now. But I liked my song."
"But you've been saying that every week," Cowell shot back.
If there's good news for Megan Joy, it's that the judges also criticized Anoop Desai, Matt Giraud, and to a lesser degree, Lil Rounds. And, perhaps more importantly, the judges severely criticized her last week - "kind of punched me in my mouth," as Megan Joy put it - and she wasn't even in the bottom three of the voting.
The results of this week's voting will be announced when "American Idol" returns Wednesday at 8 p.m. on Fox/Ch. 13.