Can Lennon-McCartney Bring "American Idol" Back to Top Spot?

"American Idol" once again opened up the Lennon-McCartney songbook for contestants to choose from this week, with most contestants finding success.

Host Ryan Seacrest pointed out the show used the songbook in Season 7, but then it was for the first time and a novelty. This time, much of it seemed like a retread, which is bad timing for the show.

It was announced recently that ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" was the first non-special event to best Fox's juggernaut in the Nielsen ratings in a very long time. Still, there was good news for "American Idol" in that in the heavily-coveted 18-49 demographic, it was still the top show. While some TV experts and fans are claiming this may be short-lived, the fact remains the once-untouchable "American Idol" certainly seems vulnerable now.

Even on social media site Twitter, things have changed from as soon as last year. During most of last season, "American Idol" was at the top of Twitter's trending lists during performance night and many times during results nights. This year, the show has been on the trending topic list, though further down the list, but disappeared once the show is about 10 or 15 minutes old. At time, contestants like Tim Urban and Siobhan Magnus will enter the list following their performances, but the show as a whole disappears from the list. The Twitter trending topic list is a survey of the most popular topics tweeted on the site at a given time.

At any rate, this week saw Casey James move away a little from the rocking blues sound he's known for and do an emotional, acoustic version of John Lennon's "Jealous Guy." He was the best of the night and much of the reason, other than it was a great performance, was because it wasn't the typical song available from this week's theme. Since the Lennon-McCartney song was available just a short two years ago, many of season 9's contestants chose songs that were performed in season 7. Sure, they are classics, but it's kind of "been there, done that." James' selection of "Jealous Guy" was genius.

Next was Crystal Bowersox doing "Come Together." Again, she continues to shine, though she may have to start worrying about voter ambivalence. It's what bit Chris Daughtry a few years ago when he seemed to be sailing to the finals, only to be eliminated. Bowersox is such a natural on stage, voters may just assume she's going to be in the finals.

Also putting in very strong performances were Katie Stevens, "Let It Be;" Tim Urban, "All My Loving;" and Lee DeWyze, "Hey Jude." Stevens and Urban have not been received well very often by the judges this year, but both were given very good comments. DeWyze's performance was good while he was singing, but "Hey Jude" isn't really a song which allows somebody to show off their vocal ability. However, he had a bagpipe player come in at the end, which is just very cool.

Aaron Kelly ,"Long and Winding Road," and Siobhan Magnus, "Across the Universe," were not great, but not bad either. Both had rather sleepy performances. Michael Lynche sang "Eleanor Rigby"and was okay. Andrew Garcia was probably the worst of the night singing "Can't Buy Me Love," but even he wasn't that bad. It was just a little corny in places and not as strong as the others.

Bottom three probably will be Garcia, Urban and Stevens, with Garcia coming up on the short end.

Billboard is reporting season 8 runner up Adam Lambert will mentor the contestants next week, as well as perform during Wednesday's results show. This could set up a possible screaming contest between Lambert and Magnus.