I caught the final eight minutes of "Canadian Idol" last night, and I'm going to pass some judgements based on this brief viewing experience. I saw Ryan Malcolm's performance, the judges evaluations of him, and the ten second clips of the other contestants songs. Normally, I'd be silly to make conclusions based on such meagre exposure, but a) the time I spent watching each prospective Idol is longer than most of their careers will be (hey, what ever happened to Sugar Jones anyway?), b) if you can't make a good first impression in the pop music game in less than ten seconds, you shouldn't play the game to begin with.

First off, I have to say that the Ryan Seacrest clone and the judges are pathetic in that they are CLEARLY trying to play the equivalent roles of their counterparts on American Idol, right down to the haircuts and personalities.

-- Jenny "Oh my, I wish I was Kimberly Locke" Gear. Don't try emulating a third place contestant, you'll end up in third place just like her.

-- Gary Beals. Boy, don't try to be so white. It's OK to sing a white song, Ruben sang them all the time but kept them grounded in his own style. Same went for Clay. "Unchained Melody" is easily one of the top five whitest songs ever written, but that's still no excuse. (brainstorming the rest of the top five: The Power of Love (Air Supply, Celine, Jennifer Rush), How Much for That Doggie in the Window, Saturday Night (Whigfield or Bay City Rollers, take your pick), Theme from 1988 Calgary Olympics. How many David Foster songs have been on Canadian Idol so far, anyway? For any Americans reading this, David Foster is the Canadian equivalent of Diane Warren. Honourable mention goes to Pat Boone's cover of "Tutti Frutti", which wasn't eligible since it's a Little Richard Song. As a consolation, Pat Boone would easily make the top five list of the whitest singers ever to live, along with Rick Astley, Joey McIntyre, Ira Kaplan, and of course, Michael Jackson).

-- Audrey de Montigny. And here's the Carmen Rasmussen of the competition. She should easily win based on looks alone. However, if they continue to stick her with cutie-pie sexpot tunes like Mariah Carey's "Dreamlover" then maybe she's a darkhorse. But they'll probably embarrass her by making her do Sass Jordan's high register "Don't Rush Me", and then Sass will embarrass herself by trying to diplomatically say Audrey's performance sucked in 482 poorly phrased ways.

[damn, "Don't Rush Me" was Taylor Dayne. What WERE Sass Jordan's hits, anyway? Hmmm? Oh yeah, "Tell Somebody". The point still holds, either song would cause Audrey to embarrass herself. None of this matters now, because I'm correcting my factual mistake on Sept. 9, and she's been eliminated]

Seriously, what's with the hard-on these shows have with making everyone sing in a variety of different styles? How many styles does Geri Halliwell carry well? Or Britney Spears? Their careers were doing OK, last I checked. Sure, Carmen butchered "Love Will Lead You Back", but 95% of female pop stars wouldn't have done any better.

-- Billy Klippert. Paul Tracy doesn't look like a pop star. Dyed hair or not, neither do you.

-- Toya Alexis. Great voice. Will probably win.

-- Ryan Malcolm. He can sing (albeit in a style reminscent of doing karaoke to Clay Aiken songs), and has the natural charisma to pull off the pop star thing, but dude, you're GOING BALD. I hate to be so blunt, being a guy in his 20's myself, but you don't see any balding pop stars in the charts, do you?