American Idol and the Case of a Dreadful Dreadlock

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Traditionally, when producers of American Idol give contestants an enormous body of work from which to choose their songs—as they did this week by presenting them the entire Rock and Roll Hall of Fame songbook—many choose poorly. Over the last seven seasons, the AI faithful have watched contestant after contestant be told that their choice of song was wrong, either too high a register or too low, too iconic or too little-known. Luckily, on last night's Idol only one of the remaining four singers, dreadlocked Jason Castro, truly floundered in this area. That's not to say all of the Idols escaped unscathed, but Castro was clearly out of his element and should be going home tonight if there is any sense of musical justice on this show at all.

The other contestants managed pretty well ...