Don’t count your chickens.

EW chats up the Top 12 (just like they did last year), and it’s a veritable cornucopia of arrogance. Last year, all we got this early in the game from EW was a slightly eyebrow-raising statement from Katharine McPhee about how she brings so much “soul,” “blues,” and “jazz” to Ella Fitzgerald’s “Ain’t Got Nothin’ But the Blues” (which she later, um, didn’t). This year, it’s practically a race to the top of Mount Ego. Good Lord, when did this turn into Smug Idol?

Chris Sligh, on theme nights he’s not looking forward to: Diana Ross is going to be tough, because she had this weird range, about seven or eight notes, and that’s about it. So it’s really hard to, like, rock out to Diana Ross, you know what I’m sayin’?

Damn, even McPhee waited until the season was over to go all snotty high-school-clique-leader on Meat Loaf. And no, the question wasn’t loaded; the contestants were asked about theme nights they either were or weren’t looking forward to. Sligh also says that he wanted to perform one of his original songs, but that Idol “wasn’t ready for it.” OR maybe, similar to the rule that contestants aren’t allowed to play instruments, they want to keep the playing field as evenly balanced as they can. (Yeah, I know, they play favorites, but at least on its face, the game’s fair.) Not everyone’s a songwriter, just like not everyone’s an instrumentalist.

In other news, Stephanie Edwards and Gina Glocksen want to cut their hair super-short, Brandon Rogers thinks that the guys this year represent an excellent crop of talent (snerk), and Sanjaya Malakar wants to sing something by Jet.

Reviews, reviews, everywhere reviews.

Mary Colurso blames the difference between the Huntsville concert and last night’s Birmingham concert on poor sound mixing at the former:

[Taylor] Hicks’ singing came through strong, warm and clear, blending with a band that sounded tight and muscular, yet nicely balanced…Part soul, part blues, part pop, part swampy rock, ["modern whomp"] fits Hicks as neatly as his natty suit jackets. Also, Hicks has devised a clever trick for his tour, tacking vignettes from R&B classics onto the end of newer tunes. “The Maze,” for example, morphed into Honey Cone’s “Want Ads” and Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On.” That really worked…To make the maximum impact, the Gray Haired Guy’s gotta dance, and Hicks usually exhibits enough energy to light up a theater marquee. That’s his magic, as “Idol” judge Paula Abdul would say.