After the ads, there's a projection on the stage of tweets broken down by judge, with L.A. the most popular of the four. "Can someone get a Band-Aid for Simon's ego?" Steve cracks. After pushing the Twitter thing a bit, Steve adds, "Here's the third-most popular judge, Simon Cowell." Simon jokes about wanting a recount, and says Melanie will be singing a song from This Is It. So pretty much any Michael Jackson song, then? In rehearsal (I love how the default setting on the projector screens is a white grid pattern, like the show takes place on the Enterprise's holodeck), Melanie says that she's having throat issues. Well, that sucks. She's singing "Man in the Mirror," with a veritable Pandora's box of words flashing on the screen behind her. But then the words and the song get happy at the same time. As for her voice, she doesn't sound sick at all, even throwing in a nice big (but not overblown) finish at the end. L.A. tells Melanie she's a great singer, but dings Simon on it not being very inventive, arguing that Melanie always does the same kind of song. Nicole waits for the boos to die down before saying she loves the song. Paula says Melanie can sing the phone book if she wants. Well, her voice probably isn't up for that kind of endurance this week, so probably not. Simon Britishes that she was "bloody fantastic." He tells L.A. it was a tribute, and tells Melanie it was her best performance yet, showing all the range she needed to with the big note at the end. "You happy?" Steve asks her before rattling off the voting instructions. She claims to be, apparently saving her voice.

Stereo Hogzz are next, singing something from Get Smart. Paula says she was shocked to see them in the bottom two last week. The members themselves are also a little nervous. "At any moment, we could go home." Well, probably just the one moment of any given week. The sing they're singing is "Ain't No Other Man" by Christina Aguilera, complete with a retro art-deco look, and Paula is not taking any chances with America not connecting with a group; while they sing, she's got close-up glamour-shots of them projected on the upstage Jumbotron next to their names. They sound good, but for a singing and dancing group, it seems like a little overkill to have them up there with a squad of pantsless dancers and a half-dozen backup singers. L.A. doesn't wait for the applause to subside before saying it was their "recovery week," but he didn't know the song. Which isn't exactly their fault. I don't know all the songs either but I don't blame the contestants. Nicole says it's her favorite performance of theirs yet. One of the Hogzz hijacks the mic for some shout-outs (apparently they're microphone Hogzz as well), and then Simon takes a dig at Nicole's shallow criticism, and tells the Hogzz they're "not performing the record you would make," whatever that means. He calls it a cabaret performance, so I think they're getting dinged by both male judges for doing a deliberately retro song. The Hogzz take the criticism well, but Paula disagrees and makes lead singer Trace step forward and take a bow, which isn't embarrassing for him at all. Fortunately Steve comes out to give the voting instructions before she can do that to all the rest of them too.