American Idol loves theme nights – like Michael Jackson night, country night and dress the blind kid up funny night.

And on last night’s show? American Idol loosened things up by letting the contestants sing whatever they wanted. But don’t be fooled, because American Idol still had a name for the night – it was the iTunes Top Downloads night.

The theme certainly confused some of the American Idol contestants – Adam Lambert performed Play That Funky Music, but Megan Joy covered an audiobook of selected Oscar Wilde short stories and Anoop Desai gave a heartbreaking rendition of the National Rail Enquiries iPhone app.

With the American Idol eliminations in full swing – leaving former contestants as nothing more than funny-eyebrowed memories – it’s time to reflect on how this season will be remembered. For the sake of space, let’s just say that we’re hoping to sustain some kind of concussion that means we won’t be able to remember it at all.

You can broadly divide the remaining American Idol contestants into three groups – the pity-magnets, the annoying novelty acts and the singers so breathtakingly anonymous that we’re still not convinced that they aren’t just blow-up dolls filled with sausagemeat. And none of them are particularly good.

This season of American Idol is so bad that the winner is probably going to end up being a boy who looks like a 45-year-old emo and sings like a rape alarm slowly running out of batteries, for crying out loud.

And the paucity of talent on this year’s American Idol hit home last night, during the clunkily-titled iTunes Top Downloads night – incidentally, next week’s theme is Top Jingles Of Television Commercials About Pharmaceuticals night – because without a clear guide as to exactly what they were supposed to sound like, many of the American Idol contestants fell apart. As such, Reuters has compiled a list of Simon Cowell’s feedback from last night:

Anoop Desai, who performed Usher’s “Caught Up”

Simon: “It was a little bit like a college boy wanting to be a pop star and failing. It actually gave me a headache.”

Megan Joy, who sang Bob Marley’s “Turn Your Lights Down Low.”

Simon: “All of the things we liked about you are disappearing.”

Lil Rounds, who performed “I Surrender” by Celine Dion

Simon: “All of your personality is being sucked out of you.”

But despite all this, last night wasn’t without its high points. For instance, the American Idol wardrobe department continued its bizarre vendetta against blind Scott MacIntyre by giving him a new haircut that made him look like David Hasselhoff’s malformed twin. And Allison Iraheta came dressed as Avril Lavigne’s prehistoric ancestor which, while being so horrifying that it literally prevented us from sleeping last night, was distracting enough.

Plus, watching the performances knowing that one of the American Idol contestants will end up getting their dreams smashed to pieces in front of their eyes the next day was fun, although that’s nothing new.

Not that any of them will want to be eliminated during tonight’s show, of course – they’re all desperate to take part in next week’s theme night. We hear it’s Singing The Words ‘Delicious Coca-Cola’ To The Hits Of The Beatles night. Fun!

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