It’s becoming quite clear that this year’s American Idol badly needs a contestant with star quality.

Too much to ask? OK – then at the very least this year’s American Idol badly needs a contestant who at least gives some indication that they’ve heard the song they’re performing all the way through at least once before they walk onstage. Or a contestant who isn’t so overwhelmingly terrible at everything that their performances aren’t drowned out by the sound of everyone on the planet simultaneously slapping their foreheads in despair.

But that contestant might have been found in Crystal Bowersox, a girl who sang a song that – for the first time this season – people didn’t hate so badly that they immediately started to fantasise about burning her alive as soon as she opened her mouth. So her to win, we guess.

Crystal Bowersox. Remember that name. Remember it because she’s the girl who seems most likely to win American Idol at the moment. And also because there’s bound to be a professional porn star with that name around somewhere. But mainly the winning American Idol thing.

There are two reasons why Crystal Bowersox has emerged as the favourite to win American Idol. The first is that she’s already engaged the human interest element – she was rushed to hospital on Tuesday and producers announced that she’d be kicked off the show if she wasn’t well enough to perform last night. And the second reason is that last week’s American Idol was so hamfisted and depressing that if anyone managed to even hit a single note during their song this week, they’d end up being called incredible by the judges, just to keep the show’s reputation afloat.

And that’s more or less what Crystal Bowersox did last night. More or less. MTV reports:

Showing no signs of illness, she took it to church, coming off like an indie-rock Janis Joplin over a Hammond organ and her gently strummed acoustic guitar. Whatever was ailing her didn’t show onstage, as Bowersox powerfully nailed the vocals, looking confident and strong. Simon praised her… calling her vocal “incredible”.

See? So maybe Crystal Bowersox will help American Idol turn a corner and help the other contestants raise their game next week. Let’s hope so, because the prospect of sitting through another unnecessarily long episode full of songs by Creedance Clearwater Revival and Sixpence None The Richer and Creed and Miley Cyrus and Corinne Bailey Rae is bad enough as it is – it’d be nice to know that some of them will actually be performed in tune next week.

And even if that doesn’t happen, it seems fairly certain that in Crystal Bowersox we’ve found a new Kelly Clarkson. Because, you know, she’s quite fat and stuff. What?

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