The Bangles determine who gets to be American Idol's quirky cute girl.

As we head toward the end, there's little room for duplication. We've got to choose, and maybe there's not room in the top 5 for 2 female singers in the same niche. "American Idol" has forefronted Catie Turner since the first episode this season. And I forefronted her in a post about last week's show. She was the "Lisa Loopner" who sang the Disney song "Once Upon a Dream" so delightfully.

But the week before, I told you my favorite was Maddie Poppe. Remember? I was utterly charmed by her performance of the old Bangles song "Walk Like an Egyptian":



Here's the old Bangles video for comparison.

Last night, Catie Turner chose that other great Bangles song "Manic Monday."  It was Prince night on "American Idol," so I don't have my usual complaint that the show presents songs as if they were written by the most familiar performer. Prince got full credit for writing "Manic Monday," but those of us who love Prince and love that song also know it's a Bangles song. (Here's the old Bangles video for that.)

We'd just seen Poppe distinguish herself 2 weeks ago bringing a Bangles tune back to life, so what did Catie Turner do with what seemed to be the perfect song to compete in the niche of quirky cute girl?



Sorry, but Deer in the Headlights is not the right kind of cute. "America" voted and Catie did not make the final five.

What Prince song did Maddie sing?, you might ask. "Nothing Compares to You." Sweet. Final 5. What did other people do with Prince? Oh, if you cared, you'd have devoted last night to watching the whole damn 2 hours, like I did. But if you want to laugh or you understand something about country music that escapes me, here's Caleb Lee Hutchinson doing "When Doves Cry." He's been hogging the country boy niche all season.

By the way, back in the post about "Walk Like an Egyptian," I said something I now think is wrong: "It's one of the songs Clear Channel banned after the September 11, 2001 attacks."

I got that from Wikipedia, where the information is presented like this:

"Walk Like an Egyptian" was one of the songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks^[9] and was also included in a "list of records to be avoided" drawn up by the BBC during the Gulf War.^{[10][11][clarification needed]}

I have an informant — a person I have strong reason to trust and who I believe has first-hand knowledge — who wrote to me:

This is a battle I no longer fight; it’s been lost. I even saw it mentioned in a recently published college textbook of American history. But for you, here’s the real story:

Clear Channel Radio never banned any songs after 9-11. A day or so after the attack, one program director in San Diego sent an e-mail to other PDs with a short list of songs they might want to think twice about for a short time, purely for reasons of taste and sensitivity. I doubt that Walk Like An Egyptian was on the list then.

Now, you have to recall the typical bad-boy snotty attitude of the typical FM rock program director of 2001. Immediately, for their own entertainment, many of them started adding to the list, coming up with increasingly ridiculous suggestions, and trading the list back and forth.

The later, ridiculous list is the one that that made its way to the press, to the early forms of social media, and eventually to history books. Clear Channel was already being bashed for its size and its destruction of local radio, so this story fit right in.