10 different songs by Billy Joel were performed on ‘American Idol’ tonight (March 21) — one by each of the remaining contestants on the Steven Tyler-judged singing competition.

Granted, we’re not the target audience for this program, and yes, some of these kids can sing, and sure, we’re sounding like a broken record running their taste and style down each and every week. But, we’d rather listen to a broken record than to hear any of those performances again.

Quite simply, watching kids who for the most part seem to have only a passing knowledge of Joel’s music rush to learn one of his songs in rehearsals — then add their own shopping mall / pop radio mentality to the proceedings — didn’t give us a lot of reason to expect anything great in the actual live performances.

If only there was some experienced mentor to guide these young hopefuls by the hand. Oh, wait, we forgot to mention that ‘Idol’ did in fact choose a big music star to do just that very job. But don’t get your hopes up because it was Sean Combs / Puff Daddy / P. Diddy / Diddy. (What, they couldn’t get Lil’ Wayne?) Most of his advice seemed to be of the fortune cookie variety.

‘New York State of Mind,’ ‘Movin’ Out,’ ‘Shameless’ and of course, ‘Piano Man’ were among the Joel songs interpreted on this program, but we think a quick viewing of DeAndre Brackensick’s overly peppy reading of “Only The Good Die Young” will show you most of what you need to know about the evening:

DeAndre Brackensick Performs ‘Only the Good Die Young’

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