USA TODAY Idol Chatter: Candid commentary on American Idol performances

'American Idol' recap: The Top 12 girls

American Idol's Top 12 girls may not have had the show-stopping performances that the guys did Tuesday, but separating the great from the merely good may be tougher.

Overall, the women showed a fondness for jazzy swing (Naima Adedapo's Summertime, Rachel Zevita's Criminal) and pop R&B (Lauren Turner's Seven Day Fool, Ashthon Jones' Love Over Me ). While a few of them seemed more like they were on a beauty pageant stage instead of the country's biggest TV show, none of them let them stage swallow them whole, the way a few of the guys did.

Pia Toscano broke from the pack in a major way, with a rendition of The Pretenders' I'll Stand by You that felt like a classic, old-school Idol moment, complete with a key change and a big finish. And the two youngest girls gave two of the strongest performances -- Lauren Alaina with a naturally sassy cover of Reba McEntire's Turn On the Radio and Thia Megia with an elegantly simply performance of Fame's Out Here on My Own.

Voters will choose only five finalists from this pack (the judges will have some wild-card options at their disposal) Thursday. Two of them surely won't be Ta-Tynisa Wilson, who opened with show with one of the weakest performances of the night, and Julie Zorrilla, whose version of Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway was roundly criticized by judges that have shown an eagerness to bend over backwards to compliment the singers.

Here's how I rank them:

1. Lauren Turner
2. Pia Toscano
3. Ashthon Jones
4. Thia Megia
5. Naima Adedapo
6. Lauren Alaina
7. Karen Rodriguez
8. Kendra Chantelle
9. Haley Reinhart
10. Rachel Zevita
11. Ta-Tynisa Wilson
12. Julie Zorrilla