Give American Idol's Kady Malloy credit for her performance on 80s week. If you want to win a national singing contest, your first instinct should be to: (1) choose the most beautiful song you can find; (2) sung by an artist with a legendary voice, and then; (3) totally knock everyone's spiked Coca-Cola cups over with your rendition.

So Kady picks Queen's "Who Wants To Live Forever." OK, check for No. 1. Sung by one of the greatest showmen of the last 100 years, Freddie Mercury. Check for No. 2. And then she sang it like she was auditioning for the high school chorus after drinking a bottle of NyQuil. It just goes to show that Meatloaf wasn't right: Two out of three actually ain't good sometimes.

It's so simple, people. Maybe you need a refresher course!

FIVE REASONS TO NEVER COVER A QUEEN SONG:

5. Unless your name is George Michael, and you have time between appearances on "Eli Stone," nobody on Earth can match Mercury's voice. Sorry, but Freddie was the only living proof that live must exist on other planets.

4. Assuming you choose to ignore reason #5, at least pick an up-tempo Queen song. Might I suggest "Crazy Little Thing Called Love?" Not a great song, but at least you'd be around for Beatles week.

3. Unless you can quote at least five lines from 1986's nerd-flick "Highlander," the movie in which the song appears, it's bad karma to pick "Who Wants To Live Forever." (Which means only me and maybe a dozen other people are qualified to sing it -- and nobody wants to hear that either.)

2. Like Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," most truly great Queen songs build in energy verse after verse until it reaches a crescendo where you are at one with all living things and have power beyond imagination.. You can't just chop a Queen song half, sing the first half, smile a toothy grin at Simon Cowell, because ...

1. ... If you do, you're subject to the most important quote from "Highlander" ... "If your head comes away from your neck, it's over!"

[AP photo]