As we approach the end of yet another memorable cycle of American Idol (fare thee well, dreamy-eyed Chris and dreamy-eared Phil!), the country braces for the most devastating rite in the communal search for our next exalted Karaoke Superstar: the singing of the Idol single, in which the two finalists are handed microphones, ordered at gunpoint into a death sphere set up on the stage of the Kodak theater, and are required to sing specially commissioned, unfathomably horrendous songs until someone's head explodes into a cloud of skull and brain fragments. (In the case of a tie, the second runner-up is crowned.)