It's Down to 20

North Hollywood's Rudy Cardenas, 28, a semi-pro singer who sings in a jazz-pop a cappella group, will soon be spotted walking up and down Lankershim Boulvard looking for someone who recognizes him. He got the big boot even after Abdul said his falsetto as "amazing." But Cowell said he was just an "OK singer."
Paul Kim, a 25-year-old from Saratoga, Calif., was cut Thursday after failing to impress Simon, Paula and Randy.
"It hurts, man," Kim told Ryan Seacrest. "It hurts."
The kick-off applied to 22-year-old Amy Krebs, who sang Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me," was down to her wallflower persona. "She didn't sing that badly, she just didn't make an impression," noted Simon, who has earlier said the Federal Way, Wash., resident had "the personality of a candle."
Cowell said NIcole Tranquillo, a 20-year-old from Philadelphia, for her "over-rehearsed" cover of Chaka Khan's "Stay." But Paula said she was "a brilliant vocalist. "You really are."