No, Simon isn’t picking out his “myFaves” for T Mobile, but he is naming the singers he thinks are the top five in this year’s American Idol cast. The judge everyone loves to hate says this year’s Idols are “not a great cast,” and “not the best bunch of kids we’ve ever had,” but one of them is still going to win – whatever Cowell thinks. He says the race is very close this season, however, and names his top five favorites as Blake, Chris R., Jordin, LaKisha, and Melinda. These singers are often among the top vote-grabbers every week. But is Simon wrong this time? While Cowell has rarely predicted the winner, Bill Tancer from Hitwise has, according to the Boston Globe. Last year he used search engine data from sites like Google to predict the winner, and this year has named Sanjaya as the front runner in the contest – by more than 2 to 1. It’s true the young contestant has garnered more media attention than most, and is searched online more often than any other Idol on this current season or any other, even past American Idol winners.

(You can find all the American Idol 6 posts here.)