Fan Fare

 Miley Cyrus might be just 17 but her advice to the “American Idol” contestants proved spot on in her first stint as a mentor on the TV show.

 It was a pity some of them either didn’t listen, or couldn’t figure out what the “Hannah Montana” Disney teen idol was talking about.

 Lose the guitar, she told early season favorite Andrew Garcia, and loosen up on stage.  He did,  and he tried. But sadly it didn’t work for his version of the Marvin Gaye classic “Heard it Through the Grapevine.”

“You sucked the soul out of that song, tortured it, and ruined one of the greatest pop songs of all time,” judge Simon Cowell told Garcia.

Miley  warned Paige Miles to watch her pitch. Right again. But the singer’s version of   ”Against All Odds” was so pitchy on Tuesday night that Kara DioGuardi called it “the worst vocal performance I have ever heard from you, and possibly of the season.”  Ouch!

  Katie Stevens, 17,  took a leaf out of  Miley’s fashion book and got high marks for ditching the pageant queen dresses and looking like a hip teen on stage for the first time.

 And Miley even suggested that front-runner Crystal Bowersox go the extra vocal mile in her version of Janis Joplin’s only No. 1 hit single  “Me and Bobby McGee.”  Bowersox listened and it paid off big time , winning her the biggest thumbs up of the night from the judges.

 Miley had come in for some stick this week from some critics who suggested she lacked the experience to offer advice to the aspiring “Idols”. 

 But she showed on Tuesday that you don’t sell 15 million albums in less than five years, and make it seem easy, just by looking cute.