X Factor: Week 8 Live Show (Take That & Elton John)
Nov 29th
Take That & Elton John Week?* Why? Why not two artists who link in some way? Like Take That & Girls Aloud Week? Now that would be interesting/relevant/believable/credible/contemporary. Joe doing Love Machine, for example, would be fun. As would be Danyl singing “I’ve got to heat it up, Doctor, got to heat it up”, etc, etc.
Danyl:
1. Could It Be Magic:
Oh Danyl. Commenting on the group celebration of the charity single topping the charts by saying how great it would be to have a number 1 by yourself is *not* the way to shake off the arrogant image.
The slutty she vampires (aka the backing dancers) are growing in strength. They have multiplied in number in the past two weeks and spawned men. The two of them at the side seem to now have procured burning pitch forks, which I like to think is a metaphor for the public’s attitude towards Danyl.
He sang it quite well, bopped a bit, but it seemed tacky and overdone (Brian Friedman, I’m talking to you).
2. Your Song:
Whose idea was the child choir? Get out now. It has no relevance to the song. I’ll reluctantly accept a child choir when it means something to the song (brilliant example here 3 minutes in: who could forget Eternal’s apocalyptic warning of the social chaos we were descending into in 1997?), but I won’t accept it randomly in the middle of a love song, no matter how badly 10 year olds might want to sing on tele.
Despite that, quite good singing from Danyl here. However, screaming the first few lines of the song at your audience is one way of making it your own, but does make you look pretty arrogant. Again. Please someone coach this man.
He also only got a quarter of a halo light, therefore telling us that the Producers only want him to get as far as the quarter-final (compare this later to Stacey’s).
The Empty Space Zac Efron Leaves When He Exits A Room (Lloyd):
1. A Million Love Songs
The big question is: can the haircut keep him in the competition another week? Probably not, as this was flat virtually the whole way through.
2. I’m Still Standing:
The prop, Lloyd’s stick, came across as ever so slightly more interesting than its owner in this performance. I feel a bit harsh, as despite this, he’s sort of growing on me (why? why?). I think it’s in reaction to Joe. I keep saying I’d rather even Lloyd won than Joe, so I think that I’ve sort of started gunning for him now.
Cheeky Chappy (Olly):
1. Love Ain’t Here Anymore:
The VT explained that the crucial thing with this song is to convey genuine emotion. So yes, definitely the best way of doing this is by singing the song awkwardly to an audience member you’ve never met before.
The problem with Cheeky Chappy and ballads is that his voice isn’t quite strong enough. Danni was right, there was no sparkle (by this I mean emotion/energy, Simon, not literally that he should be grinning away as you seemed to interpret Danni’s comment. We all know that’s my pet hate).
2. Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting:
I really enjoyed this. The Brian Friedman production sort of worked, the she-vampires with signs actually worked, and he sang it in tune. My only beef was the awkward facial expressions Cheeky Chappy pulled when he had to sing the word Saturday seven times in a row. When Cheeky Chappy gets it right like this, I want him to win.
Joe:
1. Could It Be Magic:
2. Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word:
Stacey:
1. Rule The World
Look at the halo in this song:
It was OK and I liked her (now characteristic) belting out at the end, but she’s still too wobbly over the rest of the song. If she let go and gave a bit more passion, I’d forgive the wobbly notes: we need the odd feisty fist movement, a few Christ-like gestures and maybe the occasional falling to her knees with sheer emotion.**
However, if she just spoke on record (a bit like Kate Nash) I think I’d buy it.
2. Something About The Way You Looked Tonight
I disagree, Mr Cowell, I think this was much better vocally than her first song. And a rare occurrence: the style of the song matched well with the sexy, slinky sitting on the piano choreography.
Bottom One:
I predict Danyl. Which is sad.
Mathematical Formula says: Olly! Which would be a shock, as he should get rebound votes.
*Because Joe sang an Elton John song well last week, maybe, and the man in charge has decided he should win.
**It was pointless to change the lyrics: “If you stay with me girl boy/we could rule the world”. Boy doesn’t half-rhyme with girl and therefore doesn’t work.
X Factor: Week 7 Live Show (George Michael & Wham)
Nov 21st
I was distracted from writing tonight’s Blog by Katie Price and Kim from How Clean Is Your House eating kangaroo anus. Who would have predicted ten years ago that this would be common Saturday night TV? What kind of brainstorm in ITV’s boardrooms produced it? Maybe I should blog about that in my so far neglected Overarching Narrative.
Anyway, I was excited this week to discover a new but important way of assessing performances: whereas last week we were concerned if peoplej were “authentic”, this week they must be – new buzz word – “believable”.
Meanwhile, Cheryl Cole increased her believability by dressing as Mini Mouse.
The Empty Space Zac Efron Leaves When He Exits A Room (Lloyd):
The best thing about this performance was the audience’s awkward silence as they struggled to understand what Dannii meant when she complimented Lloyd’s falsetto.
The Puppet Masters often put the act first that they want out. However, Lloyd only sang one note very out of tune and has a new hair cut. He’s safe.
Stacey:
“I Can’t Make You Love Me” is George Michael’s best song lyrically [edit: he covered it, but is still the best song he's sung lyrically]. But a subtle song with intelligent lyrics from a little known double A side is perhaps not the best song choice, Danni.
After last week’s emotional powerhouse of a performance, Stacey let me down. This week’s VT showed the singing coach telling Stacey it was OK to cry when singing if she liked and I longed for maybe one or two perfect tears at the end of her performance. Instead, she committed the ultimate sin of grinning a bit at the beginning of a song which is all about realizing your partner doesn’t love you. She was also pitchy (less of a sin).
For the best ever example of crying on the X Factor, see below. This was a seminal X Factor moment for so many reasons. You have to watch from the beginning to the end:
Stacey’s big notes at the end had soaring power, but she needs to make sure the rest of the song is as good too.
Twin Peaks (John and Edward):
I found myself wondering if their Choose Life T-shirts were a kind of complicated ironic way of making us realize that voting for them meant some kind of musical death.
They may be vulnerable: their performance was just not horrific enough. I am, however, still fascinated by their twitching; watching it gives me the same feeling I get when I watch Nicola from Girls Aloud. I can’t take my eyes off the awkwardness.
Jedward’s parents still look broken.
Danyl:
Danyl started well with an interesting stripped down version of “Careless Whisper”. He then rapidly destroyed it by removing all subtlety and proceeded to aggressively shove massive notes in our faces. He also pointed to his feet when he sang about them being guilty which ruined everything (see Olly later).
Now merge over the top Danyl with under the top Stacey and you have something potentially great (Leona Lewis maybe? I hoped by merging their faces (my new favourite thing) I might in fact get Leona but instead got this):
I think it has a hint of Joe.
Cheeky Chappy (Olly):
Was each act encouraged to sing the first two lines in an entirely different key?*
Cheeky Chappy finally showed us he was contemporary by singing a song released over 13 years ago. It verged between being quite good to excruciating (mainly when he tried to look seductive by squinting, whilst singing a bit out of tune).
His real crime, however, were the actions he started doing towards the end of the song, like the phone hand when he referred to cupid calling him and the driving motion when he mentioned the BMW (please note Olly, when George sang “why don’t we make a little room in my BMW babe”, he’s not planning on driving in it).
Somehow I still like him.
Joe:
My Primary School Choir was ahead of it’s time: we did “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” too. How relevant/authentic/believable of my Primary School. Next week one of the contestants will be doing a song from the musical we did about a chicken farm.
Back to Joe, and for the first time he conveyed some oomph and emotion whilst singing very in tune. It was a great Musical performance. Why is it that every year the judges claim that the boys could be the new Michael Buble? Joe is nothing like Michael Buble. Did you know that the average release date of the songs Joe sings is 1980? That’s how relevant/believable/authentic he is. Can you believe that I actually worked that out?
Bottom Two:
I sadly predict Stacey (not as good as last week + got OTT judges praise = always a bad combination) and Danyl (partly because this kind of bad PR is ramping up once again). With Jedward hovering around their too. But it’s cheating to guess three so discount Jedward.
[Mathematical Formula says Olly and Jedward. That'd be a shocker]
*The Boyfriend informs me that George often sings in a tricky key and proceeds to give me a hearty performance of “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On me”.
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