Saturday 23 November 2013

And Then There Were Five

This is a 10 Year X Factor Celebration show, with lots of nice little clips and memories.

Olly Murs starts the show, possibly instead of the annoying sing-a-long. X Factor USA are celebrating the British Invasion (presumably they mean pop music) and had 1D so this is in a similar vein. 1D jet in tomorrow's results show and will probably get asked the same questions and sing the same song, They made a good job across the Pond - see the video on my XFactorUSA blog.

Olly's a great ad for the show. He lost to little Joe McElderry who has never been seen since. The only thing that bothers me about Olly is his grammar is absolutely dreadful and Pur Yer And on My Arse doesn't sound quite how I imagine the writer wrote it.

Olly's backing Rough Copy. They'll like that. He adds Sam Bailey at the last minute, just in case.

It's interesting to compare the two shows this and t'other side of the Pond. Dermot O'Leary is such a good presenter - he seems to have totally taken on board the role and, whatever his real views, seems to like all the acts and, as listeners to his Radio 2 Saturday afternoon show and several other more serious projects he has done recently, the chap is intelligent and very much in the zone. Mario Lopez is improving week by week in USA. He doesn't have the depth of knowledge that Dermot possesses but he does have a pleasant way of dealing with people and, above all, comes across naturally and not as scripted as the dreadful Khloe and wooden Steve Jones had been in previous years.

In fact, Dermot almost leads the show, now that the judges have been changed around a fair bit and do seem to have lost their authority these days. Sharon is so out of place in 2013. She may have just managed to fit in at the show's start but now, no.

First off of the contestants is little Nicholas. Ha ha! I'm writing this live so it's so funny to see little Joe McElderry (who I'd said seemed to have disappeared!!) helping him with, of all tracks The Climb. Or The Ruddy Climb as Olly would have referred to the song as it was that track that Joe excelled at in the final.

That was some coincidence. Nicholas has an over-produced version for this year compared to the very note perfect and gentle Joe version. This was quite boring. When he was singing alone without all the pzzazz, he wasn't as good as he had been in previous weeks. He made a good job of this but I cannot see anyone wanting to buy this stuff except grannies and his mum. Louis wouldn't either - and he's his mentor. He gets a ridiculous birthday cake. All credit to whoever made that, by the way. I expect Nicholas will be in the Top 5 and many have him in the final.

Nicholas is 2nd favourite but still some way behind Sam Bailey.


Hannah is doing Hallelujah. Seeing her meeting Alexandra Burke really cannot have improved her view of her own appearance but she does sing well. This is a classic song that I now feel has been sung too much. I am not at all sure that Hannah knew what it was all about. She was also a bit breathy tonight and this was not my favourite version of the song at all. The makeover team deserve a mention in the New Year Honours List for the work they've done with her appearance. All in all, much as she's not my favourite in this competition, I have to give her credit and that was, as Louis said, her best performance in the competition. She is still favourite to go but after that Luke may struggle.

And here he comes. What Makes You Beautiful is the 1D hit that he's performing. It's pretty good. What the voters will make of it I don't know. To me it seemed like a star performing on a stage and this was a confident and immaculate show that he put on. If it is between him and Hannah, as expected, then it will be sad if he loses. Who knows? Voters may lift him and so everything now depends on what Tamera and Rough Copy do.

Rough Copy do Little Mix? Good grief. That might save Luke after all! I have never been very impressed with Little Mix's song writers - especially when compared to 1D's and Olly's, amongst others. So someone else doing a song can often make it sound even less good. In this case Rough Copy were great and current and I have to admit that the audience liked that a lot but it didn't strike me as something that will get the voting viewers lines particularly hot. Obviously the audience loved it so I may be wrong but I can't see that working well for them generally. Nothing they do seems to fir X Factor anyway. Well, it may fit X Factor but it doesn't fit the group.

Rylan Clarke, Chico and Shayne Ward behind the scenes seem to be having a great time. I bet Leon Jackson isn't around. Or Eoghann Quinn. Maybe Ray though.

Tamera Foster needs something special tonight. Gary was spot on, saying last week that she has to have that moment. She says to Olly how she remembers watching X Factor at her grandma's. And her grandma loved Olly. That says a lot. She's singing Impossible. As if we hadn't already had enough of this from chewing the words James. Se looks beautiful with short and straight hair. I hope for her sake that it was mic problem that broke the words a couple of times near the start. I would rather watch and listen to Tamera than James any day. 

It seems that she did, indeed, lose the words and got caned for it by the judges. Not a good review although I don't think that it was anything like as noticeable as Gary said. I like her and hope that she survives. Against any of the others, though, I would worry about her chances and so as there is a good chance she'll be Bottom Two tomorrow this could be farewell Tamera. And she has only herself to blame, I'm afraid. Pity.

Sam Bailey closes the show with Leona Lewis to match Bleeding Love. Leona looks quite a bit older now! Sam intelligently comments that she doesn't want to be someone who just sings other people's songs. I don't know what she could do to change this one, though. Near the end she did manage to take it somewhere quite different, however, and I was quite impressed. Well done. 

Sharon mentions something about the papers. I suppose that's the news we hear that she has been getting 30% of the votes, topping the poll by a mile every week.

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