X Factor – Divas Week

And that’s just the judges! LOLLLLLLLLLL!

Lucie Jones : Anybody who watches any of these shows will tell you what “up-tempo Whitney Housten song” means. It means “uh-oh”. And sure enough, she’s gone from someone who was still just about hanging in there as one of the favourites to someone spinning out towards the betting odds dead zone. It wasn’t bad per se, but there’s really no way to pull off an 80s Whitney Housten song and make it modern or relevant or in any way interesting. Her voice really struggled to hit those high notes and she didn’t really look comfortable bopping around to that neon jizz coloured background either. She’s one performance away from officially being lost in the shuffle, so here’s hoping she can do Big Band.

Olly Murs : I like to believe this was a tribute to Dannii Minogue, what with the absolute gener pronoun pile-up going on. One minute he was singing about doing a man, then he was the man doing the doing, then he changed a “he” to a “she”, then he didn’t. Maybe someone’s jealous at all the BISEXUAL attention BISEXUAL Danyl is getting. But anyway, you know when people say that Robbie Williams is a really great “entertainer” and that basically means that he can’t really sing great but you find their titting around engaging? Yeah, this basically. I can’t believe I couldn’t stand him only a matter of weeks ago. Things change so fast with this show.

Miss Frank : I love how their entire VT was everyone telling them they need to bond better, and get on more, and not look so distant, and then in their arrangement Brian Friedman had them enter from entirely different parts of the stage, and then they sang an arrangement where they were all separate until the last few lines. And yes, they severely mangled some lines, especially the bookend who isn’t Shay, but I still really liked the power behind their voices. It’s so rare you can see a girlband where every member can truly *blast* and all these girls can. I’m very, very surprised they managed to avoid the bottom 2 though. But good for them.

Rachel Adedeji : Whose bright idea was it to have her start her performance lying flat on her back? Do you know how hard it is to sing lying flat on your back? Very is how. Although I kind of wished she’d have stayed there for the entire performance, in yet another example of Brian Friedman’s crazy choreography of amazingness. Instead she had to stand up and yell out a Beyonce song that not even I can love whilst dressed as an indie douche-boy (ooooh, look at my MILITARY JACKET! IT IS SO IRONICALLY AT ODDS WITH MY PACIFICT CREDENTIALS!) and find herself in the bottom 2 and in the middle of a psychotic break. God only knows how bad she’s going to be when she ends up there again next week.

Joe McElderry : Side Note : If Cheryl is going to persist in giving him the epithet “Maw Liddle” every week, just like she did Diana Vickers I AM GOING TO BE HAVING WORDS! WITH MY TV! I don’t want to overburden all of Cheryl’s boys with my…issues with her, espcially in this case as there is SO MUCH worse to come, so I’ll move on to say that this was perfectly nice in a musical theatre sort of way, but so much in a musical theatre sort of way that I thought I was watching How Do You Solve A Nancy Like Joseph? or similar. I really don’t know that he’s a pop star of the sort that can have a career after the show, so it’s probably for the best if he does go the way of his sister in MAWLIDDLE and get out late enough to be remembered, but early enough that his starring role in Les Mis won’t be seen as a step down.

Danyl Johnson : OK, so this is a song about how Whitney’s spent the last 12 years struggling with an abusive spouse, drug addiction, a total career collapse and near oblivion, and is clearly deeply personal. Danyl Johnson had Louis Walsh call him a bit of a twat and Dannii Minogue point out something we all knew anyway, but we apparently thought we were in a special club knowing it, ad the homophobes didn’t know, AND NOW THEY DO AND ARE GETTING KNIVES, SO THANK YOU VERY MUCH DANNII MINOGUE! No wonder Whitney was a little bit pissy about it. I notice his voting clip was (again) the clip of his tonsils as the microphone slid down his throat as he groaned out his highnote (again) because (again) this performance had very little else.

Lloyd Daniels : I love how this show treats Leona Lewis as its patron saint, and if you so much as look at one of her songs you are blasted six ways from Sunday, but I don’t think this was all that bad to be honest. The verses were rich and interesting, and he had the appropriate emotional affect down, but on the other hand it really did fall down utterly in the choruses, with him literally unable to force that “keep” out of his lungs and past his mouth. Of course the real drama here is the ensuing business, with Simon being a twat about the song choice, and then Cheryl rising to it, and then having to be shored up by her 16 year old protege on live tv. Now that’s good mentoring.

John & Edward : Not to ppoop the party or anything but yes, well done, they made a recreation of the video for Oops! I Did It Again amusing. I believe sketch comedians were doing that way back in 2000 or so, when the song was released. I know ITV has a dearth of comedy, but really? I do thank them for making it incredibly obvious that the group performance of the Whitney song was a mime-job (hopefully because Whitney herself demanded it, and rightfully so) because they’ve shown repeatedly they can’t actually sing before now. Literally the only reason they should stick around is to piss off Cheryl Cole and Simon Cowell. Given how unbearable those two are being the moment? That’s more than enough reason for me.

Likki Roney : Aw, goodbye Likki Roney. And your little eyebrow thingummy too. I love how the unholy wrath of Whitney vented itself upon this poor soul as well. HER MOTHER WAS ON THIS RECORD! HOW DARE YOU? They probably should have just gone the whole hog and made it Whitney week. Can you imagine the carnage if they’d let John & Edward loose on a song that meant anything to her. They’d be picking bits of hair out of the extractor fan for weeks. I actually think he didn’t do too badly with Respect (despite the fact that his voice was clearly outmatched by it) but that bottom 2 performance was weak. At least people won’t be complaining about “the Socttish vote” this year.

Jamie Archer : I think I’m the opposite with him than I am with Olly Murs. I loved him two weeks ago, now I struggle mustering up any emotion beyond annoyance. Just from a pop-psychology standpoint he seems like one of those “I’m shy and inept, buy my hair makes me cool” people, and I can’t deal with those people at all. This performance had way, way too many lights and gimmicks and tricks to hide the fact that he was basically grinding out the song like a sausage. And in the end it came out a sausage, but you could see all the gristle and eyes and bones that had gone into it, and you didn’t really want to eat it. Or at least I didn’t.

Stacey Solomon : I’m sorry, this is a Beyonce song now is it? I don’t think it is. Really. I know Beyonce played Etta James (badly) in a (terrible, terrible) film, but that doesn’t make this her song, any more than “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” is Angela Bassett’s song. I really really hope her personality doesn’t begin to rate with the public terribly, because as it is she’s my favourite. There’s just a really good, strong tone to her voice, and given that in real life she seems to have no emotional range beyond “gush” (and it’s an adorable gush, but it’s almost all she ever shows) she really seems to live her performances. Good job by her this week. May they continue.