Top 12 Results: 14th October 2012
Last night! All of this. Tonight! Someone's leaving the competition, but not before a full hour of padding featuring Rebecca Jazznoodle (BOO!) and Taylor Swift (yay!). Also, it occurs to me during the opening VT that all of the Overs have adopted the "mouth wide open, eyes closed, microphone cradled in both hands" stance that makes me want to photoshop a cock in over the mic, but perhaps I'm just juvenile in that way. It's time! To face! Authenticity!
Once we're done with the credits, Dermot arrives in his latest poorly-tailored suit, and reminds us that tonight our votes will save ten acts, and send two plummeting into the sing-off, at which point Louis may well get an attack of the indecisives once more and end up voting off Ella or something. So vote vote vote, is the underlying message here. Dermot reminds us that HONK HONK HONK will be on later, as well as Taylor Swift, saying "country music stars don't get any bigger". That's very true; in fact Dolly Parton seems to be shrinking by the day.
The judges make their entrance, with Nicole doing a bit of skirtography in honour of Fern and Artem, while Tulisa is wearing a dress with a dizzying print that doesn't really do her any favours. After a brief recap of all of the voting numbers, it's time for the group sing, and this week the producers have selected a Hi-NRG version of 'Somebody That I Used To Know'. It's a nice idea, but I feel we've already achieved maximum car-crash as far as group performances of this song go, so the stakes feel fairly low here. You can only hear about three of them during the chorus, anyway. Also, I feel it would've been improved immensely by Rylan yelling "IBEEFA! AWRIGHT XFACTOR LESS 'AVE SOME FUN!" - but then, that's true of pretty much all things. [I can't believe I ever doubted Rylan - Helen]
From there, we head to the backstage reactions to last night's performances. Louis thinks that Jahmene has "this thing called potential"; Gary snits that it's wrong for "these judges" to criticise Christopher because he's "the people's vote", having apparently forgotten that Carolynne was the people's not-vote (or whatever) last week and he still got immensely snotty about that at the time; Union J's comments were "amazing"; Ella was "effortless" and "world-class" according to Louis; James was "really buzzing" with his comments while Gary thinks that he "exorcises demons every time he performs" (funny, that was previously my explanation for that noise Rebecca Ferguson always made); Tulisa thinks Lucy did her proud; Union J hope they get the chance next week to rub baby oil all over their bodies or whatever it was Nicole wanted from them (Nicole herself reiterates this request with a wink to the camera. LOVE. HER); Tulisa thinks Jade is a "dark horse and a real contender"; MK1 are trying to reach out to all the public and "not just the MK1 fans; Louis asks Gary what'll happen if Kye's in the bottom two, and Captain Maturity replies "YOU'LL be in the bottom two" (ahh, banter); Rylan thinks Gary cracks him up because he can dish it out and Rylan will give it right back; finally, Melanie just wants to come back next week, and also she has lipstick on her teeth. Is it just me, or was most of that spectacularly unenlightening?
Time now for our first special guest of the evening, the Dread Jazznoodle. She gets the standard bombastic intro announcing that she's sold a million records worldwide (though it's not made clear whether half of those were Neil McCormick buying them for everyone he knows just to prove that she's the Greatest Artist Of Our Times or whatever wank he was peddling), had a platinum debut album and sold out her first tour. Anyway, authentic artist with integrity Rebecca Ferguson has...completely changed her image in order to sell more records, turning up in a lamé catsuit with a giant weave and desperately trying to be Beyoncé, essentially. Lovely. [She must have looked at herself in that catsuit. It did her no favours - Helen] Even more surprisingly, she's changed her musical direction as new single 'Backtrack' is not about how material things are bad and Rebecca Ferguson is real and humble and authentic. It's still all tuneless, poorly enunciated goose noises as far as I can tell, though at least she's learned to walk a few steps during her performances. She's getting there gradually - at this rate she might actually be a charismatic and interesting pop star by 2050. Dermot arrives to shill her "deluxe album" (good grief) that's out tomorrow and Rebecca manages to say absolutely nothing of substance, but will concede that she loves Ella and Chris.
Adverts! I hear that Lacey Turner is a right witch in her new series.
When we return, the lines are closed and Dermot's poised for the always-enjoyable chat with the judges. First of all, Dermot asks Nicole what the fuck she's on, with her going to the pub and eating pork scratchings and generally babbling like a madwoman. Nicole replies: "Oh honey, that ain't nothin' but a chicken wing, sounds like a good time to me. Who doesn't love nuts, right?" She's got me there. Dermot says that Gary and Rylan are becoming a proper double act, and Gary snarks that he's booked himself a spa day on Monday. Which is brave of him, because he usually finds his Spar day a bit overstimulating. All those groceries! Louis is asked about getting urbaned up as "Uncle Louis" by MK1 [I'm uncomfortable with this uncle transference, given MK1's dubious history - Helen], and Dermot asks him to show us his swag. "How do I do that? How do I do it? Is that swag?" asks Louis, wobbling his shoulders up and down. Tulisa scores him minus-one out of ten. Your judges, everybody! Even they'd rather talk about anything else than this year's contestants.
Time for our second and only good guest of the night, the excellent Taylor Swift. Dermot displays his knowledge of foreign politics to be wanting when he claims that she's likely to be president by the time she's 30. That's not actually possible, Dermot. There go your chances of being Newsnight anchor one day. She's here to sing the amazing 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together', which features the greatest talky bit in a pop song. Like, EVER. It's a shame the live shows came a bit too late for this to make the song the number one hit it deserves to be, but never mind. It's also worth mentioning that she has a very nice red microphone. Did Rebecca Ferguson get one of those? No, she did not. Afterwards, she chats politely with Dermot, who asks her if she still gets nervous, and Taylor replies that yes she does, about everything. "About that?" asks an incredulous Dermot. "Seriously?" I love that Dermot's estimation of this show's standards has plummeted so low of late. Then Taylor tells us she loves us, and she is gone.
After another ad break, it's time to reveal the results of this week's public vote. Everyone assembles on stage, and the following acts are safe, in no particular order as ever: James, Lucy, Union J, Ella, Jahmene, Christopher (who hilariously goes racing over to the other saved contestants looking for a hug only to be met with what appears to be widespread indifference), MK1, Jade, Rylan (who promptly freaks out, as does Nicole, as do Lucy and quite a lot of people on the sidelines - Rylan's clearly quite popular - then Rylan sweeps Nicole into his arms and carries her off while she cackles delightedly - the whole thing is brilliant) and Kye. So it's District3 versus Melanie in the sing-off, and another bad week for Gary. Clearly that idea of opening the phone lines at the start of the show has drastically reduced the impact of the pimp slot.
Once we've made our way through another ad break, District3 and Melanie return to the stage, having got changed since we last saw them. District 3 are set to go first, and they're singing '(Everything I Do) I Do It In Parentheses'. For a group who sell themselves on their skill with harmonies, it's not a particularly good show from them, and I think even they realise that - they're wincing at the often discordant harmonies and smiling at each other in a "this is our last performance on the show, isn't it?" sort of way. The "I'd fight for you, I'd lie for you" bit is particularly painful, though I can't tell if that's the arrangement or the actual singing. It might be both. [I didn't get this as a sing off choice. It ceased being current while it was still number one - Helen]
When they're finished, Gary introduces Melanie with a "good luck", though whether that's directed at her or us I don't know. She's singing 'Stay With Me' (as in "staaaaaaaaaaaay with me baaaaybeeeeeeeh") and is quite shaky, getting into that unfortunate X Factor place where "loud" is substituted for "good". Still, the first time watching this I thought it was an absolute foregone conclusion - that the only person voting to send Melanie home would be Louis, and even he'd only be doing it because the limitations of the format didn't leave him any choice.
Dermot arrives with District3 in tow, and it's time for the judges to make their choices. Louis is up first this week, and Dermot enunciates very clearly that he wants to hear the act that Louis is sending "home" - the best bit is that Louis even mouths the last word along with him. They've been rehearsing, clearly. Louis thinks Melanie is amazing and he loves her, but he has to save his own act, so he's voting to send Melanie home. Tulisa thinks Melanie has one of the most amazing voices in the competition, while the boys have some of the best harmonies she's heard in the competition. They're completely different acts, so she's going to go with her heart...and votes to send Melanie home, keeping District3.
Wow. I wasn't expecting that. I figured that if anyone was going to be the loose cannon in this vote, it would be Nicole. That was a great little twist, though - it made me sit up and pay attention far more than any of last week's pointlessly contrived drama.
Over to Gary next, who thinks it was a great sing-off and both acts did well, but he's saving Melanie and voting to send District3 home. Nicole thinks the boys did an amazing job, and while she gave them a hard time yesterday, they killed it tonight. Dermot tries to hurry her, but Nicole is having none of it: SHE WILL BE HEARD. She says that she has to go with the sing-off that she just heard, and she really felt in Melanie's performance that she had been waiting for this her whole life, so Nicole votes to send home District3. [Funny how nobody is giving Nicole a hard time for taking it to deadlock, eh? - Helen]
So once again, we're in Deadlock. An envelope is handed to Dermot, and the name of the act who received the fewest votes and is going home tonight is...Melanie. Melanie doesn't register any shock at this, just smiles politely and hugs the District3 boys. We look over Melanie's best bits, which mostly consist of being loud and Janis Joplin-y in her audition, then crying a lot. Afterwards, Dermot asks how she feels, and Melanie says she's enjoyed every second of the competition and all the opportunities it's given her. Gary is gutted, because he thought Melanie was one of the best singers in the competition, and he's really disappointed for her. So much for Gary "restoring dignity to the overs", eh? If anything, they've now replaced the groups as the most pitiful category, taking the first two eliminations single-handedly, and both on the public vote. Now all he's left with is a cruise ship singer and the most boring act left in the competition. Although to be fair, Kye is the exact sort of boring that might actually win this, so best not to rule Gary out just yet.
That's it - Helen will be here next week for Club Classics week, which should mean plenty of IBEEFA. I can't wait to see what Rylan, Nicole and NotLouis come up with for that. [I'm actually excited for an episode of the X Factor with that trinity on board - Helen]
Last night! All of this. Tonight! Someone's leaving the competition, but not before a full hour of padding featuring Rebecca Jazznoodle (BOO!) and Taylor Swift (yay!). Also, it occurs to me during the opening VT that all of the Overs have adopted the "mouth wide open, eyes closed, microphone cradled in both hands" stance that makes me want to photoshop a cock in over the mic, but perhaps I'm just juvenile in that way. It's time! To face! Authenticity!
Once we're done with the credits, Dermot arrives in his latest poorly-tailored suit, and reminds us that tonight our votes will save ten acts, and send two plummeting into the sing-off, at which point Louis may well get an attack of the indecisives once more and end up voting off Ella or something. So vote vote vote, is the underlying message here. Dermot reminds us that HONK HONK HONK will be on later, as well as Taylor Swift, saying "country music stars don't get any bigger". That's very true; in fact Dolly Parton seems to be shrinking by the day.
The judges make their entrance, with Nicole doing a bit of skirtography in honour of Fern and Artem, while Tulisa is wearing a dress with a dizzying print that doesn't really do her any favours. After a brief recap of all of the voting numbers, it's time for the group sing, and this week the producers have selected a Hi-NRG version of 'Somebody That I Used To Know'. It's a nice idea, but I feel we've already achieved maximum car-crash as far as group performances of this song go, so the stakes feel fairly low here. You can only hear about three of them during the chorus, anyway. Also, I feel it would've been improved immensely by Rylan yelling "IBEEFA! AWRIGHT XFACTOR LESS 'AVE SOME FUN!" - but then, that's true of pretty much all things. [I can't believe I ever doubted Rylan - Helen]
From there, we head to the backstage reactions to last night's performances. Louis thinks that Jahmene has "this thing called potential"; Gary snits that it's wrong for "these judges" to criticise Christopher because he's "the people's vote", having apparently forgotten that Carolynne was the people's not-vote (or whatever) last week and he still got immensely snotty about that at the time; Union J's comments were "amazing"; Ella was "effortless" and "world-class" according to Louis; James was "really buzzing" with his comments while Gary thinks that he "exorcises demons every time he performs" (funny, that was previously my explanation for that noise Rebecca Ferguson always made); Tulisa thinks Lucy did her proud; Union J hope they get the chance next week to rub baby oil all over their bodies or whatever it was Nicole wanted from them (Nicole herself reiterates this request with a wink to the camera. LOVE. HER); Tulisa thinks Jade is a "dark horse and a real contender"; MK1 are trying to reach out to all the public and "not just the MK1 fans; Louis asks Gary what'll happen if Kye's in the bottom two, and Captain Maturity replies "YOU'LL be in the bottom two" (ahh, banter); Rylan thinks Gary cracks him up because he can dish it out and Rylan will give it right back; finally, Melanie just wants to come back next week, and also she has lipstick on her teeth. Is it just me, or was most of that spectacularly unenlightening?
Time now for our first special guest of the evening, the Dread Jazznoodle. She gets the standard bombastic intro announcing that she's sold a million records worldwide (though it's not made clear whether half of those were Neil McCormick buying them for everyone he knows just to prove that she's the Greatest Artist Of Our Times or whatever wank he was peddling), had a platinum debut album and sold out her first tour. Anyway, authentic artist with integrity Rebecca Ferguson has...completely changed her image in order to sell more records, turning up in a lamé catsuit with a giant weave and desperately trying to be Beyoncé, essentially. Lovely. [She must have looked at herself in that catsuit. It did her no favours - Helen] Even more surprisingly, she's changed her musical direction as new single 'Backtrack' is not about how material things are bad and Rebecca Ferguson is real and humble and authentic. It's still all tuneless, poorly enunciated goose noises as far as I can tell, though at least she's learned to walk a few steps during her performances. She's getting there gradually - at this rate she might actually be a charismatic and interesting pop star by 2050. Dermot arrives to shill her "deluxe album" (good grief) that's out tomorrow and Rebecca manages to say absolutely nothing of substance, but will concede that she loves Ella and Chris.
Adverts! I hear that Lacey Turner is a right witch in her new series.
When we return, the lines are closed and Dermot's poised for the always-enjoyable chat with the judges. First of all, Dermot asks Nicole what the fuck she's on, with her going to the pub and eating pork scratchings and generally babbling like a madwoman. Nicole replies: "Oh honey, that ain't nothin' but a chicken wing, sounds like a good time to me. Who doesn't love nuts, right?" She's got me there. Dermot says that Gary and Rylan are becoming a proper double act, and Gary snarks that he's booked himself a spa day on Monday. Which is brave of him, because he usually finds his Spar day a bit overstimulating. All those groceries! Louis is asked about getting urbaned up as "Uncle Louis" by MK1 [I'm uncomfortable with this uncle transference, given MK1's dubious history - Helen], and Dermot asks him to show us his swag. "How do I do that? How do I do it? Is that swag?" asks Louis, wobbling his shoulders up and down. Tulisa scores him minus-one out of ten. Your judges, everybody! Even they'd rather talk about anything else than this year's contestants.
Time for our second and only good guest of the night, the excellent Taylor Swift. Dermot displays his knowledge of foreign politics to be wanting when he claims that she's likely to be president by the time she's 30. That's not actually possible, Dermot. There go your chances of being Newsnight anchor one day. She's here to sing the amazing 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together', which features the greatest talky bit in a pop song. Like, EVER. It's a shame the live shows came a bit too late for this to make the song the number one hit it deserves to be, but never mind. It's also worth mentioning that she has a very nice red microphone. Did Rebecca Ferguson get one of those? No, she did not. Afterwards, she chats politely with Dermot, who asks her if she still gets nervous, and Taylor replies that yes she does, about everything. "About that?" asks an incredulous Dermot. "Seriously?" I love that Dermot's estimation of this show's standards has plummeted so low of late. Then Taylor tells us she loves us, and she is gone.
After another ad break, it's time to reveal the results of this week's public vote. Everyone assembles on stage, and the following acts are safe, in no particular order as ever: James, Lucy, Union J, Ella, Jahmene, Christopher (who hilariously goes racing over to the other saved contestants looking for a hug only to be met with what appears to be widespread indifference), MK1, Jade, Rylan (who promptly freaks out, as does Nicole, as do Lucy and quite a lot of people on the sidelines - Rylan's clearly quite popular - then Rylan sweeps Nicole into his arms and carries her off while she cackles delightedly - the whole thing is brilliant) and Kye. So it's District3 versus Melanie in the sing-off, and another bad week for Gary. Clearly that idea of opening the phone lines at the start of the show has drastically reduced the impact of the pimp slot.
Once we've made our way through another ad break, District3 and Melanie return to the stage, having got changed since we last saw them. District 3 are set to go first, and they're singing '(Everything I Do) I Do It In Parentheses'. For a group who sell themselves on their skill with harmonies, it's not a particularly good show from them, and I think even they realise that - they're wincing at the often discordant harmonies and smiling at each other in a "this is our last performance on the show, isn't it?" sort of way. The "I'd fight for you, I'd lie for you" bit is particularly painful, though I can't tell if that's the arrangement or the actual singing. It might be both. [I didn't get this as a sing off choice. It ceased being current while it was still number one - Helen]
When they're finished, Gary introduces Melanie with a "good luck", though whether that's directed at her or us I don't know. She's singing 'Stay With Me' (as in "staaaaaaaaaaaay with me baaaaybeeeeeeeh") and is quite shaky, getting into that unfortunate X Factor place where "loud" is substituted for "good". Still, the first time watching this I thought it was an absolute foregone conclusion - that the only person voting to send Melanie home would be Louis, and even he'd only be doing it because the limitations of the format didn't leave him any choice.
Dermot arrives with District3 in tow, and it's time for the judges to make their choices. Louis is up first this week, and Dermot enunciates very clearly that he wants to hear the act that Louis is sending "home" - the best bit is that Louis even mouths the last word along with him. They've been rehearsing, clearly. Louis thinks Melanie is amazing and he loves her, but he has to save his own act, so he's voting to send Melanie home. Tulisa thinks Melanie has one of the most amazing voices in the competition, while the boys have some of the best harmonies she's heard in the competition. They're completely different acts, so she's going to go with her heart...and votes to send Melanie home, keeping District3.
Wow. I wasn't expecting that. I figured that if anyone was going to be the loose cannon in this vote, it would be Nicole. That was a great little twist, though - it made me sit up and pay attention far more than any of last week's pointlessly contrived drama.
Over to Gary next, who thinks it was a great sing-off and both acts did well, but he's saving Melanie and voting to send District3 home. Nicole thinks the boys did an amazing job, and while she gave them a hard time yesterday, they killed it tonight. Dermot tries to hurry her, but Nicole is having none of it: SHE WILL BE HEARD. She says that she has to go with the sing-off that she just heard, and she really felt in Melanie's performance that she had been waiting for this her whole life, so Nicole votes to send home District3. [Funny how nobody is giving Nicole a hard time for taking it to deadlock, eh? - Helen]
So once again, we're in Deadlock. An envelope is handed to Dermot, and the name of the act who received the fewest votes and is going home tonight is...Melanie. Melanie doesn't register any shock at this, just smiles politely and hugs the District3 boys. We look over Melanie's best bits, which mostly consist of being loud and Janis Joplin-y in her audition, then crying a lot. Afterwards, Dermot asks how she feels, and Melanie says she's enjoyed every second of the competition and all the opportunities it's given her. Gary is gutted, because he thought Melanie was one of the best singers in the competition, and he's really disappointed for her. So much for Gary "restoring dignity to the overs", eh? If anything, they've now replaced the groups as the most pitiful category, taking the first two eliminations single-handedly, and both on the public vote. Now all he's left with is a cruise ship singer and the most boring act left in the competition. Although to be fair, Kye is the exact sort of boring that might actually win this, so best not to rule Gary out just yet.
That's it - Helen will be here next week for Club Classics week, which should mean plenty of IBEEFA. I can't wait to see what Rylan, Nicole and NotLouis come up with for that. [I'm actually excited for an episode of the X Factor with that trinity on board - Helen]
3 comments:
Yay 1st to comment! I remember being relieved to find this blog last year after 2010, where everywhere I looked people were raving about Rebecca Ferguson and I though I must just be me and maybe she actually is good, but then read these comments and realised that I am sane! I remember watching a video review about the 2010 final on YouTube where the reviewer was talking about the Honk's duet with Seahag and the girl in the video said, and I quote directly "I thought Christina kept trying to overpower Rebecca, it was so unfair, Rebecca's a much better singer than Christina!" I almost had a stroke due to the stupidity of that comment! Needless to say I wouldn't recommend that person's channel.
Also, I don't believe for a second that Tulisa would know who the fuck Minnie Ripperton is, so there is no way that she was the one who picked that song for Ella.
I don't think Christina had to try to overpower Rebecca anyway - it's been a while since I've seen that performance, but didn't Rebecca just give up halfway through and stand there with a stupefied grin on her face? It was no Alexandra BURKE and Beyoncé, that's for sure.
Anyway, glad to have you aboard, and hope you continue to enjoy the recaps!
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