Did You See That

The big band were brought for the annual swing-a-long on X-Factor, so how did they do?

First up was Scott who soundd much too boyish to credibly perform “That’s Life”. Daniel was as flat as we’ve come to expect. Laura has that super powerful voice, but it was almost like a wall of noise and I couldn’t discern much of a melody which didn’t make it an enjoyable performance for me. Eoghan got rave reviews from the judges, but to me he sounded blooming awful. Duff notes a plenty in there, but maybe I’m wrong? Alexandra was great and looked amazing although the song wasn’t one that I was familiar with. JLS, Diana and Rachel all delivered the good though.

When it got to the results show, all the finalists (with the exception of Daniel and Ruth who were apparently locked behind a jammed door) performed their charity song, Hero. I say performed but don’t infer from that that they were singing, because it was clearly obviously mimed. A bit  embarrassing really that they weren’t singing it live.

The final two were Scott and Daniel. To be honest, I thought Daniel murdered the song and seems to trade a little too much on the backstory, but it was a believable performance maybe Scott was just going through the motions as Louis said. So, a severely gutted Scott was sent home. He was dumbstruck and had nothing to say until suddenly changing his mind.  At that point, I thought he was going to go bananas and slate everyone on there but he thanked his friends from Pontins. Maybe he was rueing the fact he didn’t have someone to dedicate a song too.

The result perhaps added a sad and cynical tinge to what was an otherwise excellent night of entertainment.

What did you think? Who had the X Factor for you??

It was Michael Jackson week this week on the X-Factor, although I don’t think we heard many of his really great tracks and the show was a bit flat for the whole. Some of the acts that the judges thought were outstanding, to be honest sounded a bit naff to my untrained ear at home. For me, there were two standout moments: Diana Vickers, and then Ruth in the sing off.

Diana Vickers was brilliant and brings something very different to the competition. She reminds me a bit of Will Young in that she might not be the best singer in the sense of being able to do the huge Celine Dion numbers etc, but she can brilliantly give her own interpretation to a track and make it spell binding. She’s probably my favourite to win at this point.

And then there was Ruth, who I thought was pretty good earlier on but ended up in the final two with Girlband. I wouldn’t be surprised if Simon’s negative comments earlier swayed the vote against her. But then she knocked it out of the park with an awesome rendition of “Purple Rain”. Maybe the best peformance of the live shows so far but Simon didn’t have the grace to admit it and was again spouting off about the lack of Spanish and forced it to deadlock instead of doing the right thing and sending Girlband packing although I imagine he knew the public vote results anyway.

Everyone knew it was coming and last night was the night that Liam was killed. He was out on Tony’s stag night when he was run over in a hit and run organised by Tony, who whisphered to him that he was a son, brother, uncle, lover and now “roadkill”. The way everyone was wearing Tony masks was creepy and actually felt like some hideous piece of modern art.

There were two other alternative endings filmed, including Liam being show whilst paintballing and another one where he was tumbled off a balcony by Tony. Great PR but those alternative endings always seem a bit of a sham because they don’t film alternative versions of the next episodes which surely mention how he died or whatevet, so I never take those seriously.

What did you think of Liam’s exit? And would you be worried if you were Steve because your partner seems to be cursed: Michelle’s husband and both her brothers have been killed, and I think a car was involved in all of them.

Ok, so we’re onto the live shows of the X-Factor which is now the official countdown to Christmas! It’s looking like one of the girls will win this year as the competition is fierce. Laura, Diana and Alexandra were all sensational. Ruth Lorenzo was also pretty fab. Wasn’t suprised to see the girl groups in the bottom two as they weren’t great and it’s always harder to connect with a group than an individual artist. Here’s my fave bits from Saturday’s show…

Laura White

Alexandra Burke - looking amazing and dancing too!

Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) Advertises Country Life Butter… why?

What has former punk rebel Johnny Rotten got to do with Country Life butter, except an affinity perhaps with the first syllable? It seems quite an unlikely pairing, and I’m suprised he even got any work at all after this little controversy, which he denied veciferously, although Kele Okereke’s version was backed up completely by Gruff Rhys.