Update: Videos after the jump!
It’s Rock Week on X Factor. Cheryl accuses Simon of forcing a Rock week in order to prop up his performers. Cheryl’s visting the grassy knoll!
I have to say, it’s really startling to watch the judges gushing over performances that totally suck. Joe McElderry and Lloyd Daniels come to mind.
My favorites tonight: Lucie and Olly. Oh, and John and Edward, for the lulz.
Videos after the JUMP
- Joe McElderry – “Don’t Stop Believing” – This kid is totally devoid of a blues or soul edge–necessary in my opinion to sing most rock music. Seriously ZZZ. Simon’s critique was right on – VIDEO
- Lucie Jones – “Sweet Child of Mine” – She’s a dark horse, and one of the few from this bunch who doesn’t make my ears bleed – VIDEO
- Lloyd Daniels – “I Kissed A Girl – This song loses it’s naughty cheekiness sung by a guy. Boring. And the singing? Please. @God. Make. It. Stop. SOB. Lloyd needs to go. Like NOW. – VIDEO
- Danyl Johnson – “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” Whoa. PITCHY! Yikes. Simon looks a little ill. Dannii is right–Danyl has officially lost his mojo. He looks really freaked out. – VIDEO
- Stacey Soloman – “Somewhere Only We Know” – Stacey’s unpolished, but I think she’s got potential. Great song choice, but tonight she’s pitchy and unsure. – VIDEO
- Jamie Archer – “Get Your Rocks Off” – Eh. Out of all the great rock songs in the universe, Jamie picks this? Jamie is a great performer, why waste talent on crap? – VIDEO
- Rachel Adedeji – “One” – Despite a little pitchiness, Rachel does a nice job here. Nice arrangement. After nearly getting eliminated the first two weeks, she’s back in the game – VIDEO
- John and Edward – “We Will Rock You” – They suck so bad. It’s AWESOME! The choreographer is in on the joke which adds extra hilarity. The look on Simon’s face is priceless. – VIDEO
- Olly Murs – “Come Together” – Olly has found his groove and his confidence–that’s what makes him appealing at this point. He’s my favorite of the guys, by far. – VIDEO
I thought it was a good week considering there’s not a lot rock singers in the bunch.
Danii did really well choosing songs, One was a little predictable but Sweet Child was a great pick for Lucie and she did a nice job with it.
I can’t believe Simon picked that awfull meteor song again and I was disapointed with Jamie, his song was forgettable and I won’t mind him leaving at this point.
What’s interesting is that I could see almost anybody on the B2 tomorrow, the only one absolutely safe IMO is Olly even tough I thought it was cheesy as hell (but the x factor audience seems to love cheese).
Well.
Joe McE is a cute kid, pretty voice (at least he sings on key), too young and sweet to be very interesting to me but I like him.
Lucie was good, I don’t think it’s that easy for a young woman to sing that song and not sound ridiculous but she pulled it off.
Lloyd…I don’t think he sounded very good, didn’t he sound better last week? I don’t think he’s all that cute either.
Poor Danyl seemed like a whipped dog. Something went wrong there. I think he has a really good voice and seems like a nice guy. I don’t know where all the stuff came from about him being “arrogant”, I don’t know if it was said in this thread because I haven’t read the comments. But it is so irritating to me when things like that get repeated ad nauseum as what seems more like a fad more than anything else. I don’t know if he has just given up, or what. And poor him getting stuck with that “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” song. What is it with that song? To me it sounds like a whining dirge, but it is unrelentingly present on all these dumb shows.
Stacey just doesn’t do it for me. She sounds good when she’s got it under control, but it slips out of control a lot and I think “whoa there she goes wobbling again”. Voice lessons and more practice and she could be good.
Jamie…he’s got a good voice, what was up with picking that nothing song. Did Simon choose it for him? What could he do with it? Nothing, although he tried to give it a big finish. I thought the judges were nasty to him, or I guess nasty to Simon via him. Ick (to the judges, not him).
Rachel has a really good voice. I was put off by the wink at the camera near the beginning of the song, that made me feel that she did not have the first clue about what she was singing about. But other than that, great job.
John and Edward, they crack me up. Terrible of course, but fun to watch.
Olly Murs, I have to admit that I dislike “Come Together” so much that I can’t really rate him. I listened to the first 30 seconds reluctantly and then thought “you know, I am 51 years old, I don’t have to listen to this horrible song ever again if i don’t want to”. And I don’t. So, Olly I didn’t like it, but don’t listen to me.
I have no idea who will be voted off.
ok… i also think there are no real stars this year in XF. Having said that, I think some comments are a bit biased. If you take out Adam (which is a one-off exception), and possibly Kris, the rest of AI last year SUCKED, possibly on average worse than XF this year.
About XF conterstants: Jaimie is v good. Danyl totally lost any confidence (and is not great to start with). Joe yesterday was completely out of his element, because he does NOT have a rock voice, but has a really good voice (not sure why no one here is giving him credit, he is much better than, say D Archuleta, and with 3 times the personality). Rachel is good, but she has let the comments get to her. Stacey has a decent voice, but she’s still too insecure. Who else…. no one else really stands out. Well, Jedward of course, but I think we can all agree on them: awful and therefore entertaining.
Last thing: I agree the kids should have a bit more independence in choosing the songs etc. I do not agree that the show is more manipulated by the judges than on AI…. on XF the judges pimp their team, but it’s out in the open, everyone expects it. On AI, the same happens, but they pretend they’re being impartial…
Oh, and I like Dermot… possibly more than Ryan? Not sure, but D has an infectious smile
Forgot to say: Sweet Child of Mine is actually a good key for a woman….the amazing thing is how Axl could sing it like that, not Lucie! (hear a guy try to sing it in the original key and you’ll hear what I mean!)
I don’t agree with the Archuleta comparison. While I do agree that Joe has a good voice, I think it is at best equal to Archie’s (even that is doubtful). I think David has more maturity, uniqueness, and soulful quality to his voice that Joe lacks. Technically, Joe is very good, but I never really feel the connection with his performances as I did with David’s.
I think the circumstance is a little different between the two. First off, Adam appearing in the bottom 3 was in the later stage of the competition when the differences among contestants are not as big and obvious as early weeks. No one should really be considered safe at that point of the competition. On the other hand, Danyl was in the bottom two last week when he had arguably the best performance of the night, with plenty of people clearly having worse performances than he had. Add to that all the horrible press that he was getting (which, I think, is worse and more personal that what Adam got), he must have doubts in his head wondering whether he is truly the “most hated” contestant ever. If that doesn’t affect your confidence and performance, I don’t know what will. I don’t think you can really compare where Adam was to where Danyl is right now.
Ollie is good but he’s a bit boring…
I’m not a fan of Archuleta but he has the much better voice and I don’t get how Joe has much more “personality” than David, they both seem to be very nice and polite young kids.
Every year we have the cute young kid with an ok voice going far on the x factor based on their popularity among the show core audience, we had Ray Quinn in S3 who finished second to Leona then Leon Jackson who won then Eoghan who was also supposed to be the answer to Archuleta.
None of these singers got much going on after the show despite going far in the competition so I’m not sure how Joe is different from them.
Yes, that’s why Danii made a really smart choice of song.
ITA.
Last year’s XF was SO much better than this year’s XF and AI hands down.
Simon is fucking hypocrite. After Jedward’s performance (which wasn’t that bad) he said “out of tune, you CANNOT, CANNOT defend that singing tonight Louis”. Didn’t he defend Danyl who was COMPLETELY out of tune singing that Aerosmith song? Gosh I hate that manipulative old man.
I think as an outsider (not british nor american) I can give you my honest opinion about the shows. I think AI and XF are very different, therefore should not be compared just because they are talent shows. I do not compare these shows with the one from my country, for instance. Here, the judges choose the songs for all the contestants together, and this doesn’t help them either. Once, they’ve kept choosing the wrong song for one contestant and kept slamming her because of that (judges, who gets them?). I think the choosing the song thing is a little bit much, especially because I think Cheryl is making wrong decisions for her group (she was very good training girls, but boys, I don’t think so much).
I also think the show shouldn’t receive so many complaints because of weak acts. It’s impossible to get only quality acts every year, and I think AI has had some bad seasons too. I really didn’t watch the whole season in which Jordan won, because I thought it wasn’t so good as the previous ones. And the last season of X Factor was better, even though I didn’t like the winner very much.
About cheese acts – anybody remember Taylor Hicks? Nobody can convince me that this guy won based on talent. Chris Daughtry and Elliot Yamin were definitely better and they didn’t even go to the final.
Another thing people shouldn’t pick on, it is the fact that they don’t play instruments, because that is a singing competition. Many good singers can only play one instrument, their voices. And AI only allowed contestants to use instruments two seasons ago. X Factor always allowed, if the contestants don’t play anything it’s their problem.
I didn’t watch them all yet. I watched ‘Come Together’ because I loved when Kris sang it. Not terribly impressed with anything but the true to original instrumentation.
I watched John and Edward because they are so incredibly bad and I wanted to see how they topped themselves this week.
That one judge spoke the truth (as well as made me sad) with ‘This is what the music business is all about.’ That explains a LOT.
I’ve never watched this show before and after seeing these clips it’s clear I’m not missing anything.
Lucie was the best singer of the night by far.
Most of them are creepy and pedestrian.
What is with Simon giving a standing O to that danyl guy? he was HORRIBLE. He looked terrified and was just tuneless.
John and Edward were hysterically bad.. I’d love to see them win this just to make Simon go crazy
With all due respect, that’s absurd. AI8, you could really critique someone for being off-key. This X-Factor, it’s almost more important to praise someone for being on-key. If the gulf is that wide (and it is), then there really isn’t much reason to think that even the lower-tier Idol contestants wouldn’t be near front runners in this competition. It’s that god awful. Can’t speak to the quality of X-Factor seasons prior (I’ve only watched a few performances), but this year the shows aren’t even comparable. Even AI6, for all of the crap it gets, wasn’t nearly this bad, even if that basically only comes on the back of its top 3 contestants.
Now, I get that the X-Factor puts more emphasis on performance, and, for that, it’s hard to compare the shows at some level, because so much emphasis is placed on the stage on the X-Factor. But for one who occasionally likes to pretend this is basically a popularity competition where the emphasis is put on singing… come on, it’s not even close. And even if you take in the whole package, it’s hard to enjoy any performance when the vocals are this off.
I have to disagree. In the few seconds he had he said that it was one of his favorite performances that Adam had ever done and that no one would be able to top it.
That said, Simon is a tool.
LOL – the twins! If only they could sing better. They should get their own variety show, ala Donny and Marie. I do think it would be a hit.
ITA. The XF standing Os don’t bother me at all. The judges are supposed to be supporting their team. That’s all it is. Support. I think some are reading too much into it.
Don’t forget Cheryl Crow already covered Sweet Child of Mine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vikes0JbGVw So it really wasn’t as big of a leap for Lucie, IMO. But still a very smart choice by Danii.
I like him too.
I thought Joe was actually decent on the night. He at least SANG in tune. It was a little lackluster, in that, it didn’t have that much excitement, but he still sang it better then I thought. I actually enjoyed it.
Lucie is still my favorite of the competition. She was one of the only ones that actually sang pretty good. That was a hard, and kind of stupid song choice, for her but I think she really, really made it work and if she gets eliminated before some of these awful singers, that’s just so, so wrong. I feel like she could have a good career in music.
Lloyd was just awful. Didn’t get the song choice, thought he sang bad…don’t get the hype about him.
Danyl Johnson, wow…that was AWFUL. Still don’t get the hype over this guy, or why Simon is so gaga over him. This was PITCHY as all hell. I actually think Antonella’s version was better. Sure, he hit the big notes, but Danni’s critique on him was SPOT on. He’s lost any mojo he had. I think he also forgot the words in a few places? Simon would have killed him on Idol.
Stacey has a unique and interesting tone, but she always has the complete wrong song, IMO. I think she could do well but she needs a specific song, and with the songs she’s been choosing, it’s just been very average when with the right song, she could be pretty good. I don’t understand why they called her the best girl, because I actually think she is the worst of the three left.
Jamie was good. He doesn’t really stand out to me. He sounded fine but I always kind of just forget about him, which is a bad thing.
I thought Rachel did a really good job. It was pitchy at some points but overall I thought it was one of the stronger ones.
Jon and Edward…laughable as usual. They may be bad, but they are entertaining. I don’t care if they stay as long as Lucie doesn’t leave at their expense.
Olly is probably the best guy left in the competition. I really like Joe, but Olly has a much better voice and better presence, so I hope he does well.
I liked Danyl last week, but I don’t know whatever happened this week, because that was really awful. He didn’t even have stage presence. He looked scared, ad if someone was going to discover something very unpleasant about him. And it only got worst. I think he wants to quit.
I don’t care too much about Jamie, Lloyd and Rachel, if they go… I won’t care.
I hated what Stacey did with her song.
I like John and Edward for the wrong reason. They’re sooo bad we keep waiting for them to come back, LOL.
My favorites in this competition are Lucie and Olly. Joe is good too, but between him and Olly, I’d really prefer it if Olly won, because he’s such a complete package. And Lucie is definitely the most talented. Between her and Olly, she should win.
Yes, but Cheryl Crow wasn’t a fresh faced young girl-next-door type, as Lucie strikes me as being. I do think it was a pretty big leap for Lucie to credibly pull off a song that I think is so strongly entrenched in people’s minds in Axl Rose’s voice. I do agree that it was a smart choice, and a good trick for talented singers of either sex to “shop in the other department”, as Paula put it. Thinking of AI, that worked really well for some of the boys, e.g. Adam with “Believe”, Matt with “So Small” and Danny with “I Hope You Dance”.
Stacy’s got a great natural tone, voice, and ability. I love that she doesn’t use much vibrato. She struggles every week with her hitting notes off key, not sure if vocal coaching can change that for her. But pop music is more about voice recognition & artistry than singing perfection, and I think she’s the only one in this lot whose voice I would recognize on the radio.
Lucy really changed her game here, very admirable. She worked the stage and the audience, she brought out her rock voice, esp on the higher notes. She’s usually pitch-perfect but was pitchy here, probably cuz she usually stands still but this time was much more performance-oriented. Strong work!
Rachel was suffering from the Lil Rounds effect. Changing up the hair and the clothes each week, often to poor effect. Her original look, the awesome haircut & edgier clothes, would have made a lot more sense for her rock song. Other than that , she sang well, esp toward the end, and I’m sorry to see her go.
BTW in another thread ppl were comparing each of the AIs favorably against their equivalent XFs, and ITA, but OTOH:
Rachel Adedeji >> Lil Rounds
Stacey Solomon >> Megan Joy