X Factor Live Show Blog 6

It's that time of the week again, and is it just me or is it getting all the more depressing each week?

Although catching the end of Take Me Out is making me reconsider that statement. It makes X Factor look like the South Bank Show in comparison. And is making me feel ickier by the minute. I can't decide if it's impressive or pathetic that I've managed to hang in for this long. I'm leaning towards the latter right now.

But never mind all that because it's time! To demean! The music!!

So, Kye went out last week, which was rather on the ridiculous side given that he was up against Rylan. But obviously the judges are going to keep the only even vaguely controversial act in, particularly when they're getting trounced in the ratings. The theme this week is Best of British, and One Direction are performing. Oh Lord.

No. No, I do not. Even if you are Irish. YOU'RE STILL SHITE.

Introducing the judges, Dermot refers to Louis as a loveable Irish wolfhound. If by that he means ridiculously thick, irritating and embarrassingly Irish arse, then sure.

When talking to the judges, Dermot asks Nicole to keep it clean so she goes on about things being long and hard and stiff again. He asks Gary about Christopher and Gary says Dermot is always harping on about and being down on Christopher. Maybe, Gary, that's because WE ALL HATE HIM AND HE'S AWFUL. Tulisa and Louis say some stuff and no one really cares.

Christopher is up first and he's gurning that people are trying to spoil it for him with all the stories in the press. We already don't like you, moaning and whining isn't gonna help. Him and Gary are repeatedly singing the same line of I'm Still Standing by Elton John over and over and over again. Gary seems happy with him getting rid of bad habits, but he's still not got rid of the bad habit of turning up on our tellys every Saturday night. Is there a patch to kick that habit? Or can I just kick him?

So he's performing with a bunch of people who are, I think, meant to be dressed up like bowling pins? Wha? They seem to be showing us more of the dancers than of Christopher, a clever move to try to stop me punching my screen, methinks. Once again, he's got his coat on, and once again it sounds like a hideously dated karaoke performance. Karaoke by someone who can sing, but not a performance by someone who can sell records to anyone without a bus pass, who will sell out arena tours or who ISN'T BLOODY AWFUL. Being a successful recording artist is about more than being able to hit the correct notes ffs. Although Daniel O'Donnell was just in the news for breaking records of being in the charts every year, so what the fuck does anyone know about anything any more?

Nicole says he sounds great but is a karaoke king, not the artist who is going to break boundaries with music that she's looking for. Louis repeats the karaoke king line, and says it's like listening to Heart radio. Lol. Tulisa thinks he has a great voice but he's dated cos he's always singing songs of a certain era. Christopher keeps trying to argue back but does he really think that he's going to change her mind after all this time? Gary of course says he's made fantastic progress and everything, blah blah blah. Christopher says it's the type of music he wants to sing and with tears in his eyes thanks the British public for keeping him in. Good enough reason for the rest of the world to launch an attack on the British public, but perhaps I'm overreacting. It's just hard not to cos HE'S REALLY BLOODY BAD. 

Between him and all these terrible Christmas ads, my blood pressure is going through the roof this evening. I believe this could be readily treated with some pizza from Dominos. Y'know, if they want to bring me round a free one....

Jahmene is next and apparently despite the fact that the judges lost their shit over him he thought his performance was 'quite bad'. So Nicole gets Jennifer Hudson on the phone to give him some confidence. I want so desperately to find something to make fun of here, but I can't. Damnation. I also really covet Nicole's hair in that VT segment.

He's singing Angels by Robbie Williams, and it starts out completely a capella, then a gospel choir kicks in and it's someone unlikely, but he's making this sound not shit. Couldn't he have come out in a bunny suit or something to make my job easier?! It's far from my favourite performance, cos I do hate this song, but he's doing a good job of making it a lot less cheesy and a lot more gospel.

The judges, of course, love it. Tulisa has a bit of a slight dig at Gary again by saying that that's how you do an old school classic (i.e., take notes Christopher). Gary says he's never heard a version of Angels like that in his life, and I imagine Robbie is well jell, and of course Nicole is almost in tears talking about how he moves her and stirs her (which makes the audience do a big That's What She Said-type giggle) and how he'll be unstoppable, etc etc.

District 3 are up next and they're all a confuddle about the bad comments they've had recently. Which apparently means they tried singing every single song in the world for Louis. They decided on Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton, which isn't exactly the sort of song you'd expect a band of young 'uns to do but there you go. One of them's playing the piano and the other two are on stools and it's all getting a bit Westlife up in here.

Their vocals are grand, but it's completely lacking in soul and sounds like exactly the sort of thing you'd expect Louis to churn out. Tulisa is smiling though and Nicole is crying. Oh lordy. Tulisa says it was an amazing decision to strip everything back to basics and a great song choice, says it's her favourite performance yet. Hmph. Gary says it's good to see them back to what they're good at but thinks there's something a bit dated about them, they lack the edge of Union J. UNION J ARE EDGY?!?!?! HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA. Nicole is all gurning about how she loves the song and how it has a deep personal meaning for her today, she loved the arrangement, etc etc. Whatever, it was Westlife all over the show if you ask me. Which no one is, but still.

Yes, Gary, Union J are alllllll about the edge...

And oh look, it's another John Lewis advert at Christmas with a female singer-songwriter type doing a fragile cover version of an 80s song. Wow, never saw that coming.

Ella is next, and she's another one that I can't be mean about. I'm beginning to think that I'm going soft in my old age or something. She got to meet the Kardashians this week, so I feel even more sorry for her now. Tulisa tells her to do it for the geowls now that she's the only girl left, and apparently it's gonna be an epic amazing version of Written in the Stars by Tinie Tempah. She's on a stool too (they must have had an offer on somewhere) with a bloke playing guitar right beside her who we can't even get to see cos he's all blacked out. Better than him being blacked up, I suppose. She's in front of some odd purple archy thing made of umbrellas, I think, with fairy lights on it. That's sort of weird and completely irrelevant to the song, but whatever. She's on her feet now and belting it out. I can't remember what any of this song sounds like apart from the chorus so I can't exactly compare it that well, but she's singing as well as she always does and again, it's hard to believe she's only 16 with the stage presence and authority that she sings with, never mind her actual voice.

Gary says wow, Nicole calls her a righteous babe, Louis calls her an old soul trapped in a young girl's body which just sounds well creepy coming from him. He goes on about Tulisa trying to pull Ella back to Tulisa's urban roots, to which Tulisa replies "You wouldn't know Tinie Tempah from Tiny Tim". Which did make me do a little lol.

This bunny is more urban than Louis.

Rylan is next and man, am I tired of writing that. And he's doing the Spice Girls. Hold me, internet. Geri Halliwell surprised him during rehearsals this week, which of course made him apoplectic. His performance starts with a video of him supposedly parachuting out of a plane and then landing in the studio. That was rather Jedward-worthy, but he's just not mad enough to really muse me. He's doing a mash-up, cos he's incapable of getting through a song from start to finish and only seems to sing about half of it. This is just not as good as it should be. It should be Jedward doing Britney, it should be Wagner levels of cray cray but it's just kinda sad. Nicole and Tulisa are loving while Gary looks like he wants to barf. I'm with ya, Gary love.

Louis says he's a brilliant showman and that he loved it. Tulisa says everyone enjoyed it whether they liked it or not, apart from Gary who she refers to as Grumpy Spice. He says, and he looks as shocked as me saying it, "on the subject of fun, that was absolutely brilliant'. There is a but in there about the vocals but the crowd won't let him get a word out. Nicole gets up on the table (or rather tries to and realises she can't without splitting her white trousers) and rambles about him being fun and girl power and spice something or other.

Dermot starts the next segment in the audience, with some girl properly losing it over One Direction. And speaking of One Direction, An Startlingly Similar Direction are up next. They're dedicating their performance to the armed forces, as most of them have family connections, and they're singing Coldplay. YEAH, REAL EDGY. They're singing Fix You, which might be my most hated Coldplay song for reasons I won't get into right now, so I just want this to be over asap. They all seem to be wearing matching shoes, too, which is just very, very weird. Seriously, they're all in the same jeans, same boots/shoes, same white shirt and vaguely different black/grey blazers.

Tulisa says Louis is on a roll this week and nailed it again. She says the boys have found their market and are very much appealing to them. Well, if that isn't inspirational for the artistry of music, I don't know what is.

This cat has more soul and artistic integrity than Union J. For reals.

Oh, and the other judges liked it too but I don't care anymore.

James Arthur is last up and that is good cos it means this torture is almost over. In his VT he says he can't take compliments really well. Heh, he doesn't need to worry about that too much around these parts. First of all, he's wearing a ridiculous trucker hat. Second of all, he says he grew up with music like the Stereophonics and Stone Roses and he's singing an Adele song. Which totally makes sense. Apparently the song reminds him of where he's from and everything, so they show pics of him with his sisters where he has THE WORST EMO HAIRCUT IN THE HISTORY OF TIME ITSELF.

There, no compliments to worry about here.

The Adele song in question is Hometown Glory, and it's basically just him, his guitar and his tats, which are out I think for the first time on the live shows. There's very little need for me to write anything much about him here cos no matter what he does the judges will love it. And cos there's not much else to say about him, his performances are basically the same every week. It starts off as a decent enough cover of something you might not expect him to sing, and half way through he either starts wailing, rapping or it gets a beat, which is exactly what happens here.

Louis thinks he's like Professor Green or Plan B. Ummm, ok then. Tulisa talks about dubstep and wishing, before she was on the show, wishing that the public would embrace someone like him. Gary says no one should over Adele except for James, it was brilliant, blah blah blah. And Nicole squeals a bit, throws around words like swag and freak, making them verbs, and fat beats and what not. They keep going on about him using a dubstep beat on it but ffs it was only for like ten seconds at the end of the song. He might have "freaked Adele" but he hardly Skrillexed her. Anyway.

Now all we have to endure is One Direction. Honestly not sure I can get through that. Not without the use of food greasier and fattier and carbier than the handful of popcorn I just had, anyway (subliminal message: bring me pizza).

Five seconds in and I'm out. Night folks! Here's hoping they decide to pull the plug next week, just have the final a few weeks early between James, Jahmene and Ella like they want, and put us all out of our misery.