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X Factor: Week 8 Results (Michael Jackson & Judge’s Choice)

 

- I (tragically? you decide) worked out the average release date of the songs they all sang last night. It was 1978. Yes, 1978. That is how out of date the whole thing is.

- The Rihanna part of the group song got my attention, mainly as it was a song released this decade. For his behaviour in this group song (i.e. more mic throwing) Danyl had to go.

- For no apparent reason, half way through Lady Gaga’s  performance of “Paparazzi” at the VMAs this year, gushes of fake blood suddenly appeared from her rib cage whilst she staggered around the stage. She then rose upwards dangling on a a rope, blood smeared across her face, wailing frantically, whilst a halo appeared behind her. I have loved Lady Gaga ever since.

- Apparently, for her performance tonight she asked for a lamb and some butterflies to join her on stage but Simon said no due to “health and safety”. Never have I disliked “health and safety” more. Instead she came as a transformer masquerading as a bat and sang in a giant bath with a loo beside her. Watching Dermot walk over to interview her whilst she still lay in giant bath wearing horns surrounded by dancers pretending to be dead was TV gold.

- Janet Jackson was the second act I ever saw in concert (Velvet Rope Tour 1997). Amazing. I wish she’d sung a medley of all her singles, but I was happy with half of “All For You” and not so happy with half of the new single that sounded like it had only three notes. Is it wrong to hate any song that mentions the word “party”? And how embarrassing when she had to run off stage after realizing the results were about to be announced and Dermot wasn’t going to interview her. Considering it was filmed yesterday, you’d think they could’ve cut that out.

- Simon Cowell on Danyl: “He’s a graceful..[awkward pause] loser”. What a shocker though: everyone was so sure Olly was a goner. I didn’t care if Danyl was arrogant in real life; my problem was his shouty over aggression in his performances, his nasal tone and enormous facial expressions.

- And when Simon looked grumpy like injustice had been done I kept thinking: that’s karma for getting rid of Sarah from Hollyoaks before her time!

PS. Oh god, it’s for reasons like this that Joe shouldn’t win.

X Factor: Week 8 Live Show (Michael Jackson & Judge’s Choice)

 

Can I begin with some Cheryl Cole rage? Last year she was the star of the series, demonstrating honest but fair criticism with down to earth North Eastern likeability. This year she is still yet to say ANYTHING OF INTEREST.* She now no longer comments on singing ability, a performance, its relevance/believability, but instead the three most insightful things she’s said are  “I couldn’t be prouder of you”, “you’re my little geordie popstar”, “I know how badly you want to be in the final”. It’s like she can’t be bothered to voice an opinion. Which is a shame.  I say replace her with the awkward and amazing ginger haired one from Girls Aloud next year please.

Can I also just say how good every channel’s Christmas TV musical montage adverts are this year?

Cheeky Chappy:

1. Can You Feel It?

The odds of Olly going are 1:1. That’s not good is it? Do you get a pound back plus your pound, or just your pound back?

Despite that, I half liked it. The other half of me thought the performance seemed dated, with the dancers helpfully showing the colours of the rainbow that all-in-white Olly sang about; suddenly it all seemed a bit like a performance from a children’s TV show.

2. A song I’d never heard before but was actually quite catchy:

Now, I really liked this. Apart from the fit/dancing. Simon Cowell definitely told each act they had one special thing and that they should do it more frantically than ever before this week (see later Stacey’s big notes, Danyl’s performance fist gestures, and Joe’s very in tune-ness).

Olly has the energy Stacey lacks and the likeability Danyl doesn’t. He’s my favourite and of course he’s also the most likely to go.

Joe:

1. She’s Out Of My Life:

This was perhaps the most boring three minutes of my life. OK, that may be an exaggeration and he was more in tune than ever before. And yet still so boring. Somehow the emoting was more musical theatre than even the Lion King song was. And Louis “if that was on the radio you’d sell millions” – what a load of rubbish. A. That would never be on the radio. And B. it would sell about 3 copies after the fuss of the show’s died down.

Simon has decided he should win. I genuinely don’t know why Simon thinks Joe is marketable beyond his first single. I wait to be proved wrong. The Boyfriend did point out something of note, though: Joe’s the only contestant that doesn’t trend on Twitter. Which says a lot about his voters.

2. Open Arms:

Stacey:

1. The Way You Make Me Feel:

Stacey does the best VTs. When I set up my coaching business to teach reality TV contestants how to perfect the VT (plus post performance interview and reaction when getting through) I will use Stacey’s VTs as the archetypal example (along with this).

The performance was OK, interesting and understated. I liked the hat (BRING BACK RIKKI!) but she hid behind it, like a friend I had who used to hide behind her hair. I’m constantly waiting for her to let loose and maybe do a Christ-like gesture, like all good popstars do. (I think that when I write my overarching narrative there will be a whole blog post on Christ-like gestures in pop music, the most extreme example being this).

2. Somewhere:

The rumour was that Stacey was going to sing “You’ve Got The Love”, which would have been brilliant (not to mention bloody relevant/contemporary and probably believable). Whilst she didn’t fully convey the emotion of the song in her slightly blank facial expressions, those belting notes were amazing and powerful and will put her into the final.

I think tonight Stacey might have been modelled on someone else:

But whilst Stacey was good, when you watch this amazingness from last year you realize what a great Reality TV performance really is.

(I’ve learnt to be humble!) Danyl:

1. Man In The Mirror:

This song was Diana’s Vickers peak last year, where she was super innovative and performed with her back to the audience:

Back to Danyl and, apart from his typical overly aggressive performance, this  was spot on. And also apart from the, ahem, climate change slide show. Trying to make Danyl seem nice by linking him to social cause is a step too far. Do I hope the papers will twist it and show how Danyl is somehow part responsible for killing polar bears? Maybe a little. And how badly did I want him to drop the microphone when he did this? So much it hurt.

2. I Have Nothing:

His hideous attempt to cry in his VT will be used in my School of Reality TV as perhaps the ultimate what to not do.

After that, it was hard to take any of it seriously. And the song was not good.  He can sometimes sound unpleasantly nasal on the big notes. And it was boring.

Bottom 1:

Despite the odds, I say Danyl.

Mathematical formula says Olly. By miles.

*Ok, she said something interesting the week she said she “didn’t get” Danyl. That was good.

X Factor Week 8 Results (Take That & Elton John)

- “I Don’t Feel Like Dancing” (Scissor Sisters) was the group song and thank god they mimed all that falsetto. I think we all know that none of them (par in-tune Joe) could ever reach those notes. Danyl’s facial expressions were so large. It still wasn’t as bad as American Idol’s Group performance of “Can’t Get You Outta My Head” though. (It seems to not be on YouTube: Simon has wisely made it unavailable. But this seems to be the Chinese version of YouTube so don’t be scared by all the strange characters).

- Beforehand, I was so not bothered by Alicia Keys, but she can sing, can’t she? She also went up in my estimation by thinking it appropriate not to sing one of her songs, but instead do a medley of three. (I wonder if anyone thought it was just one innovative disjointed song? I did until the third song).

- Beforehand, I was so not bothered by Rhianna and inspired by myfizzypop I leave to cook chips half way through. How boring is that song for a first single from an album?

- Olly! Your reaction at getting through may just have lost you all your votes next week. Why do they never learn?

-And poor Lloyd *finally* goes. Cheryl’s comment “it’s amazing he got this far” is harsh but fair. Apparently his favourite performance was “Bleeding Love”. Let’s all revisit that shall we:

X Factor: Week 8 Live Show (Take That & Elton John)

Take That & Elton John Week?* Why? Why not two artists who link in some way? Like Take That & Girls Aloud Week? Now that would be interesting/relevant/believable/credible/contemporary. Joe doing Love Machine, for example, would be fun. As would be Danyl singing “I’ve got to heat it up, Doctor, got to heat it up”, etc, etc.

Danyl:

1. Could It Be Magic:

Oh Danyl. Commenting on the group celebration of the charity single topping the charts by saying how great it would be to have a number 1 by yourself is *not* the way to shake off the arrogant image.

The slutty she vampires (aka the backing dancers) are growing in strength. They have multiplied in number in the past two weeks and spawned men. The two of them at the side seem to now have procured burning pitch forks, which I like to think is a metaphor for the public’s attitude towards Danyl.

He sang it quite well, bopped a bit, but it seemed tacky and overdone (Brian Friedman, I’m talking to you).

2. Your Song:

Whose idea was the child choir? Get out now. It has no relevance to the song. I’ll reluctantly accept a child choir when it means something to the song (brilliant example here 3 minutes in: who could forget Eternal’s apocalyptic warning of the social chaos we were descending into in 1997?), but I won’t accept it randomly in the middle of a love song, no matter how badly 10 year olds might want to sing on tele.

Despite that, quite good singing from Danyl here. However, screaming the first few lines of the song at your audience is one way of making it your own, but does make you look pretty arrogant. Again. Please someone coach this man.

He also only got a quarter of a halo light, therefore telling us that the Producers only want him to get as far as the quarter-final (compare this later to Stacey’s).

The Empty Space Zac Efron Leaves When He Exits A Room (Lloyd):

1. A Million Love Songs

The big question is: can the haircut keep him in the competition another week? Probably not, as this was flat virtually the whole way through.

2. I’m Still Standing:

The prop, Lloyd’s stick, came across as ever so slightly more interesting than its owner in this performance. I feel a bit harsh, as despite this, he’s sort of growing on me (why? why?). I think it’s in reaction to Joe. I keep saying I’d rather even Lloyd won than Joe, so I think that I’ve sort of started gunning for him now.

Cheeky Chappy (Olly):

1. Love Ain’t Here Anymore:

The VT explained that the crucial thing with this song is to convey genuine emotion. So yes, definitely the best way of doing this is by singing the song awkwardly to an audience member you’ve never met before.

The problem with Cheeky Chappy and ballads is that his voice isn’t quite strong enough. Danni was right, there was no sparkle (by this I mean emotion/energy, Simon, not literally that he should be grinning away as you seemed to interpret Danni’s comment. We all know that’s my pet hate).

2. Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting:

I really enjoyed this. The Brian Friedman production sort of worked, the she-vampires with signs actually worked, and he sang it in tune. My only beef was the awkward facial expressions Cheeky Chappy pulled when he had to sing the word Saturday seven times in a row. When Cheeky Chappy gets it right like this, I want him to win.

Joe:

1. Could It Be Magic:

2. Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word:

Stacey:

1. Rule The World

Look at the halo in this song:

It was OK and I liked her (now characteristic) belting out at the end, but she’s still too wobbly over the rest of the song. If she let go and gave a bit more passion, I’d forgive the wobbly notes: we need the odd feisty fist movement, a few Christ-like gestures and maybe the occasional falling to her knees with sheer emotion.**

However, if she just spoke on record (a bit like Kate Nash) I think I’d buy it.

2. Something About The Way You Looked Tonight

I disagree, Mr Cowell, I think this was much better vocally than her first song. And a rare occurrence: the style of the song matched well with the sexy, slinky sitting on the piano choreography.

Bottom One:

I predict Danyl. Which is sad.

Mathematical Formula says: Olly! Which would be a shock, as he should get rebound votes.

*Because Joe sang an Elton John song well last week, maybe, and the man in charge has decided he should win.

**It was pointless to change the lyrics: “If you stay with me girl boy/we could rule the world”. Boy doesn’t half-rhyme with girl and therefore doesn’t work.

X Factor: Week 7 Results (George Michael & Wham week)

- Have I become desensitised or was the group performance of “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” not utterly hideous? It had all the ingredients of being so, but somehow hovered around bearable.

- Taking my cynical hat off for one bullet point, I like that Reality TV has meant someone as unlikely as Susan Boyle now has a chance at a music career. Even if it also gave her a nervous breakdown. [EDIT: With further thought I'd disappointed. How much better would it have been if she'd have come back with a "Bleeding Love"/"Bad Boys" instead of that cover.]

- I think we’d have all preferred it if Mariah Carey had sung “All I Want For Christmas”. In fact I’d quite like it if she re-released “Fantasy/Dreamlover” (double A-side) every summer and “All I Want For Christmas” every December. Mariah had everything for her performance: the golden waterfall, the halo light, a gospel choir, indoor fireworks. It’s just a shame she doesn’t have the songs these days to match her voice. I refuse to acknowledge that she was miming and instead insist she can actually sing that well.

- Can I ever forgive her for the below remix (and video) though? Why is her eye sideways?

- My shocking mathematical formula was spot on! Sod my flawed instinct. I’m all Derren Brown.

- Why on earth did Twin Peaks choose “No Matter What” as their desperation song? Did they genuinely pick this? A song with singing and leaps between notes? Is it paranoid to suggest the Puppet Masters made them do this to ensure they’d go this time and save the show a small amount of credibility/believability/relevance?

- Having said that, Cheeky Chappy was quite out of tune too. And yet despite this, I still prefer him leaps and bounds to “very in tune” Joe and “normally in tune but occasionally wildly off tune” Danyl. 

- In previous years, a winner has never been in the bottom 2 before. Which means, according to maths (which is my sole guide now), the winner is either Joe or Stacey. Please god let it be Stacey. Please. If Joe wins it will mean we’ve learnt nothing since 2001. Nothing! It would invalidate everything that the important victory of Will Young over Gareth Gates symbolised. Don’t let it happen people!!

- I now have a mint tea and am calm.

-I love Dannii. She’s getting rebellious against the Cowell. I think he might fire her, but still. I love her attitude.

X Factor: Week 7 Live Show (George Michael & Wham)

I was distracted from writing tonight’s Blog by Katie Price and Kim from How Clean Is Your House eating kangaroo anus. Who would have predicted ten years ago that this would be common Saturday night TV? What kind of brainstorm in ITV’s boardrooms produced it? Maybe I should blog about that in my so far neglected Overarching Narrative.

Anyway, I was excited this week to discover a new but important way of assessing performances: whereas last week we were concerned if peoplej were “authentic”, this week they must be – new buzz word – “believable”.

Meanwhile, Cheryl Cole increased her believability by dressing as Mini Mouse.

The Empty Space Zac Efron Leaves When He Exits A Room (Lloyd):

The best thing about this performance was the audience’s awkward silence as they struggled to understand what Dannii meant when she complimented Lloyd’s falsetto.

The Puppet Masters often put the act first that they want out. However, Lloyd only sang one note very out of tune and has a new hair cut. He’s safe.

Stacey:

“I Can’t Make You Love Me” is George Michael’s best song lyrically [edit: he covered it, but is still the best song he's sung lyrically]. But a subtle song with intelligent lyrics from a little known double A side is perhaps not the best song choice, Danni.

After last week’s emotional powerhouse of a performance, Stacey let me down. This week’s VT showed the singing coach telling Stacey it was OK to cry when singing if she liked and I longed for maybe one or two perfect tears at the end of her performance. Instead, she committed the ultimate sin of grinning a bit at the beginning of a song which is all about realizing your partner doesn’t love you. She was also pitchy (less of a sin).

For the best ever example of crying on the X Factor, see below. This was a seminal X Factor moment for so many reasons. You have to watch from the beginning to the end:

Stacey’s big notes at the end had soaring power, but she needs to make sure the rest of the song is as good too.

Twin Peaks (John and Edward):

I found myself wondering if their Choose Life T-shirts were a kind of complicated ironic way of making us realize that voting for them meant some kind of musical death.

They may be vulnerable: their performance was just not horrific enough. I am, however, still fascinated by their twitching; watching it gives me the same feeling I get when I watch Nicola from Girls Aloud. I can’t take my eyes off the awkwardness.

Jedward’s parents still look broken.

Danyl:

Danyl started well with an interesting stripped down version of “Careless Whisper”. He then rapidly destroyed it by removing all subtlety and proceeded to aggressively shove massive notes in our faces. He also pointed to his feet when he sang about them being guilty which ruined everything (see Olly later).

Now merge over the top Danyl with under the top Stacey and you have something potentially great (Leona Lewis maybe? I hoped by merging their faces (my new favourite thing) I might in fact get Leona but instead got this):

 

I think it has a hint of Joe.

Cheeky Chappy (Olly):

Was each act encouraged to sing the first two lines in an entirely different key?*

Cheeky Chappy finally showed us he was contemporary by singing a song released over 13 years ago. It verged between being quite good to excruciating (mainly when he tried to look seductive by squinting, whilst singing a bit out of tune).

His real crime, however, were the actions he started doing towards the end of the song, like the phone hand when he referred to cupid calling him and the driving motion when he mentioned the BMW (please note Olly, when George sang “why don’t we make a little room in my BMW babe”, he’s not planning on driving in it).

Somehow I still like him.

Joe:

My Primary School Choir was ahead of it’s time: we did “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” too. How relevant/authentic/believable of my Primary School. Next week one of the contestants will be doing a song from the musical we did about a chicken farm.

Back to Joe, and for the first time he conveyed some oomph and emotion whilst singing very in tune. It was a great Musical performance. Why is it that every year the judges claim that the boys could be the new Michael Buble? Joe is nothing like Michael Buble. Did you know that the average release date of the songs Joe sings is 1980? That’s how relevant/believable/authentic he is. Can you believe that I actually worked that out?

Bottom Two:

I sadly predict Stacey (not as good as last week + got OTT judges praise = always a bad combination) and Danyl (partly because this kind of bad PR is ramping up once again). With Jedward hovering around their too. But it’s cheating to guess three so discount Jedward.

[Mathematical Formula says Olly and Jedward. That'd be a shocker]

*The Boyfriend informs me that George often sings in a tricky key and proceeds to give me a hearty performance of “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On me”.

X Factor: Week 6 Results (Queen)

- Oh how perfect.  Dannii was left with all the decision making power; she demonstrated that she’s a more credible judge than Simon; and yet this took it to deadlock, and the public whom Simon trusts implicitly decided his act should go. The viewers were placated and don’t hate the show anymore. There will be minimal public outrage. It’s almost like the Puppet Masters Producers scripted it.

- Oh no no no. The Group Song, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, was highly awkward. However, the Puppet Masters Producers ensured the final three lines were sung by the eventual three finalists, in the order they will finish: 3rd Stacey; 2nd Joe, 1st Olly.

- Was Shakira miming in English or Spanish? I did not understand a word. I know it was out about 10 years ago, but really wouldn’t everyone have preferred her singing “Wherever, Whenever”?

- The GOSH video was genuinely touching. (I’ve made it my personal mission, along with reforming Eternal, to get the charity I work for to be the chosen charity next year).

- In “You Are Not Alone” Jedward were allowed the great honour of singing the second half of the word “alone” (one syllable). Also, if you listen to the song without seeing who is singing, it is virtually impossible to tell which boy is singing, showing how indistinctive each of them will sound on the radio. Lovely Rikki was back though, which pleased me. Why did he go so early?

- Onto the sing-off, Lloyd started out of tune, got back in tune and then didn’t seem to notice that there had been a key change.

- Jamie’s choice “The Show Must Go On” had *layers* of irony. I know all the words to this song as we were made to sing this in school choir when I was 9. It’s only as I sing along as an adult that I realize how inappropriate it was to get 9 year olds to sing a song Freddie wrote about his impending death. We also sang “I dreamed a dream”, which again was wholly inappropriate (“He slept a summer by my side…”)

P.S. I’ve been mulling over the Take That Tribute Band idea and I think it’s got legs. See the beginnings below: I’ll need to bring back lovely Rikki to be Mark. And I still need a Jason: Danyl wasn’t right. But look at the creepy Robbie mixed with Gary I created below: it does look a bit like Olly.

X Factor: Week 6 Live Show (Queen)

This week we were introduced to a whole new word: apparently the show is no longer about “relevance” but all about “authenticity”. Which is ironic on many levels.

Thankfully Simon cleared up the confusion of last week, explaining that actually Sting was to blame for Lucie leaving. I was then reassured that Simon would never play with anyone’s lives or use tactics in any way and then felt warm because as a member of the public he implicitly trusts my opinions. Finally, I felt proud of the show for creating such credible stars as Susan Boyle (err, isn’t she from your other show, Simon?).

I got all excited when they showed the Queen video for “I Want To Break Free” and hoped that the X Factor would take their pioneering gender swapping songs one step further and cross-dress at least one act. Anyone else think Stacey dressed up like a cockney lad (a la Oliver) could be fascinating?. 

Sideshow Bob (Jamie):

Sideshow Bob seemed less Broken Man this week. He clapped his hands a lot and went on the little bridge behind the judges, which did sort of cover up for starting wildly out of tune. Cheryl had insightful comments about his jeans being nice but his hair being not (which was about as insightful as her comments got all evening). I thought it was OK as he didn’t try and emote with his face, which is the thing that really riles me.

The Empty Space Zac Efron Leaves When He Exits A Room (Lloyd):

He doesn’t know who Queen is? GET OUT NOW.

Why does Brian Friedman always dress all the female backing dancers like slutty she-vampires? Does he hate women? Is this why Britney Spears is in the state she’s in? Lloyd zig-zagged through them as though they were traffic cones and he was attempting his first cycling proficiency course.

Not as out of tune as usual though (I’d say 4 out of every 5 notes were in tune), so progress.

Cheeky Chappy (Olly):

Cheeky Chappy was a tad disappointing: could his star quality be in the little finger that he broke? (Full points though for trying to punch Jedward: their twitchy movements would have made them an understandably hard target. If only it had been Danyl doing the punching however, and then the bullying storyline could’ve taken on a whole new level). All the judges apart from Dannii chose to forget that he sang pretty out of tune and that he took a massive gasp before the last big note (pet hate). The robot dancing half won me over, although it was hard to tell as I was watching it on my PC and his body was comprised of approximately 3 pixels.

He’ll stay as he’s much better vocally than this performance (and according to Louis he’s half Gary/half Robbie, which is a compelling mix. Sideshow Bob’s hair is sort of Howard, Lloyd could be pretty Mark and Danyl was a dance teacher and has a shaved head so could be Jason. And there we have Take That. Could they come back next year as a group?).

Gareth Gates (Joe):

The Boyfriend will be pleased to hear I liked him slightly more than usual this week.  However, whilst he sang it very in tune again, Brian and Roger summed it up when they said it was “very nice”. “Someone To Love” is an aggressive, desperate song that should be sung with a bit of grit: Gareth did try and do a bit of this with the odd angry fist movement, but whereas the opening line is “Each morning I get up I die a little”, Joe’s face and tone said “Each morning is a bit rubbish sometimes”.

Twin Peaks (John & Edward):

Oh god, I think Jedward tried to do Broken Man this week with a bit of crying in the VT. Does the fact that we didn’t boo them mean we like them now? I thought it was a bit boring. Apparently this performance was “authentic”?

Stacey:

Even though she has a slight vocal wobble at the beginning, I forgive this as she did what Joe didn’t quite manage which was put emotion and aggression behind the song. By far the night’s most interesting performance: she’s finally showed us that she can let loose and go for it. And she got the golden rain behind her, which can only be a good sign.

Danyl:

You have to be some kind of evil genius to sing “We Are The Champions” when you’ve been accused of cockiness and sort of pull it off. The OTT attempts to make the songs lyrics into his X Factor journey diminished the song (“I’ve done my sentence/but committed no crime [..] I’ve had my share of sand kicked in my face”) as did his VT dilemma of “just how cocky should I appear on stage this week?”. But, again, it was interesting. He needs to draw us in more: I still feel he’s trying to perform at me and do massive notes, not in response to the emotion of the song but rather to show me how good he is. Change this please Danyl and you’d be great.

Bottom Two:

Oh, it’s tough. Jedward and Jamie. Maybe Lloyd. (If I was an X Factor producer I would be praying that one of the rubbish acts (i.e. Jedward or Lloyd) go this week to maintain a semblance of credibility.

Mathematical Formula shockingly says Olly and Lloyd. That can’t be right. Can it?

X Factor: Week 5 Results (Movies)

-Wrong wrong wrong. But as soon as the bottom 2 were revealed it was clear this would happen (I said as much on Twitter).  There was no way Simon was going to remove the one act that is making millions tune in each week. His was a genius move. By keeping Jedward  in over one of the talented acts, the public will now turn on them with a vengeance and absolutely demand they leave in the next few weeks. So they will go soon, and therefore not ruin Simon’s franchise, but when they go the public will be delighted as it will definitely be their time (unlike now, where many people would turn off if they went). Hence, Simon gets a few more weeks of them pulling in the viewers without them being a real threat to a winner. And as Simon Cowell will no doubt say, it’s the publics’ fault they didn’t go tonight, not his. (I wonder if this all went through Simon Cowell’s head really quickly).

- However, I do quite hope it’s Danyl vs. Jedward next week and the judges keep Jedward in revenge to Simon.

- Danni’s hair is different in each show, which is amazing. Cheryl’s, however, made her look slightly like a king charles spaniel

- The Group Song reached new peaks of awkwardness. Summed up when Sideshow Bob was made to sing  the line “You PMS like a bitch, I should know”. This is taking gender swapping songs one step too far: IT ONLY  MAKES SENSE IF A GIRL SINGS IT. Lucie is 1/3 Katie Perry (with 1/3 Sarah From Hollyoaks and 1/3 Alanis Morissette) so it was eerie to see her sing this song.

- The Black Eyed Pees performance was marred by being just a bit strange. The illusion was slightly ruined by Fergie desperately gripping onto what looked like the end of a gym rope in order to stay on her half moon and also the series of pullies and hooks that you could occasionally see being pulled in the background.

- I first thought Leona was miming the chorus but then you realize that’s her actual voice and that she can actually sing, unlike most of the other acts they’ve had sing live. (Quite excitingly, she’s just requested to follow me on Twitter, which makes her my third celebrity follower after Max and OB from Hollyoaks). *Heads off to listen to Bleeding Love on loop*

- Please just get rid of the judges’ decision if it’s just going to go to deadlock each week.

P.S. My attempt at Stacey: