As Louis "Style Guru" Walsh voiced his dislike of people on the internet mocking and hating on the show on Xtra Factor last weekend, I have decided to turn over a new leaf and heed my mother's advice and not say anything at all if I can't say anything nice.
So here's my review of tonight's show - Dannii's dress was pretty.
See you next week!
...wait what?
It's a Halloween-themed week?
Which means songs with ridiculuosly tenuous links to Halloween, ripe for the mocking?
And costumes and make-up even more hideous and bizarre than usual, clearly intended to attract mockery and scorn like brains attract zombies?
Screw this, let's roll. Walsh, bite me.
LAST WEEKEND ON THE X FACTOR
THE COMPETITION REACHED NEW HEIGHTS
AND I FOR ONE FELT LIKE JUMPING
Yes, tonight is Halloween night, and here comes Zombie O'Leary! Tonight the contestants will be singing "Songs inspired by the dark side" apparently, which doesn't bode well given my fears last week that Katie's performance might summon a portal to Hell. I can't wait for Wagner to break into a Children Of Bodom classic.
Here come the judges! We have Dannii, with Jedward-tribute hair, Louis with comical spotted bow-tie, Cheryl dressed in her usual elegant and understated manner, and Sir Simon of Cowell, complete with hilarious teeth (and a couple of fangs too).
All the performances are available to download on iTunes if you feel like really terrifying people at a Halloween party this weekend!
First up, it's "The Diva from Dublin - that's DUBLIN. YOU KNOW, IN IRELAND" Mary Byrne! The VT starts with the "Be more current" criticism from last week, so obviously she's going to be singing something a little more up to date. Personally I'm holding out for "Smack My Bitch Up". Oh, according to Simon she's singing Barry Manilow - I don't think he did a version of that, although he has covered just about every other song on the planet so maybe there's hope. "Everyone wants to see a different side of Mary", bleats perennial tosser Brian Friedman. I'd imagine much like the dark side of the moon, the 'other side' of Mary is a cold, inhospitable place with scarily deep valleys and craters that mankind may have once thought about exploring but has recently changed its mind.
Here she is, and if this is anything to go by then the 'Halloween' theme essentially means 'more mascara, eyeliner and some devil horns'. Oh, she's singing "Could It Be Magic?". Get it? Magic? Witches? Halloween? Or perhaps the Halloween tie-in is the hideous visage of Barry Manilow, who knows? Anyways, Mary is wearing black and singing boringly. The camera gets in some side-angle shots - dangerously close to exposing us to Mary's 'other side', and she tries to move occasionally but her movements just look like she's miming reaching into the food cupboard and searching for some crisps. Oh, there are some dancers in cages too, and I'm momentarily distracted thinking of the fun Harry Hill could have with this and Wagbo next weekend. To be fair to Mary the innate boringness and cruiselinerishness of the song makes it a hard one to sing well or even interestingly, but this really is the epitome of one step forwards, two steps back.
The judges predictably loved it. Cheryl seemed particularly happy about the devil horns, perhaps because they nicely complement the halo that Cowell holds permanently above her head. "Liked you last week... loved you this week" mumbles Simon the living cliché machine. You used that one last week Simon, at least Mary gives it a few weeks before recycling songs. "You are a horny little devil", he announces. The nation cringes. "You are the people's champion" proclaims the giant internet-hating tossba... err Louis. No Louis, former WWF wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is the people's champion, you're a decade too late with that one.
Speaking of wrestlers, up next it's "Stone Cold" Aiden Grimshaw. He's at somewhat of an advantage tonight seeing as every day is Halloween in Aidenville. Cowell is quite amusingly openly mocking his dourness in the VT, and when he starts mocking you for being too cold, well, it's time to press the panic button.
Here he is, and wait, is that a mannequin on stage? Oh no, wait, it's singing, it can't be. But wait! There are mannequins, scattered around the singing mannequin! No wait they're actually dancers made up to look like mannequins because they're moving! But wait, maybe they are mannequins and are just remotely controlled somehow! No, wait, the way they're moving makes that impossible, they're definitely people! But they'd suffocate in those masks if they were masks, they're mannequins!
In case you're wondering why I'm blabbering on about the mannequin dancers, it's primarily a defense mechanism to stop me from concentrating on the brutal murder that is taking place. No, Aiden isn't hungry for human flesh again, he's taking a chainsaw to the withering corpse of Michael Jackson and flailing around with it like a majorette or conductor with their respective batons. Aiden gets one point for being brave enough to sing an almost unrecognisable version of a classic ("Thriller"). Unfortunately he gets minus 1000 points because it's possibly the worst thing I've ever heard. You can be as 'intense' as you like, but if you don't connect with a song on any level at all, that 'intensity' just comes over as self-indulgent nonsense. Awful-sounding self-indulgent nonsense, at that.
So with that in mind, let's play a game where we replace a word in the judges comments with another word. See if you can guess what it is!
Louis: "It was a very, very awful performance... you're a very awful performer as well Aiden"
Cheryl: "I don't think every song you do requires that amount of awfulness"
Simon calls him out on the indulgent nature of the performance, which is nice of him although it makes me feel a little less special for thinking the same. "Halloween is here - you stuck to the theme" warbles Dannii. Err, yes, he's Aiden. He's industrial-strength superglued to the bloody theme. Oh, grandad-dance revival as he speaks to Dermot! I do hope this becomes a weekly segment if he survives, it's the only redeeming feature he has at the moment, although the 'I've just been electrocuted' smile is quite endearing too.
Bellamy and Rebecca after t'break!
Bellamy were SO HAPPY after being declared safe last week. And Simon AIR PUNCHED! "This week is a well known girl band song that will show their personality" declares Simon. Their personality being 'derivative girl band', I can only assume. The vocal coach guy says the song is "About them all blending together". I don't know who any of them are as it is aside from Nondescript Spice #1-4 - if they blend together any more then Cheryl will suddenly have 5 acts in the competition and the universe may implode.
There are half-naked men and flames on the stage and it takes me a minute to recall that Diva Fever were actually eliminated a couple of weeks ago. Oh, here come the girls, emerging from coffins and singing "Venus" like they've just been disturbed half way through a 1000-year slumber. The most remarkable thing about the performance is Nondescript Spice #3's astounding mountain of red hair. Really it's a lesson in why groups manufactured on-the-spot invariably don't work, the parts may be sort of decent but the sum of them is awful. The girls have woken from their 500-year slumber and arrived in a time where harmonising doesn't exist.
Louis loved the styling, staging and song choice. Note the lack of him loving a certain other, quite important 's' word, probably because if he mentioned singing he'd have to then mention a fifth, somewhat less broadcastable 's' word. Dannii tears into them for their vocal weakness, well as much anyone has torn into anyone else this series. Poor Cheryl can't bring herself to directly criticize their singing for some bizarre, unexplainable reason, favouring vague confidence-related platitudes. "Plate of milk for the girls" Simon sneers. Plate of cowpats for Simon, given the manure he's guaranteed to start spreading once his mouth opens again. Phone hands from Nondescript Spice #4.
Over to the girls and Chezza! First up, unsurprisingly, it's Rebecca. "We know Rebecca's got the voice but now we need to see how much she really wants to win this competition", declares Louis. Umm, she's probably going to illustrate her desire to win this competition which on some sort of level is still mildly about singing by, umm, singing? Or am I being absurd again?
Rebecca apparently just wants to "Keep getting better", which is a shame because this isn't nearly as good as last week. She's singing the awfully dull "Wicked Game" (wicked --> witch --> Halloween, get it? Eh? Eh?), and trying her best to rouse some interest from the deepest inner recesses of the song, but it's not to be. It's a little more nasally and piercing than usual, but not bad. The judges loved it and blah blah blah boring boring boring wait did Cheryl really just say "You're the perfect ambassador for Britain" to her? Forget trained diplomats and politicians, we should absolutely send random scouse girl from some TV talent show to the next round of Middle-East peace negotiations (although I suppose it's no less absurd than Tony Blair being made Middle-East peace envoy).
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Up next, it's over to Cheryl again and the other girl she doesn't really give much of a toss about, Tracey! Blah blah bottom two, blah blah "massive panic attack" (hint: if you'd actually had a 'massive panic attack' you wouldn't have been able to move, much less sing dear, don't insult the intelligence of the average X Factor viewe... wait, never mind. She's singing "Relight My Fire" (Fire! They burned witches at the stake! Witches = Halloween! Get it?) and it's nice that she's found a place between "whisper" and "earth-shattering squeal". I don't remember the bit in Little Red Riding Hood where she breaks into "Relight My Fire", is that in one of the modernized versions? Regardless, that's what she's dressed as and it's about as convincing as having Aiden dress up as a teddy bear.
Dannii is surprisingly critical (I should note that given her hair I'm expecting her to break into an awful rendition of 'Ice Ice Baby' or the Ghostbusters theme at any point), and Simon agrees, saying that she is unoriginal and devoid of direction. The fact that she's one of the few acts that can actually sort of sing is, of course, unimportant.
Oh, here's voiceover guy
STILL TO COME ON THE X FACTOR
SOME RANDOM UNIMPORTANT PEOPLE
AAAAND CHEEERRR LLLOOOYYYDDD
It's become that transparent, folks.
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