NEXT WEEK!
IT'S THE SEMI-FINAL!
WHICH MEANS!
ONLY THREE WEEKS OF THIS CRAP LEFT!
This week it's rock week, which is essentially code for "sing whatever you want, much like you have been doing for the last couple of months".
Dermot introduces the judges as "a pair of rock chicks and a couple of headbangers". Cheryl does exhibit rock-like charisma at times so I'll allow it. OH LOOK HOW WONDERFUL SIMON JUST STOPPED CHERYL FROM DOING THAT STUPID SALUTE THING AND THEN SALUTED HIMSELF IT'S NO WONDER HE'S SUCH A HIT WITH THE LADIES. Honestly I worry for the two of them, with two performances per act to get through tonight they might end up ravenously jumping on each other before the phone lines even open ("dial 01364 901 118 if you want them to stop and get a bloody room").
Oh my, first up it's Wagner. Of course now we're at two performances each they can put The Wagster on first and still have him perform past the half way mark, so the powers that be achieve the desired result of screwing him royally while also not having a big negative impact on the ratings from everyone turning off immediately after Our Lord and Saviour hath performed. Great.
We're treated to more of Young Wagner looking strangely like Steven Segal. "The song I've chosen for Wagner... everybody knows but no-one would expect it". Actually Louis, absolutely everyone who's read a tabloid newspaper since the start of the week is expecting it. "I will have no dancers on stage", Wagner proclaims. They're really gunning for the poor guy this week, aren't they?
Yes, as everyone everywhere already knew four days ago, it's Radiohead's "Creep", and worryingly it actually sounds pretty decent, even taking my multicoloured funny hat off for a moment and replacing it with the dour grey serious one. "I don't belong here", Wagner declares. Louis might as well have dressed him in a leotard and have had him come out shouting "PLEASE VOTE FOR KATIE AND CHER AND ONE DIRECTION THEY'RE REALLY GOOD", because The Wagster actually sounding vaguely competent is not going to appeal to his demographic at all. Seeing as most of Waggy's voters have been busy protesting tuition fees all week there's really no need for such screwjobbery, as they'll all be partaking in a sort of mini-hibernation this weekend. Anyway, if I seem like I'm digressing that's simply because I can't believe Wagner actually sounds sort of okayish. The Lord hath provided us with a miracle.
All that we need now is some unusually good judges comments and an endorsement from Sir Simon of Cowell and the screwjob will be complete! There's some random skirmishing over Dannii saying that he "connected" with the lyrics (oh Minogue, you card), with Louis' hilarious rebuttal being "The lyrics are 'I'm a creep, I'm a winner'". The X Factor's rock credentials summed up perfectly in one sentence, and Louis namechecking Thom Yorke who I'm sure he's best mates with only serves to make it funnier.
Mary and One Direction after the break. Insert sarcastic comment about how the performance order is completely fair here.
Simon's clearly been non-stop rehearsing all week - he's naming each of One Direction for their introduction. This week they went into HMV to check out their charity single (I could have saved them a journey and told them it's shit, but they never asked). "When you've got a group this age, you've got to try and make a rock song young", Simon says, unconvincingly.
They're singing "Summer of '69" and clearly reminiscing over the good old days when the five of them were just wee little minus 25 year-old lads. As usual, bowl-haircut sings for a while then suddenly it sounds like about 200 people are singing the chorus. Simon's idea of making a song 'young' seems to involve having some dancers in streetwear wandering around on stage. There's a hilarious part towards the end where there's a backing track singing the lyrics over a backing track "Oooooooh"-ing over the five of them actually (sort of) singing. It's absolutely hideous.
"The competition would not be the same without One Direction". You're right Louis, without One Direction (a) the competition would be better and (b) I wouldn't have piercing headaches every Saturday night (or at least they wouldn't be quite as bad). "I think you're the next big boyband". Why do we have to have a "next big boyband"? Why can't we actually progress with the rest of the world who by and large don't give a toss about manufactured boybands singing derivative bollocks anymore? Simon wants us all to be impressed that Curly Spice managed to get through the incredibly difficult process of choosing a song. More like Curly Spice called his dad and got him to do his song-choosing homework for him.
"It's Mary Byrne, she's singing her heart out all the way from Dublin!" What, couldn't she be bothered to turn up this week?
There's obviously a problem with the holographic feed from Dublin as it almost looks like Mary isn't wearing black. She's singing U2's "All I Want Is You", shouty-and-devoid-of-subtlety version. It's all very Mary. If Louis Walsh says the word "Mojo" I'm going to kill someone (thankfully he doesn't).
Cher and Rebecca after the break!
Quote of the week: "You should actually take being in the bottom two as a positive thing" - Cheryl Cole. Yes it's Cher and the traditional "woe is me" VT that proceeds someone (usually Katie) being in the bottom two. "NEXT TIME WHEN I WALK INTO A SHOP LIKE THIS I WANNA BE BUYING MAH WINNER'S SINGLE". Oh dear, she's obviously been skimping on her "being meek and humble" training this week.
This week Cher is dressed and made up as sone kind of goth-Barbie doll and is singing Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" and it's hard to be objective because (a) Cher is odious and (b) I think this may well be the worst song ever written. There's a car in the middle of the stage for some reason, which strangely reminds me of Storm Lee and his motorbike. Remember Storm? He was okay, although he did come across as a bit desperate. I think he would have done better if they'd pushed him as a Wagner-esque comedy option instead of having him unconvincingly bleat out Springsteen and- oh, yes, er, Cher. It's awful, there's a rap segment so out of place that it actually makes the worst song ever written even worse, and all in all it seems somewhat appropriate that a car appears to have crashed onto the stage.
"You're becoming like your mentor". Well Louis she's certainly got the "can't sing" bit down perfectly. "This was my favourite performance of yours" Dannii adds, opting to omit the "...because I hate you and this was so awful that even allowing for the bounceback vote you might actually leave this week" part of her sentence. Simon agrees (what planet are these people on?). "YOU ABSOLUTELY SMASHED IT SMASHED IT WHHOOOO". Ladies and gentlemen, The Nation's Sweetheart.
Dermot asks her if she wants to say anything to the nation. "Just pick up your phone, it's the only way you're going to see me again". Remember when Derren Brown tried to fool his viewers into thinking they were stuck in their seats? That's how I feel now, for some reason Cher asking me to pick up a phone if I want to see her again has made my entire body go numb and refuse to move even an inch. Funny, that. I think Derren's experiment would have worked infinitely better if he had just played a loop of Cher saying that for 5 minutes, in all honesty.
Rebecca next, and there follows a brief period of reflecting on the fact that (a) she was crap last week and (b) she's from LIVERPOOL. "I had to think really carefully about the song I was choosing for her". What Cheryl, does the song have words in its title with more than one syllable in them?
For ageing rockers night Rebecca is also singing a U2 song! Yay for variety! It's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (a decent mentor)". It's better than last week (although having one's toenails removed with rusty pliers would have been preferable to her offering last week), but there's still something missing. I can't imagine anyone actually enjoying seeing her in concert because she has enough difficulty sustaining my interest for the duration of one song. No such problem for the judges though, who are all chomping at the bit to get some Rebecca-worship done.
Matt and Katie next!
Matt has fortunately remembered his shirt and jacket this week, and is singing "I Love Rock and Roll (nearly as much as I love girly ballads). Louis "You're thre most consistent performer on the competition" sums him up really. You know what you're going to get from Matt, and that's competent yet uninspiring background music versions of your favourite classics (usually girly ballads) resulting in him being bizzarely popular. If Chris Martin ever leaves Coldplay Matt will probably be the first to hear about it.
"The mask is being removed". Yes, that's why Katie had her hair cut. I'm pretty sure that the only way to actually remove her mask would be to chop her head off and that's just ridiculou... hmm, it could work, maybe it's worth a go? "I don't have to try to be anybody else to make a good impression" she declares, making her decision in past weeks to be about 63 different people all of whom the public hated seem even more baffling. The most hilarious thing of all is that still nobody seems to have realized that probably at least half of the people who are bothered by her would have stopped caring by now if everyone on the programme had just shut the hell up about "THE REAL KATIE" a month ago.
Oh wow. They're going to have a job topping this for most hilarious song choice of the series. It's "Sex On Fire", which the rumour mill suggests is being performed as a tribute to an unfortunate client of her grandmother's who forgot to bring a few tubes of lubricant along with him. In fact, imagine if you dare that you were that client and that's a physical representation of what this tragic assault on the viewers' ears sounds like. Katie is the 'EastEnders' of X Factor contestants - if you pay attention to the aforementioned soap opera for a while you will notice that the characters only ever whisper loudly or shout at each other, no dialogue is ever spoken 'normally' and that's what Katie does. She loudly whispers her way through the verses then uncomfortably shouts the chorus, and she indulges in the X Factor tradition of Making The Song Her Own by, umm, shouting "YEAH!", "WOOO!" and various other things at random, like she has polite Tourettes.
"I can see you fronting your own rock band", Louis informs her. Move over Siouxsie and the Banshees, it's Katie and the Weasels! In other news it's taken Dannii "Quick off the mark" Minogue two months to notice that Katie might just be trying a little teensy-weensy itsy-bitsy bit too hard. "Only you... could come out on that stage and sing my sex is on fire". Oh my, Simon hasn't just gone there, he's bought a giant mansion and moved in there.
Lines open, and after the break we start all over again. I'm going to need 100cc of pure alcohol, stat.
No comments:
Post a Comment