The X-Factor: Week One

And so it begins, from now until Xmas, another marathon of clever edits, leaks to the press, tears, tantrums and dubious themed weeks. Yay, the X-Factor is back to destroy music!

We open with DermHot revealing the worst kept secret in showbiz – the wildcards. To absolutely no one’s surprise, they are: Brazilian sex god Wagner, two-time reject Treyc, Blackpool homosexuals Diva Fever and Big Gay Paije. The scenes of Diva Fever being “surprised” by the news of their return to the show are made more hilarious by the bathhouse (the official group noun for homosexuals) of gays who fling themselves at them in a mixture of celebration and desperation to be on television for 3 seconds.

DermHot informs us that from now on we’ll be able to download the artist’s performances from iTunes every week after the show. I’m amazed that after 7 years they’re still finding ways to wring even more revenue out of this programme.

First up, we have FYD. Your chances of staying on the show are never good when you’re the first to perform on the very first show, and are presumably even worse when you’re the first to perform on a two and a half hour extravaganza. Your chances of staying on the show are at their absolutely lowest when you’re a group doing all those things. Fighting their fate, FYD sing Billionaire, one of those annoying songs where someone who isn’t particularly well known sings about being some sort of jet-set superstar with thousands of adoring fans and a huge back catalogue of hits despite being completely unknown. A fairly bog-standard performance; not particularly inspiring or memorable. Judges! Cheryl seems determined to say something positive about everyone tonight in order to reclaim her status as nation’s sweetheart following her role in single-handedly banishing Gamu Nenghu from Britain, so she applauds FYD on their singing and dancing, because it is hard to do two things at once.

Second performance! Matt Cardle the painter with the stupid hat and the incredibly emotive voice. But not as emotive as Gamu's. She made Louis cry. WE WILL REMEMBER. It is surprising that bookie’s favourite Matt is on so early. I guess they reckon they don’t have to place artists strategically until after the first few weeks. Matt sings... When Love Takes Over, originally by Kelly Rowland featuring David Guetta featuring Kelly Rowland featuring David Guetta. I'ts pretty good. Original, anyway, and he gets to be all competent with his voice and whatnot. Not the most charismatic performer though, as he awkwardly struggles around with his mic stand. Expect another few weeks of Matt intro videos going on about opening his eyes with exasperated comments from Brian Friedman about “connecting” with the audience.

Next up: Mr. Celophane. Or John Adeleye, as he is also known. His intro video makes a few noises about knowing he’s not the most memorable person in the competition and blah blah blah... so he comes out and sings One Sweet Day, one of the most predictable music competition show choices there is. In contrast to Dannii’s inspired song choice for Cardle, this is just the usual boring selection from Louis. Completely unremarkable and forgettable. Judges! Cheryl continues being nice in order to get us to love her again. She has a new album out in a few weeks and it isn’t going to shift otherwise! Simon and Louis have a spat over whether One Sweet Day was number one or not.

Rebecca Ferguson, the Compulsory Single Mother Contestant, is up next performing Teardrops. It is... middling. She’s nice and all... as a person. But the song is blah and doesn’t really suit her interesting voice (I mean that in a nice way) and is just completely lacking personality. She’s basically what happens when you take Stacey Solomon and take away the things that made her interesting like Judaism and mild retardation.

After John and Rebecca sent us all to sleep, we need something attention grabbing to wake us up and... Christ on a bike... it’s Storm Lee. Whose hair has been dyed red to symbolise his rising from the ashes like a Phoenix to be given his second chance. For someone so inherently ridiculous, he takes himself awfully seriously. He’s singing We Built This City on Rock and Roll, a song I cannot hear without thinking of Homer Simpson. Which is apt given how much of a cartoon character “Storm” is. Also: as an X-Men fan I resent having to type a capitalised version of the word storm without it referring to Ororo Monroe. Storm is fairly limp vocally and the “performance”, which involves Mild Shower dropping from a raised platform into the waiting arms of a bunch of dancers dressed as zombie gimp bank robbers, reveals the slight exaggeration from his intro video where he said he’d be “falling 15 feet from a plank”. Judges! Louis does one of his patented Cringe-Inducing Behaviours by reminding viewers in Scotland that STORM LEE IS SCOTTISH AND THEY SHOULD VOTE FOR HIM OUT OF BLIND PATRIOTISM AND NOT EVALUATE HIM BASED ON TALENT AND VOTE ACCORDINGLY BECAUSE LOUIS IS THAT DESPERATE TO STAY IN THE COMPETITION SO VOTE NOW SCOTLAND OR YOU’LL BE COMMITTING TREASON.

Next up we have Belle Amie, the hastily formed girl group named after Louis Walsh’s favourite Eastern European porn site. They’re doing Airplanes, that boring song by B.O.B. and that twat from Paramore. And they somehow manage to make it even worse, with a completely out-of-tune and disharmonious performance. The X-Factor run of abysmal girl groups continues unabated. At least Husstle had the girl with the brilliant mohawk. Belle Amie are so going tomorrow or next week. Judges! Make delusional comments about Belle Amie having a great image (they’re wearing clothes that even Cheryl Cole wouldn’t be seen in) and there being a gap in the market for a group like them. Yes, people are definitely clamouring for 4 girls who can’t sing in tune.

Mini-Cheryl is next. Singing... well, okay, singing is pushing it. There is rapping and some frail singing and... well, I want to like Cher for some reason, but she’s clearly only capable of doing one thing and that isn’t going to get her far when we get to themed weeks like 80s Power Ballads With 15 Second Long Glory Notes At The End Because Glory Notes Make Simon Horny. Unless she’s saved by a timely onset of the Diana Vickers strain of tonsillitis before a tricky theme week. Also, for someone who newspapers would have us believe is “fragile” and “falling apart” she seems confident enough. The judges are rather effusive in their praise, perhaps a little too much, but I guess the producers have demanded such in the wake of Gamugate.

Diva Fever. Only one of whom actually seems to sing. Only one of whom seems to appear onscreen actually. The camera blatantly ignores the chunkier one. They’re abysmal, and I have NO IDEA what is going on with the ill advised costume change halfway through. So bad it almost makes me wish for the good old days of Same Difference. Almost.

Big Gay Paije is next. Singing Killing Me Softly... with her song? Gender changed lyrics? Bwahahaha! Who do they think they’re kidding? He’s also wearing what appears to be everything that went wrong fashion-wise in the 1980s vomited onto to his considerable frame. I don’t know what the stylists are on tonight but it was clearly either past the sell by date or cut with too much rat poison. There’s a hilarious bit where he skips/stomps/lunges around the stage to the back of the judges and runs of breath mid-lyric.

Next up is Rita Repulsa, aka Katie Waissel. Katie looks sort of like a post-apocalyptic Artemis. I guess emulating the Goddess of the Hunt is pretty apt for someone chasing fame so intensely. Katie is doing Queen’s We Are the Champions, the song favoured by drunken sports fans worldwide. Not particularly difficult to sing, Katie does a serviceable if unspectacular job. The camera pans overhead at one point, revealing that Katie is limply moving her hands about the keyboard pretending to play, shattering the delusions of the 3 people who actually believed she was. DermHot asks her about her difficult week and she mutters something stupid while psionically absorbing the fame energy she needs to survive.

Big Mary Byrne is next. Did you know that she used to work on the checkout in Tesco? Did you? Well, she did. SHE DID. I know she’s never mentioned it before, but honestly, she did. They’ve changed Mary’s makeover shots and are no longer using the Dawn French ones. This disappoints me greatly. Mary performs This Is a Man’s World, and it’s pretty flawless. She gets a massive reaction, and it’s all very touching and emotional. Louis somehow manages to resist screaming EVERYONE IN IRELAND VOTE FOR MARY, possibly because he knows that after about 3 years of being unable to take part in the voting, the Republic doesn’t need any extra encouragement to exercise its newly reinstated franchise in what has been described as the biggest step forward in Anglo-Irish relations since the Good Friday Agreement.

Nicolo Festa and his intro video of judgemental stares, which all give the impression that if he ever deigned to notice you, it’d only be for long enough to deliver a crippling put-down. He’s doing Lady Gaga’s Just Dance, and alas, it doesn’t really work. Louis makes a joke about working with 3 divas that goes down like a lead balloon and is followed by 5 seconds of awkward silence. Fuck off, Louis. Cheryl Cole actually says something negative for the first time this evening, presumably having momentarily forgotten that Promise This is available to download on October 24^th. Mark it in your diary, folks, and then download something else instead.

We have the Bieber Squad now, aka One Direction. The intro video tries to create some drama (as the intro videos always do, by pointing out some failing, such as a throat infection, forgetting the lyrics, or inability to “connect” that the performer has had in rehearsal that could DESTROY EVERYTHING if repeated in the live show) by telling us that Zain, the stroppy one who refused to dance at Boot Camp, got his timing wrong in rehearsal. The boys perform Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, and they clearly didn’t have to worry about Zain getting his timing wrong because not one of them is in tune with the other. The cacophony of disharmony ends with the audience’s ears bleeding and Simon applauding One Direction for being so current and relevant.

WAGNER. The Brazilian Sex God performs a medley of She Bangs and Love Shack. You just know that at some point in his life, Wagner has been to a gentleman’s club called The Love Shack. Initially I reckoned that it was remembering the girls of The Love Shack that was fuelling Wagner’s unbridled sexual magnetism, but then I realised that no, it was all just pure Wagner. Such is the raw sexual dynamism on display that by the end of his performance, Wagner’s backing dancers have been impregnated through sheer proximity to the heaving mass of masculinity that is this Brazilian beast. There are bongos at one point. Wagner plays the bongos. I don’t care what the judges say, because Wagner was amazing and that is an objective, measurable fact.

The last of the boys: Aiden Grimshaw and his Amazingly Broad Shoulders. I’m just going to get this bit out of the way: I so would. After Wagner, obviously. Aiden sings Mad World in the style of Gary Jules. Despite his odd little jerky physical ticks and the ugly snarly faces he makes while singing, it’s pretty damn good. His performance consists of sitting upon what can only be described as The Throne of Winter, then getting up and staring intensely into the camera. Where does Brian Friedman get such creativity from? Sitting down and then standing up? Amazing.

Finishing the show, we have Treyc Cohen, who I don’t care about because she isn’t Gamu. She does U2’s One by way of the Mary J Blige cover version. The camera pans behind her and sweet Christmas, that is one massive arse. If you combined her arse with Aiden’s shoulders you’d get some sort of... 8 foot tall giant arse shoulder monster. The vocals aren’t perfect, but she hits the glory note at the end and that’s all Simon Cowell ever cares about in a performance from a woman so he decides that she was the best singer of the night. Er, where were you when Wagner was creating a modern fertility ritual on those bongos, Cowell?

Tomorrow Night: Double ejection! Bye bye Belle Amie, John or FYD!