IT’S TIME. TO DISGRACE. THE MUSIC. Well, actually, that time
was last Saturday, but Frankie’s ejection from the show early on Tuesday
afternoon actually rippled backwards in time and caused my body to enter a
state of extended orgasm which left me completely incapacitated for several
days, hence the lateness of this week’s recap. On with the show! We quickly cover
last week’s events, by which I mean we spend several minutes before the title
music even begins watching the highlights of last week’s episode. By
highlights, I mean the parts that didn’t make you want to stab pencils into both
your eyes and ears to make the hurting stop. By eyes and ears, I mean the
sensory organs that you put under immense strain each week as you force them to
attempt to make sense of this show.
Following the interminably interminable recap, Dermot
arrives on-stage with another dance routine. I guess he set an X FACTOR
PRECEDENT last week, and we all know those are legally binding. He reminds us
of this week’s theme, club-classics, a “ballad-free zone”. Whatever will
Biscuitman do? It’s also a double elimination, which means the act with the
lowest number of votes will face instant ejection, shame and sorrow; while the
other two-thirds of the bottom three compete in the sing-off. Also: Kelly
Rowland is back and holding Tulisa’s hand again during their walk on-stage, so we
can all pretend they don’t hate one another’s guts.
First up is Johnny Robinson, who points out in his VT that
most people who win the X-Factor aren’t his age. They also don’t look like
Skeletor in drag, Johnny. Johnny is the unfortunate victim of Louis Walsh’s
medley machine this week, as he performs both Madonna’s Hung Up and Dead or
Alive’s You Spin Me Right Round. In fairness to Louis though, he’s been rather
restrained with the Medley Machine this year. Around this point in 2010, we’d
already had Wagner’s unforgettable triple medley of Hippy Shake, Hey Jude and
Get Back. I wonder what Wagner is doing right now. Something filthy, no doubt.
Anyhow, this performance is slightly schizophrenic, as we switch between
shrill, plate-shattering voiced Johnny for Hung Up, to Low Voice Masculine
Johnny for Spin Me. Well, as masculine as Johnny gets, which is at about the
same level of masculinity as having a manicure whilst being fisted by Dale
Winton. JUDGES! Tulisa found it predictable; Kelly says she wanted to dance
with him, and Gary Barlow has fallen into a coma due to the unbearable boredom
of being Gary Barlow.
Next we have Wee Janet Devlin from Horrible Ireland. Wee
Janet has taken control of everything this week, including her styling. This
explains why she looks almost like a normal teenage girl rather than the ginger
wraith haunting the moors that the evil fashion Nazis of the Style Team™ prefer
to dress her as. She’s straightened her hair! She isn’t wearing black!
Unfortunately, Wee Janet spent so much time on her styling that she forgot to
learn the words to the song, and there are a couple of awkward silences in the
performance where she shuffles about on-stage while the viewer fills in the
missing words to the Jackson Five’s I Want You Back. You know, that song that
literally everyone knows the words to. JUDGES! Louis loved it, because Janet is
Irish. Tulisa backtracks on her desire to see Janet do something different and
tells her to stick with what she knows. Stay in your box, Janet! Don’t you dare
try and emerge from that niche the judges have decided you must occupy! Gary
apes Tulisa. GET BACK IN THE BOX, JANET. BACK IN THE BOX AND PUT THE LID DAHN.
Biscuitman is up next, and his VT revolves around the
difficulty he’s having in singing something that isn’t a ballad. Which is why
he comes out and sings Heaven in the style of a ballad with up-tempo music. So
long as Craig hits those glory notes and makes uncomfortable faces, the
audience will lap it up. Also: there is dancing. Dancing Craig is a frightening
sight. Combined with the scary snarling and off-putting faces, it just makes it
seem even more likely that he’s going to emerge from the TV screen and kill me.
I usually have at least two night terrors a week concerning Craig “The Killer”
Colton. This performance is going to ensure I don’t get a good night’s sleep
for a week. JUDGES! Louis loved it, Tulisa loved it, and random words fall out
of Kelly Rowland’s mouth in a completely incomprehensible fashion.
Following that, we have The Nu Risk Vibe. The boys who are
the members of the band this week got to meet JLS and asked them for advice on
being a boyband. JLS responded by informing them that they might want to
consider not changing members every time the audience blinks, for a start. A
completely not-at-all staged part of the intro-video sees The Attractive One
from JLS ask The Blacker of the Two Black Ones from The Risk if it’s true that
he gave Nicole Scherzinger his phone number last week. Glad you asked,
Attractive One from JLS! Because it is indeed true, and why, the cameras just
happened to be around to record the very moment when it happened! Fancy that.
Not recorded: the moment when Nicole reminds him that she’s only recently
single, completely heartbroken over her split from Lewis Hamilton, and now
wants to drive a dagger through her heart because of all the pain he’s dredged
up for her. I hope he’s happy. The Risk are singing A Night to Remember this
week. In a clever move, they’ve decided to juxtapose this song choice with a
completely forgettable vocal performance. How meta. JUDGES! Louis says
something completely stupid and inane while his brains just slide out of his
ears on-screen. Kelly tells them they need to harmonise better. For once, she’s
correct about something. Gary Barlow has ceased to exist due to the unbearable
boredom of being Gary Barlow.
Next up is Marcus Collins, who I’ve decided is going to be
this year’s winner. Well, either him or Biscuitman. Preferably Marcus, because
he’s cute as a button and doesn’t make faces that give me nightmares. Marcus
sings Reet Petite, which is one of those songs you totally know even if you
don’t know the title of it. It’s pretty good, and at least the entire
performance, with several dancers and a big 1950s vibe to it, has a lot of
energy, unlike every other performance thus far for “Club Classics” night. Even
Rebecca Ferguson managed a bit more energy last year than most of 2011’s
contestants, and she was a fucking android. JUDGES! Louis is very enthusiastic
about the talented, attractive young gay man, for some reason. He goes so far
as to compare him to a Little Bruno Mars, a Little Jackie Wilson, a Little
Everly Brothers and a Little Little Richard. Meanwhile, Paije Richardson sobs
uncontrollably at home with only his memories to console him.
Goddess Kitty is next, and her intro-video is all about her
creative streak. Included is a clip wherein she genuinely suggested approaching
the song in a post-Apocalyptic manner. I love her. Also featured: Kitty
suggests a performance inspired by Sister Act 2 (NOT THE FIRST ONE, NEVER THE
FIRST ONE), using a zip-line to travel to the stage, or singing the song in the
style of a Hellenic Goddess weeping for Greece’s financial ruin. Kitty is
singing Madonna’s Like a Prayer tonight. Much as it pains me to be critical of
Her Fierceness, it’s not Kitty’s best performance, and is a bit lifeless and
dull. Though it says something about Kitty’s usual calibre that I find a
performance involving explosions of glitter, dancers dressed as nuns and
mid-song costume changes dull. JUDGES! Tulisa reckons Kitty is the only
contestant who could hold people’s attention at a concert for 90 minutes. Kelly
and Louis have a massive bitch-off where Louis does that thing where he gets
all indignant and shouts over the other person and just comes off as a massive
knob. Gary Barlow winks back into existence long enough to call Kitty a shitty
dancer, before ceasing to exist again because he’s so fucking boring.
Up next, teehee. It’s Frankie. Teehee. Teeheehee. Okay, so I
wasn’t laughing when I first sat through this intro-video and performance. I actually
wanted to tear my teeth out of my skull and jam them into my eyes to make the
hurting stop. As ever, the intro-video is accompanied by the likes of Franz
Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys and Vampire
Weekend, just in case we forget how edgy and indie and credible Frankie is.
That’s why he’s singing I Gotta Feeling, by the Black Eyed Peas. I guess having
the most objectively awful contestant in the history of this show perform a
song by the most objectively awful band in the history of music has a certain
logical symmetry. Looking back, you’d never have thought this was going to be
Frankie’s last performance on the X-Factor. Assuming that you ignore the fact
that it’s exceptionally bad, even by his usual low standards, which are located
somewhere below sea level. He falls about on-stage tunelessly talking through
the song for 2 minutes of my life that I’m never going to get back. JUDGES!
Louis Walsh completely lays into Frankie. “Gary has built you up into being
this rock star. You’re not a rock star. You never will be a rock star.” It took
eight years, people, eight long years, but Louis Walsh finally made a good
point. Tulisa is confused because she was just getting used to rebellious
Frankie and then he comes out and sings the Black Eyed Peas. BACK IN YOUR BOX,
FRANKIE. Preferably one with no air holes. Kelly tries to take Louis to task
for telling Frankie “what he’ll never be”, and they basically have another
bitch-off where Louis comes off as a massive cunt but WHO CARES WHEN HE JUST
DELIVERED A DEVASTATING ASSESSMENT TO FRANKIE. Kelly tells Frankie that he
really needs to work on his vocal, as it’s the only thing that’s lacking. In
this singing competition. Nothing gets past that Kelly Rowland. Gary chastises
Louis and the audience for booing the disgusting human slagheap that is
Frankie.
From the ridiculous to the sublime, it’s Misha B! Misha’s VT
is basically The Rehabilitation of Ms Misha B (Part 2) because it obviously
didn’t work last week. So this week we’re treated to Humble Misha! Fun-loving
Misha! Hard-working Misha! Essentially-an-Orphan-Misha Being Visited By
Extended Family Misha! At no point do we see her bullying anyone, so we can
safely conclude that Misha B is definitely not a bully and we should all vote
for her so she can win instead of Craig Colton. Oh, they’ve decided to give
Misha the week off and have a clone of a young Tina Turner perform Proud Mary
instead. Wait, silly me, it’s just Misha being awesome again this week with an amazing
‘fro to boot. Is there any hairstyle she can’t pull off? JUDGES! Louis Walsh
surprises us all by announcing that he loves Tina Turner and he loved that
performance. Tulisa loves the toned-down Misha. Toned down in this case means
sporting an afro with a radius of 5-feet rather than a rhino-horn or crown made
from newspapers on her head. Gary says something but Misha bullies him back
into non-existence because she hates boring people. And interesting people. And
everyone else. Misha B will fuck you up.
Closing the show is Little Kandy Girl-Lash. Tulisa
introduces them by reminding us that they’re at the vanguard of fourth-wave
feminism and have endorsements from Germaine Greer, bell hooks, Judith Butler
and Catherine Mackinnon. Continuing from last week’s attempt to allow the
audience to get to know the girls as individuals, we find out which part of the
country each of them is from, and a little bit about their childhood. There’s
Pick ‘n’ Mix, who lived in Essex until she was forced to leave by a famine that
mysteriously ended when she left to take part in the show. Then there’s Mixed
Race, who’s from High Wycombe and discovered she could sing when an intruder
broke into her home and threatened to kill her family unless she touched him.
And she did. MUSICALLY. Then there’s Mixed Up, from South Shields, who used to
sing at old people’s homes until they took out a restraining order against her.
Finally, there’s Myxomatosis, who’s also from South Shields and used to sing
for coins in the laundrette which she melted down to make genital piercings
with. See, aren’t they lovely girls? Don’t you want to vote for them? If you
don’t then you’re an anti-woman misogynist, you patriarchal pig. Little Kandy
Girl-Lash sing Rihanna’s Please Don’t Stop the Music. They’ve decided to take a
unique approach to the song, by choosing to perform it completely out of tune.
I have to give it to Pick ‘n’ Mix though, when it comes to the dance moves she
really gives it socks. What with the light-up costumes they’re wearing, and the
neon lighting on-stage, it’s like watching an epileptic elephant. JUDGES! Louis
loves everything about them, Kelly really believes in them but wants to be
slain by them a capella and Tulisa reminds us all of their feminist credentials
for the fiftieth time.
RESULTS SHOW
For this week’s horrendous group song, our darlings decided
to murder Jessie J’s Price Tag. That’s not so bad though, because that song is
fucking shit anyway. This was followed with a performance from JLS, who were
completely overshadowed by Florence and the Machine being amazing immediately
after them. Then Dermot reveals the results: Little Kandy Girl-Lash are
through. Hooray for neon elephants! Marcus is safe, as is Misha B, which means
that a huge spike in the number of young people suffering Chinese burns and
kidney-punches has been averted for another week. Craig is safe, as is Frankie.
And Wee Janet.
This is the part where I would rant for an entire paragraph
about the fact that Frankie was safe, but the fuckwit has now been expelled
from the show so I need do nothing but revel in my joy. *revels*
Okay, I’m done revelling. The bottom three are The Risk, Goddess
Kitty and Johnny. Goddess Kitty is going to make the world regret wronging her
this way. The Risk are immediately ejected for having the lowest number of
votes, and Tulisa is genuinely shocked and appalled. That’s exactly how I felt
when Frankie survived. There’s a montage of The Risk’s time on the show,
which actually amounts to a highlight reel of the eighty different singers
combined in dozens of configurations who were at one point or another all
members of The Risk. I think all of us were members of The Risk at some point.
Sing-off time! Johnny performs Unchained Melody in
his gender-bendingly confusing style, which means that he sings it surprisingly
well, albeit in tones you’d expect to come from a 47 year old lounge singer
named Denise rather than a bloke. Kitty sings Kelly Clarkson’s Beautiful
Disaster and also sings it well. Dermot goes to Louis first for his verdict,
and Louis picks Kitty as he thinks she’d sell more records in “the real world”.
As opposed to that imaginary world where Louis thought contestants like Johnny
and Goldie Cheung might sell records when he picked them. Tulisa picks Kitty
for similar reasons, and because Kitty would actually decimate the population
of the British Isles and perhaps even all of continental Europe if she was
ejected. Kelly Rowland reminds the public to put their hats on when voting.
This is because she’s from Georgia, where people vote by wearing hats with the
name of their preferred candidate or amendment result, and then partake in a
dance-off with the opposing sides. It’s a good thing that a majority vote was
reached, as Gary Barlow continues to not exist due to being exceedingly dull.
Johnny says his farewells and Louis starts crying because being reminded that
middle-aged gay men of questionable talent have a limited shelf-life makes him
emotional.
Next Week: The fallout from Cocozza-Cocaine-a-palooza! Don’t
miss it, because it’s going to be amazing to see how they spin it.
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