X Factor Week 4 Recap and Results

It’s time! To face! The fact that this show is now less relevant than The Great British Bake Off. A show about BAKING. It’s Halloween Week on the X-Factor. Fitting, given the show is a zombie itself at this point. But yet I must continue to watch, because it is the oxygen that my hate lungs need to continue producing the bile that fuels my snark-furnace. I have a very fucked up biological make-up. In previous years, the Halloween show has brought us such delights as Jedward murdering Ghostbusters and Wagner doing Bat out of Hell. Last year’s show was when Little Kandy Girl Lash, now known as Little Mix, started to come into their own, and just look at them now: a musical juggernaut the likes of which we have never seen. Who knows what’ll happen on tonight’s show. Maybe Chris Maloney will sing Backstreet’s Back while dressed as a zombie Shirley Temple? Maybe Union J will perform as fanny pads, because that’s just how badly they want to be close to you, baby. Literally none of these things could happen, but it’s nice to pretend, isn’t it? What will actually happen is that everyone will proceed to sing regular songs but with slightly more eyeliner on than normal. On with the show!

Dermot arrives to the strains of Thriller. Well done, show. Four minutes in and you’ve already hit the point of cliché. I think that’s a new record. Dermot gives out the voting numbers, because waiting until after the acts have performed might involve continuing the charade that this show is about finding a good singer. He also explains that Lucy the lesbian is too ill to take part in tonight’s show. She’s developed a very severe case of lesbianism. Doctors took a reading and discovered she had 11 Ellens per Portia on the Nell McCafferty scale. This means they’re going to have to pad out the show even more somehow, doesn’t it? Yay!

Kye is up first. Every week, when I see what act is up first, in what was formerly the death slot, I speculate that this means we’ll see the last of them. And this year, with alarming regularity, they proceed to make it through. So I’m not going to get my hopes up this week. In his VT, Kye is confused. Gary wonders what they can learn from last week’s travesty. Kye says he needs to have fun. And what better way to learn to have fun than with a little help from Robbie Williams, the court jester of British pop. Kye is going to sing one of Robbie’s own songs. Robbie gives Kye lots of useful advice, and we can literally watch him growing as an artist in front of our eyes thanks to the intervention of Mr Williams. That’s a lie. Needless to say, Kye is performing Let Me Entertain You. Which is thematically relevant to Halloween because... well, it isn’t But Kye is wearing even more eyeliner than normal (i.e. a truckful of  Maybelline has been deposited onto his face) and on the X-Factor eyeliner = Halloween. Kye is wearing his hair up so he looks kinda like one of those emos or Goths who decides to dress as a normal person for Halloween because that’s so hilarious.

JUDGES! Nicole says that it was very entertaining, with all the conviction of a parent reassuring their child that they’re still special after watching them bomb at a school talent show. Louis isn’t sure that Kye did enough to save himself this week. Gary says that Kye came back with a boom, that he came back with a bang... basically Gary just offers a selection of onomatopoeias as his critique.

Oh fuck, it’s Union J. IF YOU ARE A YOUNG LADY YOU WILL LIKE THIS BECAUSE THE X-FACTOR TOLD YOU SO. Their intro-video makes me want to stick pins into my eyes. It’s all about a MAD week in the cray-cray world of Union J. ZOMG. The purpose of this is to show they have fun personalities and that you’d want them to be your boyfriends! On Monday Gaymi has his aversion therapy! They hook electrodes to his testicles and force him to watch gay porn! Lol! On Tuesday they went to the Skyfall premiere, where Gaymi relapsed and sucked someone off in the gents! OMG! On Wednesday, Poor Man’s Harry Styles had foetal matter implanted into his face to ensure he continues to look like a poor man’s Harry Styles! Amazeballs! On Thursday, they recover from Rylan’s birthday party, where they were dressed as crazy blood-splattered doctors which was soooooo funny!!!!! These boys really don’t have single brain cell between them, do they? They’re collectively at the same level of intellect as Niall Horan. On Friday, they met Robbie Williams, or maybe it was Thursday, or Saturday... I’m not sure, it’s very hard to keep up with the insane world of Union J, and once was enough to watch that VT, thanks. This week, the boys will be singing that well-known spine-tingler, Sweet Dreams, by Beyoncé Knowles. They perform the song from atop a car. How very urban. How very MK1. Never forget. I think its a subtle anti-speeding message. The youth of today really respect the messages that Union J endorse.

JUDGES! Gary challenges them to come back with something different next week. Damn, they were just planning on doing the same song. Nicole Sherzingerbot thought it was perfection because they stand and own it and pay attention to the girls. It’s very important that they pay attention to the girls, she says, eyeballing Gaymi. Gary disagrees with Nicole’s assessment and they continue to fight over the subjective beauty of it all. Nicole ultimately wins the argument, citing Roland Barthes’ notion of the death of the author as justification for her interpretation of Union J’s performance as manifest beauty.

RYLAN NATION. Rylan waltzes around with a product placed Samsung tablet computer. He happens to walk into Gary Barlow and they have a contrived and set-up conversation in the mould of The Only Way Is Essex, or the cancerous crust on the arse of humanity, as I prefer to think of it. A show that’s more interested in selling a sponsor’s product, via an enforced narrative, featuring Gary Barlow. This VT is a case study in several of the things that are wrong with the X-Factor. It was Rylan’s birthday this week. Zingerbot showed up and performed Happy Birthday, having updated her software with a new eroticism suite. Judging by Lucy’s reaction, it seems to have worked. Rylan descends from the ceiling on a Perspex slab while singing Toxic. I should clarify that this is his performance I’m talking about, not his birthday party. Rylan alights onto the Judge’s Table and transitions into Horny. Again, I must clarify that I’m talking about the song, and not a state of being. He then moves into Poison, a song from Zingerbot’s own oeuvre.  Toxic Horny Poison? On a scale of 1 to Rylan, I give this performance five point Rylan.

JUDGES! After 4 weeks with both feet planted firmly in the 1980s, Louis takes a giant leap forward into contemporary music by correctly identifying Nicole’s song. Tulisa commends Rylan on coming out and performing “to the best of [his] ability”. The wording there is crucial. Gary confeses that he has not given an honest critique of Rylan yet. He says that it wasn’t worse than last week, it was too loud to hear him and that the dancers were good. Nicole rebuffs Gary’s remarks by standing up and gyrating while singing “Horny”. She is as mad as a bucket of cats. Rylan promises that if he makes it through to next week he’ll strip away all the artifice and prove he can sing. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, dear.

It’s time for Adella, the artist formerly known as  Epona, the Celtic Goddess of Donkeys, Mules and Horses, in her mortal form as Ella the Baby Pony and Adele Clone. I think I’m just going to find ways to make her name longer every week until she wins this competition. Given her massive mouth, I thought Halloween is the the perfect opportunity for Adella to dress up as Vagina Dentata, but nope, she’s wearing some clothes from the Janet Devlin cast-off rack. Obviously they’ve been let out just a little bit. Why am I so horrible to Adella? I mean, she’s only SIXTEEN! Sixteen, I say? Yes, sixteen! In her VT, Adella meets Robbie Williams who tries to relate to her and fails terribly, because being SIXTEEN and an immortal pony goddess with a voice like a soaring mountain isn’t really comparable to being sixteen, in Take That, and smearing jam across your buttocks in the hopes of getting noticed. For a moment it sounds like Adella is going to sing Rolling in the Deep, but it’s actually Bring Me to Life by Evanescence. Did you know that internet scientists have proved that it is literally impossible to search for anything related to television, film or video games on Youtube without finding an earnest fan-made highlight reel of emotional moments set to either Bring me to Life or My Immortal? It’s true, try it out yourself. Anyway, Evanescence came betwixt the nu-metal and emo eras so... that’s Halloween?! As part of her Devlin-ensemble, Adella is wearing a cape which she not-so-triumphantly discards during the performance. Nicole is paying some serious attention to the performance. Take a look at the screencap above. She is listening the fuck out of this song. Or maybe she’s performing a hard reset.

JUDGES! Gary doesn’t like it when people mention Adella’s age. Conveniently forgetting he mentioned it himself about 48 times last week. Nicole says it’s her least favourite performance of Adella’s, but that’s like saying that an electronic fund transfer is her least favourite way of receiving a million euros: either way it isn’t that bad. Gary and Nic have a spat about keys and epic choruses and stuff. Adella summons a pantheon of Celtic gods to let loose their fury on Nicole. The judges only mention her age once, which is disappointing for anyone playing 16 Bingo at home.

What can I say about Chris that I haven’t already said? Well, I don’t think I’ve called him a cum-farting nancy-biscuit yet, so there’s that. In no way would I advocate that anyone jump on a plane, travel to London, and stab Chris Maloney in the throat live on National Television, but I think that if that WERE to happen, it wouldn’t necessarily be a terrible thing. His VT is all about reminding us why Chris is the people’s champion and not a vile piss-shitting titty whistler. So it’s a rerun of his first audition all over again to remind us of HIS TERRIBLE NERVES AND HE COULD SHIT HIMSELF AT! ANY! POINT! I think this is the fiftieth time we’ve been made to endure Chris’s first audition again. ME NERVES are especially bad at Halloween with all the fireworks and bangers going off. The chances of a nerve-related Christopher shitplosion increase sevenfold during the run-up to Oct 31st. Between Chris and James Arthur’s panic attack last week; can they not just get a prescription for some Xanax? Gary informs Chris that his mother is a big fan. Chris says his Nan is so proud of him. So they’ve confirmed that people who like Chris tend to be over 60. Is that the target demographic for this show now?

For this week’s performance, Chris will be wearing Page 21 of the Topman winter catalogue. I think himself and Kye have been swapping fashion tips. “Does this look 20 years too young for me?” neither of them asks the other. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement of non-criticism. Chris is singing “I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight”, which fits thematically because they said so. The staging is pirate themed. I have no idea what it’s meant to be about. I didn’t see Brian Friedman in any of the VTs tonight so I’m just going to assume all of the Halloween set-pieces were left to his understudy. Maybe Brian has eloped with Lucy. I steadfastly refuse to say anything more about Chris’s performance, because that would involve reliving it in my head. In decades to come, children will look up at their mothers with wonder and pride and think, “My mummy survived the night Chris Maloney sang I Just Died in Your Arms.”  

JUDGES! Nic thought it was a fun 80s Halloween pop opera. I don’t like you any more Nic. She wants to give him a hug for some reason. Perhaps to check if he is truly made of cheese. We do know that Nicole likes her food after all. Louis doesn’t see Chris as a recording star, which may be the most sensible thing Louis Walsh has ever said. He sees Chris as more of a panto performer. Chris lights up at this. Tulisa thought the vocals were very strong but that the songs Chris sings (80s power ballad cheeseboards) are letting him down. She lays the blame firmly at Gary Barlow. Barlow responds by telling her that her “fag ash breath” is disgusting. Tulisa’s face goes from nought to “I’ma fucking cut you, bitch” in about .5 seconds. She responds that Gary stinks of red wine. It’s all very immature and awkward in a watching a teenage daughter fight with her dad in a restaurant sort of way.

Remember to download the X-Factor app! Or don’t. I don’t give a flying fuck.

District 3’s intro video is a self-congratulatory piece of fluff about how great their performance was last week. It was the first time they’ve enjoyed themselves in the show. Every other week it was like having toenails jammed into their urethras. They’ve hit upon a fiendish plan to ensure continued success: last week, they flashed some abs and weren’t in the sing-off. This week: it’s penis time. Then they go to meet Robbie Williams, who reads something about their performances to date that he was told to read by the producers, then offers some trite advice. Robbie tells them to be a bit more natural, which I hope is a subtle way of saying “Stop with the fucking fuaxmerican accents, you are not the theme tune to The OC”. Performance time! So... the boys are singing I’ll Be Watching You, a song about stalking, while dressed as the raping, murderous droogs from A Clockwork Orange. The X-Factor: now with unfortunate rape connotations. Then they switch to NeYo’s Monster and it all becomes even more of a rampant clusterfuck.

JUDGES! Tulisa asks one of the boys for the cane he used in their performance, and proceeds to ram it up Gary BArlows’s arse. Ten minutes later, when the applause dies down, she informs the boys that she preferred Sting to NeYo. You and 7 billion others, dear. She also manages to use the phrase “en pointe” in an incorrect manner for about the fiftieth time this series. Gary Barlow tells them that their breath smells. He’s also fed up of mash-ups. For once I agree with Gary Barlow. Only Rylan, in his quest to perform more songs per episode than anyone else, should be allowed to perform mash-ups. Nicole was very confused by the staging and doesn’t get the costumes because she has never seen a film rated higher than PG, and even then her parents always protected her from traumatic endings, Phoebe Buffay style.

Nicole looks shocked to when Dermot prompts her to introduce Jahmene. I never know what to expect from Nicole. At least with Louis, it’s always going to be a variation on:

• Everyone in [insert location] needs to vote for you
• You’re like a little [wildly inappropriate comparison]
• I think you’ve got the X-Factor
• Pun based on song title
• You sang your heart out

With Tulisa, I know it’s going to be something about urban roots, having red wine breath or being en pointe.

And with Gary I know its going to be some turgid mediocrity. But with Nicole, I have no idea if she’s going to forget her act’s name, compare them to a foodstuff, or thrust wildly in their direction while implying they have testicles made of titanium. Long may it continue. 

Anyway, Jahmene! In response to last week’s tears, Jahmene admits that everyone needs to feel emotions sometimes. He’s delighted to serve as an inspiration to people who have been filling out Asda application forms in their droves in order to become the next Jahmene. Last week, he received a special invitation from Samuel L Jackson to perform at some charity fundraiser that goes unnamed. Great way to draw attention to whatever cause Sammy was helping out, X-Factor producers! I have little else to say about the VT, because actually being invited to perform for Samuel L Jackson is legitimately cool. Jahmene performs Killing Me Softly. He needs to learn how to tone it done. There’s serious oversinging going on. It’s like listening to Mariah Carey being raped by a swan. Jahmene is accompanied on the giant screen by slow motion images of Tulisa and Dappy from N Dubz happy slapping Gary Barlow to death. It’s glorious. NB: I may be drunk while writing this.

JUDGES! Tulisa says that she’s going to start calling Jahmene the Man Who Can’t be Moved. Let’s add “I am going to start calling you X” to the list of Tulisa clichés. Last week she threatened to start calling Rylan her Babybel. Two minutes before coming up with Jahmene’s new monicker she was referring to him as her “Muffin”. Nicole, never one to be outdone when it comes to wordplay, calls the performance “Jahmazing”. Next week: Nicole suggests various other variations on the word amazing. Dermot asks Jahmene what SLJ was like. “He’s tall and humble” confirms Jahmene. It’s easy to be humble when you’re Nick Fury, godammit.

Jade Ellis is up next and I am delighted to report that this week sees the return of Jade’s adorable daughter! Unfortunately, she spends most of the VT quietly playing with some toys but has a great moment at the start where she squees with delight. VOTE FOR JADE’S DAUGHTER TO WIN. Dressed as a robot set into a spiderweb borg alcove, Jade is performing Freak Like Me. I CALLED THIS LAST WEEK. It’s rather limp and lifeless, unfortunately. She’s going to squander the extra votes the tiny adorable miniature human bought her.

JUDGES! None of them really liked it. Tulisa argues that there’s a ‘feme every week, and the acts get to try new things each week in order to jive with the ‘feme. Ah Tulisa, your first mistake was thinking anyone gave a shit about the theme. Your second mistake was telling Jade it was okay to give a performance with as much verve as a stone.

Last up is James Arthur, the secret lovechild of Ben Mitchell and Matt Cardle by way of the Elephant Man’s womb. Last week James gave a haunting performance of Sexy and I Know It. After the judges acted like Jesus himself had just graced them with an acoustic cover of a song about being the centre of attention, Ben retired backstage to have a chat with Emeli Sandé. This officially marks Emeli Sandé’s three thousandth appearance on television this month alone. Someone should turn it into a competition. Where is Emeli Sandé going to show up this week? If you guess at least 30 places correctly then you get to go a Labrinth gig and perform with him. Which funnily enough is exactly what James did last week. Looking at the images on-screen, I’m very disappointed that there were that many people in the same room as James Arthur and not one of them thought to form an angry mob and chase him away with pitchforks. “That crowd was just stupid”, James declares. He really knows how to endear himself to an audience. Following his performance with Labrinth, James is now officially the most credible X-Factor contestant ever. He’s so credible, he makes Matt Cardle look like Aqua. He’s so credible, that when he leaves this show, he’ll do an interview with a newspaper wherein he blasts it for being so fake. He’s so credible, he should just quit the show and go out on his own. Please? Anyway, before all that happens, we have to make it through this weeks performance. For Halloween, James has raided the Kyeliner. He’s performing Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics. Oh Annie Lennox, you did nothing to deserve this. A computerised wire mesh version of James Arthur’s face spins around on the screen in the background. I don’t know what it’s meant to signify, but it’d easily make the most terrifying screensaver ever. The amont of makeup he’s wearing is even more ridiculous than normal.

JUDGES! Louis Walsh makes some random noises. Tulisa says that James is current and relevant. She would know, she’s been in N’Dubz. Nicole proclaims that he is “The Difference”, which sounds more like a name one of the groups on this show should have. She says that he’s an international recording artists. No he isn’t love, that’s why he’s on the show. Gary Barlow is too inebriated from his obvious red wine problem to proffer an opinion.

RESULTS SHOW!

Tulisa has a nicorette on tonight, which I presume is some “cheeky” response to Gary’s comments about fag ash breath. Oh Tulisa, that’s so urban and edgy of you. Don’t ever change. There’s a group performance but I don’t care about this since they stopped autotuning them, then the first special guest of the night: fun. I must admit it is somewhat amusing hearing Voiceover Man enthusiastically boom “FUN” following their introductory VT. They sing that song they do and I note that the lead singer has a massive mouth of Ella Hendseronian proportions.

The second guest is Robbie Williams, in his annual appearance on this show. I was busy slamming my head into a wall repeatedly while shouting “Why do I still watch this show?” and missed most of Robbie’s performance. I am obviously devastated. Union J and Jade end up in the sing-off, which means there are enough people out there voting for Chris to have prevented him ending up in the bottom two for 5 weeks now. Whoever you are: I will find you and gut you.

Union J perform first, mauling Pink’s [Censored] Perfect. If the Judge’s decide to send the boys home, I think Gaymi should triumphantly punch the air and skip off stage while shouting “I’M FREEEEEEEEE!”

Jade sings Dido’s White Flag and is superior to Union J in every single way. So naturally enough, she ends up going home when Nicole and Gary choose to save Union J instead.

Nicole, my love affair with you is almost at an end. I want my bizarre food analogies back next week, and when given the opportunity to send either boyband home, YOU WILL COMPLY. 

X-Factor 2012: Week Three Recap and Results

It’s time! To smash the meaning of the term “club classic” into irrelevant meaninglessness!

This week’s Dermot dance involves a stand-in busting a move with some impressive back flips and stuff before the real Dermot takes his place for the cameras. Careful Dermot, first they replace you for the dance-in, the next thing you know the hosting duties are being carried out by a robot programmed with an extensive number of hosting-clichés like “Five minute warning!”, “Phone lines are now open!” and “Louis, I need the name of the act you are sending home. LOUIS I NEED THE NAME NOW. LOUIS!”. 

The Judges enter. Dermot asks what they think of this week’s theme, Club Classics. Louis Walsh says the modern club and the disco are basically the same thing. Oh, Louis. 

Me Nerves and his nerves are up first. I hope this means Chris’s days are numbered. An uninspired performance, plus the fact that he’s up first, plus all the recent negative publicity, plus the fact that he’s a cunt should mean bye bye Chris soon. Hopefully. The biggest revelation in Chris’s VT is that he’s 34, which is about 12 years younger than what I was expecting. Presumably the frequent sunbeds and fake tans have destroyed his skin’s elasticity. Chris will be performing Waiting for a Star to Fall, which is a pity because I had hoped he was going to take a shot at Born Slippy. There’s nothing I can say about Chris that I haven’t already said, so I’ll just boil it down to: Chris is a complete and utter pancreas, please don’t vote for him, his orangey-face hurts my eyes.

JUDGES! Nicole calls it a toasty cheese sandwich. One act in and already with the food analogies, Nic? I’ve come to the conclusion that Nicole is constantly puffing on joints in between the adverts, as it’s the only way she can survive being on this show. The constant references to food are just a by-product of her severe case of the munchies. Either that or she’s being sponsored by Tesco. “That performance was like a Tesco Finest Cheese Puff Pastry” she says, holding up her clubcard. Tulisa brilliantly says that while Rylan is cheesy, he’s an acceptable sort of cheese, whereas Chris is just too pungent for her. She explains that the difference is Rylan's a babybel whereas Chris is basically churning his own stilton. Gary Barlow reminds Liverpool to vote if they want to keep Chris far away in London where he can't do any damage.

Mortal Kombat 1 are up next. I wonder in how many different ways they’re going to keep it real this week. In their VT, Sonya Blade explains the massive dilemma that they find themselves in: if they go too underground, then people won’t get it but if they go too overground, then they’ll lose the hardcore credibility they have as respected purveyors of the grim n’gritty sound of the disenchanted masses. I don’t think you have to worry too much about that, dear. Whatever credibility you had as a human being was lost the second you legitimately tried to use the word “overground”. Anyway, MK1 obviously decided to go with underground because I have no idea what their song is. But that’s okay, because they only perform it for about 20 seconds before launching into Tinie Tempah’s Pass Out. STREET. A mash-up/underground/overground hybrid. That’s so daring. That’s so... MK1. It’s so dripping with credibility that it causes Chris Maloney to collapse into a vat of cream cheese.

JUDGES! Tinie’s rap is TOO BIG for Jax from MK1, says Tulisa. That’s exactly what I was thinking. Gary Barlow... agrees with Tulisa? What? Is he just pretending he understood a word she said? Nicole sets her bong down for a moment to say the performance was “shamazing”. Dermot turns to Jax and asks for his response to the Judges’ critiques. “TINIE TEMPAH’S PASS OUT IS SUCH AN AMAZING CLASSIC CHOON AND WE WANT TO PAY HOMAGE TO IT”. Please note that Pass Out, by the 23 year old performer of MK1s homage, was released in 2010. Such an amazing classic.

Also, while I was doing my research (yes I do research for these things), I wiki'd some Tinie Tempah stuff. One of the pages contained the image to the right, which I present only because of the brilliant and completely pointless caption it had on wiki: "Tine Tempah points to the sky in the video". You have to admire the straightforward descriptive genius of that. 

It’s Jahemene next. He’s had a very emotional week, says Nicole. This makes it different from any other week where he screeches emotion at the top of his lungs how? Well, this week, the newspapers/X-Factor producers printed some personal stuff about Jahmene’s dad. To wit: his dad is absolute cunt. And when his dad was being a cunt, Jahmene would take refuge in music. Whitney was his sancturary. And then she died too which just made his life even worse. Wearing an amazingly ridiculous outfit, and in the most pointless scene whatsoever in the intro video, Nicole asks him has he had a tough week. He confirms he has. But here’s the bright side! Because of all this personal trouble, it makes this the perfect week for him to sing this song. What, is he doing Chris Brown or something? No, it actually turns out to be Say A Little Prayer. And Jahmene is back to completely oversinging, which I thought he’d put a rein on last week, but evidently not. Just because you can melisma doesn't mean you should, kids. Say not to unnecessary melisma. It’s Jahmene by numbers. Safe, capable and boring.

JUDGES! Louis thinks he’s like a little Ray Charles. Tulisa thinks he’s amazing. “BALLS!” says Nicole Sherzinger, returning to a recurring theme. “MORE BALLS! DROP THEM ON MY FACE AND LET ME SNIFF DEEPLY!”

Tulisa introduces Jade, who is going to challenge Jahmene in the tough week stakes. I wonder what happened. Perhaps TWO elevators broke down around her. Maybe BOTH her parents were cunts? Well no, she actually had a hurty throat and had to rest her voice. Take THAT, Jahmene! The best part of the VT is a mute Jade’s whiteboard-based conversation with Brian Friedman. Because Friedman is wearing a cape. Yes, a cape. It is as amazing as it sounds. Jade’s actual performance is fine. It really isn’t obvious at all that her throat is hurty, so I’m calling conspiracy. Jade, if you want us to love you, you really need to work your adorable daughter into your VTs again. 

JUDGES! Nicole randomly sings and says lots of stuff about vocals that sounds technical but which she’s probably just making up. 

Over to the boys and Ben Mitchell. I was very worried last week. I’d read all about Ben’s panic attack following Saturday’s live show, but when Sunday’s results show came around, there was no mention of it. I really thought that perhaps the X Factor producers had lost their touch. Surely they wouldn’t let an opportunity to publicise a traumatising experience pass them by like that? Well, I needn’t have worried, because the intro video is all about James’s horrible panic attack. Gary concernedly tells of how he is always encouraging singers to DIG DEEPER into their emotional well of pain, but with James, he doesn’t need to dig any more. STOP DIGGING JAMES! If James digs too far, he’s going to discover an ancient seal that locks away emotions darker than anything humanity can comprehend, and bring about an unequalled age of misery and horror. Funnily enough, that’s also what’ll happen if Chris Maloney wins this year’s show. 

To avoid destroying his fragile emotional stability, James will be singing LMFAO’s Sexy and I Know It. It is odd, but it’s... okay? I guess? I don’t know, I’d had a lot to drink when I watched it the first time and I haven’t been able to rewatch it since in case James shatters my emotional barriers with his deep understanding of the human condition and reduces me to a shivering wreck. 

JUDGES! Nicole calls it a revelation. Then again, she is high and there were lots of bright lights so what she comprehended and what I comprehended are two vastly different things. Gary calls it the performance of the series. Louis lauds him on his unique version of the “LMFO” song. Louis’s words, not mine. Proving yet again how current and up to date he is with the state of the industry. 

It’s Union J. Union J love girls, and they are definitely all straight. Do you know what Union J’s video is all about? It’s all about how much they love girls. They love them so much that you could bury them under a mountain of clunge and they would literally fuck their way out of it. They would put their penises into vaginas because that is what they all want to do because they all love girls. All of them. Especially the one who isn’t gay. Girls! At the end of their VT they make heart symbols with their hands and look earnestly into the camera while the words “Non Threatening Boyfriends” flash subliminally on-screen at a spectrum only visible to girls aged 12-18. They’re performing When Love Takes Over, by the dearly departed Kelly Rowland. This excites me beyond reason. Unfortunately, because it’s Union J and not Kelly Rowland herself, it is a pile of shit. But they are performing atop the X-Factor plinths, which is nice. Everyone loves a bit of plinth action. 

JUDGES! Nicole would’ve liked to have seen more energy. She means that for real. She wants to get so high that she can see energy waves. Maybe if you tried some hallucinogens, Nic? Gary thinks we’re witnessing “the birth of a new boyband”. That sounds messy. I’m imagining boybands are born to some horrific brood queen like the one in Dragon Age or the Aliens films. 

RYLAN NATION. Rylan’s VT is about his beard. His literal beard, not a woman covering up his sexuality. Rylan’s silly and superfluous so he’s allowed to be gay. Not like the poor child in Union J. Rylan’s beard is shorn, and that’s it. Next week: Rylan cuts his toenails. FABULOUSLY. Tonight, Rylan will be reinterpreting J.Lo’s On The Floor, and as his version doesn’t feature Pitbull in any capacity, it is immediately superior to the original. The performance isn’t quite the spectacle of last week, and is in fact a bit boring, but then again it’s hard to top sex pandas, Anna Wntour and Karl Lagerfield. Maybe he’s saving something special for next week's Halloween show. Zombie sex pandas, perhaps?

JUDGES! Gary Barlow loved it and calls it the best thing ever. He offers to give Rylan his 6 Ivor Novello Awards, because he just cannot compete with the depth of Rylan’s talent. Rylan graciously refuses the gesture, as he wishes to make it on his own and is confident that he’ll pick up several of his own gongs throughout the 2013 awards seasons.

It’s our third tough week story of the night! Where will this lie on the barometer between Hurty Throat and Violent Dad? *drum roll* Lucy got drunk0rz with Rylan and they both got kicked out of the hotel where the contestants are staying. But it’s okay, because Tulisa endorses their drunken bad behaviour. Also: Lucy is only 21. Between Lucy, Chris and Kye, I think this is the year of the prematurely aged contestants. Lucy performs an acoustic version of David Guetta and Sia’s Titanium, with verses she’s rewritten herself. She does a better job at working around the weaknesses in her voice than she has previously, but she remains rather limited in what she can do in comparison to some of the others. Like Jahmene. And Rylan. 

JUDGES! Gary calls her rewrites clever, Louis says she’s a brilliant storyteller, and Nicole has wandered off somewhere to make some toast.

It’s alternative chimney sweep Kye Sones! The VT is all about how Kye was shit last week. We watch as Gary candidly forces Kye to watch a replay of his performance on a product placed computer, counting all of the flat notes. There were 32 of them. Kye promises us that this week he’s going to sing for his life, and I don’t have much difficulty believing it because the staging for his performance looks like some kind of post-apocalyptic sacrificial altar. He’s singing Save the World, a song that is much less entertaining when you have to endure it without the video featuring the superhero dogs. When the camera gets close to Kye he looks right into it, probably as a way of connecting with the audience but in reality, it’s quite sinister and makes me think he caused the post-apocalyptic landscape the performance is set in by purposely setting off dirty bombs he dotted in chimneys all around the UK just because he hated humanity that much. 

JUDGES! Gary gaves it a standing ovation. He’s your own act, Gary. Sit down, you tool. Nicole loved it and compares him to Chris Martin. Kye is delighted because statements like that validate his internal image of himself.  

Louis introduces District 3 by naming each one of them in turn, to prove how much effort he puts into getting to know his acts. Don’t worry Louis, we never doubted for a second that you’re anything but thorough when it comes to working with young men. District 3’s intro vdeo is stupid and boring, so let’s skip straight to the performance. What did the boys learn from being in the bottom two last week? Well, they have hopefully learned that those random American accents they sing with need to go, because that whole affectation they do is noticeably reduced (though still evident) in their performance of Beggin’. They also learned the importance of performing in front of a giant screen with the name of your group rotating around and around and around. Vital in a competition with two virtually indistinguishable boybands. And finally, when in a boyband, it always helps to lift your shirt every once in a while to let the girls/gays inspect the goods.

JUDGES! Tulisa liked it. Gary calls them the revelation of the night. Louis tells us that they work their assess off. Insert your own joke. 

Up next is Epona, the Celtic Goddess of Donkeys, Mules and Horses, in her mortal form as Ella the Baby Pony and Adele Clone. Damn, that’s a long name. Maybe I should just call her Adella. The challenge for Epona this week was to show that she can be upbeat. The intro-vid is about Adella generally being very happy to rehearse something that involves moving around, which is a nice break from the usual narrative they push in the VT for someone who usually sings ballads, whereby we’re meant to be think it’ll be a huge challenge for them and that they’ll be completely out of their depth if required to do anything more complex than lifting their left leg. She’s singing You’ve Got the Love. Her dancing amounts to little more than some shoulder movements and gesticulations. Albeit gesticulations that are well timed to match the backing dancers. The bloody VT made it sound like she’d be running around the stage juggling and performing backflips with oily palms. I feel let down. No oats for you tonight, Ella.

JUDGES! Gary thinks the “dancing” cheapened the performance. Nicole disagrees and points out that as a former member of a dance troupe who occasionally sang, she knows what she’s talking about. Tulisa mimics Kelly Rowland’s “Who knew you could do uptempo” collection of seal noises from last year and it may be my highlight of tonight’s show. I think I’m going to take a count of how many times the judges mention Ella’s age from now on. So, in tonight’s episode, they inform us that she’s 16 on ten separate occasions. I may have missed one or two, because there’s actually a point in the evaluation where Louis and Tulisa are basically saynihg nothing other than “She’s 16!” back and forth to one another. 

RESULTS SHOW

The results show doesn't get its own post this week, because I can't be arsed. MK1 went home after a sing off with Kye. Apocalypse averted. We had special guest performances from Labrinth and Emeli Sande (surprisingly good) and JLS (utter wank). Nicole shot up live on television, and Union J came out en masse by making out with one another on-stage. Louis Walsh broke down and claimed to have been abused by Jimmy Saville, the patron saint of paedophilia.

Next week is the Halloween Special, so the judges will select songs for their acts based on whether or not Thriller is already taken, and if it is, well there's always Freak Like Me. Failing that: any song ever written in English should do. Think of how much extra eyeliner Kye will get to wear!

X-Factor 2012: Results Show Two

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X-Factor 2012: Week Two

It’s time! For my weekly dose of manufactured controversy, tabloid drama and RYLAN. I shouldn’t act like this show is incredibly tired and predictable though. I mean, they did replace the pre-recorded auto tuned group performance monstrosity with actual real live singing last week. So really, anything could happen in this series of the X-Factor. Nicole might strangle Gary Barlow with a noose while Louis chants, “Looks like you’ve reached the end of the rope!”, all while Tulisa flaps her arms up and down making seal noises. Rylan could win. Chris Maloney mightn’t make me want to throw heavy objects at the TV screen. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN.

Dermot does something that isn’t quite a dance and isn’t quite Tulisa flapping her arms up and down making seal noises. Perhaps he realises that the levity of the situation we find ourselves in. In a time of such widely reported discord between Messrs Barlow and Walsh, national treasures and beloved heroes both, the nation does not want to see a Dermot dance. The nation is at the precipice of a sheer drop into madness and loss, waiting expectantly for a sign that a process of peace and reconciliation can bring these two titans of entertainment together again. After we recap last week’s events and the Barlow/Walsh falling out for the millionth time... both men shake on it. The nation breathes again.

Jahmene and his weird eyebrows are up first. Look at them. Look at how weird they are. I think they’re actually parasitic alien organisms that Jahmene discovered in a shadowy part of Asda while he was still working there. Somewhere near the women’s toiletries. He agreed to serve as their host and in return, they’ve promised to boost his confidence and get him loads of poon. I shall call them Zug and Zog. Last week, Jahmene, Zug and Zog were accused of oversinging a bit. This week, they’ve learned their lesson and perform a more restrained mash-up of Amy Winehouse’s Tears Dry on Their Own and Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. Which at least makes sense from a mash-up point of view, as the former samples the latter. Some of the later mash-ups we’ll see, and mash-ups are the unofficial theme this week (the official theme being love and heartbreak, which is only about 90% of all music ever), are just plain wrong.

JUDGES! Tulisa says she doesn’t like the way Jahmene’s eyebrows are looking at her. Gary compliments Jahmene for taking his advice about not over singing, because Gary likes to remind us about how insightful and correct he is about the technicalities of singing. Nicole flirts with Jahmene and he does his creepy giggle.

Next up is Me Nerves. Louis criticises Me Nerves in his intro video, saying he finds him a bit too cheesy. Normally I’d point out the hypocrisy in Louis Walsh calling someone cheesy, but this is Chris we’re talking about, so I don’t really care. Gary goes back and forth about changing Chris’s image. Please do, his radioactive orange visage makes me ill. Ultimately, Gary decides not to change anything about Chris, because if he did it might affect Chris’s nerves, causing him to have a violent panic attack and shit everywhere. WHICH COULD TOTALLY HAPPEN COS REMEMBER HIS NERVES! Chris is singing some 80s power ballad which isn’t one of the most illustrious 80s power ballads ever. It’s still one of those you-know-it-to-hear-it ones, but it’s no Total Eclipse of the Heart. Which he’ll be performing next week, probably. If he had to cover a Heart song, then he should’ve done Barracuda with an elaborate Sarah Palin-themed performance.  Dancers dressed as moose and salmon being hunted down by Chris, symbolising him conquering his nerves, perhaps. Gosh, that was an easy idea to generate. Brian Friedman’s job isn’t difficult at all!

JUDGES! Nicole tries talking to Chris but Gary reminds her “As soon as he stops signing, his nerves get him”. Yes, Gary actually says this. Dear X-Factor producers, the narrative you’re still trying to peddle about Chris and his nerves is not slightly undermined by the way he performs like some veteran, poised diva. Louis reminds us that Chris is cheesy and cabaret and cruise ship. Tulisa says Gary needs to do something to make Chris more current. Dubstep!

The first of the groups to perform tonight is Union J. I think they’re the ones with the 4 members, one of whom has been ordered back into the closet lest he disrupt the boyband paradigm. Poor Jaymi. I shall call him Gay Face from now on. 

In their VT, Union J admit that they were shit last week. Then they meet seasoned performers One Direction who share the depth of their experience with Union J and inspire them to hopefully attain new heights. This is the second appearance of One Direction on this show since the live performances began just last week. I think they’re going to come up with ever more elaborate and desperate ways to shoe-horn a One Direction appearance in every week. Later on: One Direction attend Lucy’s nan’s funeral. And join us next week when Niall Horan eats a sandwich in the background of Ella’s intro video. As One Direction have now officially endorsed Union J (fuck you, District 3), and because Union J have a clone of Harry Styles in their line-up, I’ve decided I shall refer to them as Another Direction. It’s easily as stupid a name as Union J is. Another Direction are performing Bleeding Strings: a mash-up of Bleeding Love and Broken Strings. It’s a song about what happens when there’s a violent accident at a violin recital. They do much better than last week, when they sounded like a bag of cats being slowly boiled to death. This week they only sound a pair of cats being steamrollered while someone plays Leona Lewis in the background.

JUDGES! Tulisa says that they have a really strong female following, so it’s important the gay one spread some rumours about dating Pick ‘n’ Mix or something. Gary calls it a total transformation, and makes the Transformers noise to illustrate his point.

Baby Pony Ella is up next. Her intro-video is all about how she is definitely not dating George (aka Harry Styles II) from Another Direction.  I think they may be trying to sabotage Ella with this. She’ll have a bunch of angry placard waving 14 year olds outside her hotel window tomorrow shouting “Get your hands off our non-threatening boyfriend-to-be”. Baby Pony is performing Lovin’ You. You know, the one with the lalalala and doodoodoodoo. She’s also styled exactly like Adele. Perhaps herself and George are planning on starting a celebrity impersonation company once they end up on the former-reality talent show contestant scrap heap and desperation strikes. This will be after they’ve done Celebrity Come Dine With Me and Celebrity Boxing, obviously. Ella is quite good, doesn’t fuck up as much as last week, and nails the all-important testicle-shattering high notes that characterise this song.

JUDGES! Never one to let an opportunity to show how much he understands the intricacies of vocals and music, Gary congratulates Ella for hitting the “F Sharp descending” or something. Fuck off, Gary. Louis says that Ella is like a timeless goddess. He fails to mention which goddess, so I’ve decided that Ella is the mortal avatar of Epona, the Celtic goddess of horses, mules and donkeys.

Dermot tells us that we’ll be meeting the “darker side of love” next, which is a very sensitive way of saying the next two performances are the mutt-ugly guy only a mother could love (and even she struggled) and the girl whose nan died this week. Ben Mitchell is first up. His intro-video is about how Nicole is making such an effort to get to know and understand him. Oh Ben, she’s not doing it to help you, she’s doing it to better understand the human race so that she can gather more intel on us for her techno-organic alien creators. Nicole accompanies Ben to a completely abandoned pub that has probably been closed off and specially sterilised for her visit. She has some pork scratchings and a pint of t’local brew. Her efforts to fit in fail when she pulls out her diamond-encrusted iPhone and rings her pal Mary J. Blige to give Ben a pep-talk. Ben says he feels like a fish out of water on the show. Yes, everyone else is a clownfish and you’re a blobfish, Ben. Mary J. Blige tells him to grow a pair and quit whining. In what may be a subtle hint to Louis and Gary to get over themselves, Ben sings Blige’s No More Drama. It’s a reasonable rendition.

JUDGES! Tulisa believes every word when Ben sings. He connects emotionally with the music and she can really feel the pain. Next week, Ben will start cutting himself in order to bring his ability to sing about pain to the next level. By the end of the series he’ll have developed emotional transference abilities so powerful that anyone listening will actually develop open sores just by listening to him.

Lucy the lesbian’s nan died this week, so her VT is a right barrel of laughs as you can imagine. She decides that she wants to do something upbeat so that she can make herself smile, hence the unexpected cover of Gold Digger. It’s a bit weird and doesn’t entirely work. I just don’t think Lucy’s a great singer. All of her performances are just talky-with-an-acoustic guitar. What made her audition a success wasn’t her singing, it was her songwriting, and that’s not something you can showcase very well on a circus like this. I can’t bring myself to be too mean about her, after all her nan just died, and she’s annoyingly likeable for some reason. I’ll be extra-horrible next week to make up for it.

JUDGES! Tulisa points out that Lucy didn’t do a sad song and go the sympathy vote route, which is a surprisingly valid and relevant point to make. I guess that Ms Contostavlos Khalkíoikos Papathopolous was overdue.

Next up is District 3. Their intro-video details how they wanted to do a Bieber or One Direction song, but Louis had no idea who those people are because they came to fame within the past 5 years, and insisted they do something from the 1990s instead. It’s Boyz II Men’s I Swear. As usual, the boys sing with inexplicable American accents. The staging is another piece of ridiculously OTT Friedman genius. The boys perform on a rotating platform while lasers point at its base. Then the lasers shoot up to imprison the boys on their futuristic platform of death. Then rose petals fall from the ceiling at the key change. Then there is more light show. More than enough to distract from the terrible vocals, you’d think. You would be wrong. Cleethorpes demands that you knock it off with the fucking American accents, lads!

JUDGES! Gary and Louis have another panto-spat. Nicole says she’d love to get the boys shirts off and rub baby oil all over them. Louis Walsh takes a moment from tearing Barlow’s hair out to ponder that mental image, and looks content.

We’ve now reached the flabby middle part of the show where everything gets a bit boring and the contestants are about as memorable as Nicki Evans, Ashley McKenzie, Chenai Zinkyuku, Laura White and Sophie Habibis. And soon to follow in those forgotten footsteps is Jade Ellis. This week she’ll be performing Amy Winehouse’s Love is a Losing Game.  No sign of her adorable daughter in her VT this week, so I’m instantly less emotionally attached to her. In a bid to make herself memorable, Jade performs the song suspended from the ceiling over a pit of fire. She sings more than adequately, but because she doesn’t destroy any windows with her voice like Ella, deafen anyone within a 2 mile radius of the studio like Melanie or generate a strange radioactive orange glow like Me Nerves, she’s still pretty forgettable. Basically, it’s restrained and nicely delivered, but restraint and “nice” won’t get you very far in this show. Jade needs a better gimmick than an adorable daughter and elevators breaking down when she’s nearby.

The judges have nothing interesting to say.

Mortal Kombat 1 are up next, to try and win the battle of worst group of the evening. They’ll have to be pretty bad tonight, District 3 set the bar pretty low, but I have every confidence that after last week’s travesty, MK1 will fail to deliver. Their intro video is a bit meandering and pointless, which is odd given how X-Factor VTs are usually about aggressively pushing a very specific agenda like “Chris could shit himself at any point”, “Misha B is not a bully. Really”, or “All of Union J are entirely heterosexual and want to be your boyfriends, pubescent girls!” Maybe the point is to show how “fun” MK1 are, or something. They wear lots of bright colours! They put a baseball cap on Louis and call him “Uncle Louis”. Needless to say, “Uncle Louis” is the most terrifying thing I’ve seen on TV this week. And there has been a lot of footage of Jimmy Saville on TV this week. MK1 are singing the Jackson 5s I Want You Back, which has surely been performed on this show about ninety million times at this point. It’s lifeless and boring and doesn’t really work as a duet because it’s basically Sonya Blade singing a verse and Jax rapping a verse and isn’t about complementing one another’s voices or doing anything original at all.

JUDGES! Tulisa says she likes MK1 because they’re fun. Hooray, I was right about the intro-video agenda! Gary says the performance was “a bit Glee”. About 40% of the audience won’t realise that was a criticism.  In addition, I don’t think it was anything like Glee. Some of the biggest staples of Glee were missing, like gay martyrdom, misogyny, overuse of autotune and unrealistically open-minded teenagers.

It’s almost over. Only 3 more acts to go. I think I can make it. Kye Sones is up next. Or “the singing chimney sweep” as Borelow introduces him. Kye doesn’t want to go home to have to clean more chimneys, because that’s no way for a 63 year old to be earning a living. Borelow says that Kye isn’t just a singer, he’s “an artist” who’s constantly pushing himself and coming up with new ideas. Kye has been phoning Gary non-stop with his ideas and he reckons that makes him the envy of every female in the country. Not unless you’re ringing him for phone-sex, Kye. Kye is doing a mash-up of the Rihanna parts from Love the Way You Lie and Dido’s Thank You. So basically Kye is doing the non-rap parts of two rap songs. If he were truly interested in pushing himself, he would’ve done the rap parts too! You’re a liar, Kye, you don’t care about honing your craft at all!

JUDGES! Zingerbot says it didn’t grab her. She wants to be grabbed the way a magnet would grab on to iron filings. Her emotion sensor found the entire performance to be flat and emotionally vacuous. The panto dames bitch at one another: Louis says it was boring while Gary challenges him to say something more constructive Asking Louis for constructive criticism is like asking MK1 not to be street, man.  It just can’t be done.

RYLAN NATION! Let’s ignore Rylan’s VT (lots of wailing) and go straight to the performance: Rylan begins with Take That’s Back for Good, then transitions into Groove is in the Heart. There is no way that I can do justice to what I am seeing. There is a catwalk. There are people dressed as Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfield at either side. Rylan parades down the catwalk followed by women dressed as pandas. Sexy pandas. Oh wait, there are man pandas too. And then... and then he starts singing Gangnam Style, where “Oppon gangnam style” becomes “Woppa Rylan Style” for some inexplicable reason. This is amazing. This is actually the end of television. When this episode finishes, all you’ll see on every channel worldwide will be static. This is the last thing to happen on television ever. It simply has to be. Rylan and the sex pandas parade around the JUDGE’S! table as he continues to smash the concept of singing into meaninglessness. Now he’s singing Pump up the Jam. I think he’s actually going to sing every song ever as part of this iconoclastic performance. Red balloons fall from the ceiling. Mercifully, it isn’t a precursor to Rylan launching into 99 Luftballons, it’s actually the signal that the performance has ended.  

The judges debate amongst themselves precisely how amazing Rylan was. Tulisa describes is as “epoch shattering”, while Louis suggests it has redefined the way we will think about music forever. Gary thinks that the notion of music as we currently understand it has been expanded so broadly by Rylan they we now need a new word. Nicole postulates that centuries from now, when our descendants look back through our digital historical archive, they will hold this performance aloft as the pinnacle of human endeavour. Her fellow judges nod in solemn agreement.

It’s possible that Melanie Masson may have performed after Rylan, but I can’t say for certain. I think I witnessed a woman come on stage and do something, but it seemed so dated and safe after the paradaigm-shifting performance that preceded it that I just couldn’t accept it as being “music”. We live in Rylan Nation now, where traditional ways of looking at concepts like statehood, music and individuality are meaningless. People like Melanie are going to have to up their game if they want to compete.

*Rylan Wink*

X-Factor 2012: Results Show 1

Yes I know I spelt sacrificed wrong. Fuck you.

It’s time! To Face! The results show! Featuring the dastardly contrivances of the X-Factor production team, the last stand of always-the-bridesmaid Carolynne Poole, and the innocent man caught in the middle of their tug-of-war: deadlock-enthusiast Louis Walsh.

Dermot tells us that backstage the nerves are a-jingling, apparently. He knows because Zingerbot measured the level of anxiety on her Nerveometer. Dermot promises us some great guests tonight but all I’m interested in is knowing whether or not there’ll be an abominable auto tuned group performance. PLEASE let there be an abominable group performance. My life would suck without it. The Judges descend from Valhalla to take their seats. Louis still looks like he’s had a stroke. 

ABOMINABLE GROUP PERFORMANCE! YES! The contestants are performing Read All About It. Emile Sande smiles and decides to make another trip to the bank tomorrow with a wheelbarrow full of royalty cheques. However! In a massive twist, this year the finalists actually appear to be performing the abominable group performance LIVE. This is a huge disappointment to me. It was always such fun last year hearing Frankie Cocoza suddenly and miraculously singing in-tune. Chris Maloney sashays out for his part of the group performance, with all the confidence of a seasoned diva. OHH ME NERVES, I’M SHITTING MESELF. Fuck off, Chris.

Then it’s time for the interminable recap of all of last night’s performances. Look, there’s Two Direction! And there’s Another Direction! Holy fuck, there’s a terrifying close-up of Ben Mitchell that’s going to give me nightmares for a month. Also last night: Melanie Masson was LOUD. Chris Maloney was a con artist. Ella croaked. Nicole found Jahmene’s balls. They were under the sofa. And a terrible beauty was born: RYLAN NATION! 

The first of tonight’s guest appearances designed to pad out the show so we can have 4 ad breaks arrives. It’s seasoned warbler Leona Lewis. Ah, guest-performer hype-reel, how I’ve missed you. Leona’s achievements: she’s sold 20 million of something (probably not her autobiography, unless it’s as a sleep aid), her album is the fastest-selling debut ever, she designed the Curiosity Rover and she’s cured cancer. Tonight she’ll be performing her boring new song Trouble. Damn, I had my hopes pinned on a cover of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy. The stage appears to have been covered in toilet-paper. Yet again, the creative genius of Brian Friedman is not for us mere mortals to understand. Leona finishes her song and proceeds to make a bunch of boring mumbled noises when interrogated by Dermot. She’s the female Jahmene, basically.

Dermot provides the first of this year’s FIVE-MINUTE WARNINGs. That’s right, in exactly five minutes, Nicki Minaj is going to arrive and that’s when shit gets serious. Somewhere backstage, Carolynne Poole does a wee. There’s some banter with the judges to waste time while the producers pretend to count the votes. Last night’s show generated 800,000 tweets. That’s important because apparently we use Twitter to measure the significance of things now. Fuck you, planet. Zingerbot compliments Dermot on his big balls. 

Now it’s Ne-Yo’s turn to perform. For those who have no idea who Ne-Yo is, imagine a Chris Brown who doesn’t hit women and has much worse songwriters and you’ll have some idea. I think the strategy here was to make Leona look 10 times better than she actually was by following her performance with this tripe. The lyrics are awfully repetitive. Even more repetitive than the average Kelly Rowland song. The gist of the song is that Ne-Yo will love you until you learn to love yourself. Then he’ll vanish and you’ll realise he actually died 10 years ago. Swerve. After the performance, Ne-yo demonstrates that he didn’t watch last night’s show by saying there’s a lot of talent in the Boy’s category. I didn’t pay attention to Ne-Yo’s hype reel but I’m sure it claimed that he invented music or something.

After what seems like about seventy years, it’s finally time for the actual results! The lights are dimmed and IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER, Kye is saved. I guess it's only fair to call him out first. He is 63 years old after all. He’ll need to get to bed soon. Ben Mitchell is safe. So are Three Direction. Ella the pony and Lucy the lesbian are safe. Mortal Kombat 1, Loud Melanie and Jahmene’s balls are through to next week. Jade is safe. Somehow, enough people voted for Union J to save them. Chris Maloney is safe and he shits himself with joy. So it’s Rylan vs Carolynne in the sing-off. I guess they should decide to save Rylan, because Carolynne is dead anyway once Nicki Minaj shows up to punish her for covering Starships last night. Just like the public have done, actually. 

Nicole introduces Rylan. She can’t believe he’s in the bottom two! It’s a travesty of a sham of a mockery of an occurrence. He’ll be performing a dubstep version of The Invitation to the Jellicle Ball from Cats. Not really, he’s actually “singing” One Night Only from Dreamgirls. It’s horrendous. And he forgets the lyrics too, I think. It’s tragic. It’s like a car crash. In slow motion. In sum, it is the least likely performance to survive a sing-off ever. But also the one most likely to create kilometres of newspaper columns if it did. You know, just in case that happened.

Carolynne decides to sing another country music epic, because that genre served her so well last night. Backstage, Nicki Minaj sharpens her knuckle dusters. That’s right, Nicki Minaj has knuckle dusters with knives attached to them. Don’t pretend you’re surprised. During the performance, you can see a production assistant run up to Louis to tell him “The ratings are down, you have to send it to deadlock!” 

Decision time! Zingerbot decides to save Rylan. Zingerbot cares for its acts the way a human would care for its loved ones. Gary saves Carolynne. Tulisa saves Carolynne. Then Louis Walsh spends about 15 minutes deliberating, because it’s obviously quite difficult choosing between someone who can sing and a beanpole that exists purely to shatter the concept of music as we know it. Dermot screams at Louis that time is running out. Doesn’t he know Downton Abbey is meant to start at 9pm sharp? Louis sighs and deliberates. Dermot tells Louis that he’s a cock-munching deviant spunk-licker. Louis bites his lip and looks thoughtful. Dermot holds up a sign saying “Look, just save Rylan already” Louis says he wants to save Carolynne. Dermot looks alarmed as the producers scream “THIS IS NOT THE PLAN” into his earpiece. Dermot gently prods Louis to follow the correct course of action: “I NEED THE NAME OF THE ACT YOU’RE SENDING HOME” *WINK*. Louis realises it’s his duty, nay, his honour, as an X-Factor judge, to generate the oxygen of controversy on which this show survives, and then decides to send it to deadlock.

Deadlock noise: dun dun! Dermot consults the public vote. Poor Carolynne Poole. She’s been rejected by Fame Academy. Rejected by this show. Twice. Rejected by her ex-husband. Rejected by nature what with her infertility and rejected by science with failed IVF. Frankly, the entire world is basically telling her she’s pointless. Dermot reads the result: Carolynne is bottom of the public vote. REJECTED. Gary Barlow storms off-stage to generate an extra few lines of tabloid fodder. Dermot consoles Carolynne with the wonderful news that Nicki Minaj is waiting backstage to meet her.

X-Factor 2012: Week One

Last year I was so delighted when Little Mix won, that my brain overloaded and I went into a happiness coma that prevented me from recapping the final. But with the producers determined to orchestrate a win for Chris Maloney this year, I don’t think there’s any chance of my being rendered into catatonic joy for X-Factor 2012. I’m glad that this year’s opener is only 2 and a quarter hours long. It means I’ll be wasting 15 minutes less watching this shite than I did during last year’s mammoth 2 and a half hour premiere. Why do I do this myself? I’m going to turn around when I’m 40 and regret this. Well, this and the fact that I spent most of X-Factor 2010 referring to One Direction as One Dimension. When I think of all the hits I could’ve amassed from their newly-acquired global fan base by now if only I’d called them by their proper name. Therefore, there will be NO nicknames this year. Maybe.

This year, we’ve traded in Destiny’s Child for a Pussycat Doll, which just about makes this the worst panel of judges ever. Sherzinger, for the uninitiated, is from the same cyborg manufacturing plant that gave us Rebecca Fergussonbot two years ago. I’m doing a lot of harking back to X-Factor 2010, aren’t I? Ah, glory days. Sherzingerbot, fresh from being axed from the X-Factor USA, will be mentoring the boys. Tulisa Doesn’thaveasurnameanymore will be mentoring the fuck out of the girls, but hopefully not sharing her dire blowjob technique. Louis will be mentoring (and hoping to drop the hand on most of) the groups. Which leaves Gary Barlow to mentor the Overs. Got it? Good. On with the show!

The Judges trundle on-stage and take their seats before we get to the results of this year’s inevitable Huge Twist™. It’s worth noting that Louis looks like he’s had a stroke in his judge’s intro pic.

Aforementioned Inevitable Huge Twist™ is that our 12 finalists will be joined by a “wild card” choice voted in by the public. In the biggest foregone conclusion since the last time we had an utterly predictable foregone conclusion you could see coming a mile away (i.e., Amelia Lily), working class zero Chris Maloney wins the vote! Who knew? Who could see it coming aside from anyone with more than one brain cell? Confession time: I was so confident that Our Chris was going to win the wild card vote as part of the producer’s totally transparent plan to make him even more of a people’s champion, that I actually wrote most of this paragraph half an hour before the show even began.

Two things of note: Dermot informs us that we can now vote from the very start of the show. You know, from the very start of the singing competition. Before anyone sings. So now you can ensure Chris Maloney wins by voting for him long before his face ever pollutes your screen with it’s contrived nervous shakes. You fucking monster. And Dermot also tells us that tonight’s songs are inspired by the Olympics or some bullshitology attempt to latch onto the smouldering embers of Britain’s Olympic fever and make this increasingly tired and worn out show seem relevant again.

FINALLY, we get to the first act: it’s one of Louis’s groups, GMD3. Who have now been renamed DISTRICT 3. There are no more terrifying words in the English language for any young man under 25 than “Louis’ Dressing Room”. That’s exactly what the caption that pops up on-screen as Louis explains to the boys says. He explains how they need an exciting and dynamic name that reflects how exciting and dynamic these 3 boring wank-leavings are now that they’ve had a makeover to align them with the post-One Direction boyband paradigm. They end up performing a very strange version of Tina Turner’s Simply the Best involving exactly the sort of Americanised pronounciations you’d logically expect to come from three lads from Wales, London and Cleethorpes, wherever the hell that is. It’s definitely the worst performance of the night so far.

JUDGES! Louis vomits forth a string of Louisisms. For anyone playing Louis Bingo while watching, please note that there’s an “You’re like a young [insert name here]”, in this case being a young Boyz II Men, because Louis’s pop culture knowledge doesn’t go beyond the 1990s. There’s also a bad pun based on the song title, “I think you’re Simply the Best!” Make sure to tick it off your bingo card, and then punch yourself in the face for watching this bollocks.

Up next is James Arthur, aka Fugly McHideous, aka He Who Fell Off the Ugly Tree and Hit Every Branch on the Way Down and then the Tree Fell On Him, and it all Happened in the Orchard of Ugliness in the Valley of the Uglies. Or Ben Mitchell for short. Benjamin sings from a place of deep hurt and frustration, because he killed Heather and his father Phil doesn’t understand his desire to become the next Professor Green. Ben will be singing Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger, but not before we’re briefly interrupted with an appearance by One Direction themselves, who are on to plug their new single in order to ensure it closes the gap of a few-hundred-copies between it and Princess Rih-Rih’s latest abortion. Mission accomplished, boys. Now somebody get the microphone off Niall Horan before our buddies across the Irish Sea start to think less of us. Ben Mitchell decides to put his own spin on Stronger by rapping some of the lyrics. It’s less Professor Green and more Cher Lloyd however. That is to say, it’s a total shambles. JUDGES! Louis says that he’s always known Ben was different, ever since he saw him dancing to Girls Aloud in the Queen Vic that time. Gary implores him to retain his integrity. Somehow, Gary does not burst into flames for saying that word on this show. He also wants Ben to stay edgy. This is coming from Gary Barlow, the man who is about as edgy as a sponge sitting in a basin of water.

The first of the Overs to performs is Melanie Masson. Melanie’s intro video is low-key and boring, to lull you into a false sense of security and calm before she LUNGBURSTS HER WAY THROUGH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS. Seriously. If there were transcription software that instantly turned what Melanie sings into words, it’d all be in caps. All the time. Size 76. Bold. And underlined. That’s how loud she is. She BELLOWS from atop the X-Factor Plinth of Performance, getting its first outing of the new series. She’s loud and powerful, and while that isn’t a guarantee that she’s any good, it’s decent enough overall. JUDGES! “I remember Woodstock”, Louis says. I’ll just leave it at that.

Tulisa introduces the first of the girls, Lucy the Lesbian. Lucy the Lesbian will be singing an original song, in what Tulisa tells us will be an X-Factor first. Oh how quickly we’ve forgotten Chico Slimani’s magnum opus, It’s Chico Time. For shame.  I did think that Lucy the Lesbian was a prime candidate for this year’s shock-person-who-leaves-halfway-through, who the judges then use as a morality tale to beat the rest of us about the head with the importance of voting often, but given how dire this performance is, I’d be surprised if she makes it even that far. She seems a nice girl, but perhaps she should stick to song-writing  Tonight’s song is about old people. Just like the one at boot camp. Next week: Lucy the Lesbian sings about her nan’s corns. JUDGES! Somone forgot to set Nicole Sherzingerbot’s internal dictionary to English (UK), and she fails to realise that spunk means something entirely different in the UK than it does in the USA. She then proceeds to ask Gary Barlow if he wants to smear some all over his face.Twice. Dermot upbraids her like a good Ofcom-fearing presenter in a post-Russell Brand/Andrew Sachs world.

Back to the groups, and Louis introduces Mortal Kombat 1, who will be performing some Chipmunk song. That’s Chipmunk the rapper, and not Chipmunk as in “Alvin and”. More’s the pity. In their intro video, Female MK1 (hereafter known as Sonya Blade) explains that they’re “here for the music” and that “If that was taken away, we’d still be here”. So if the reason you’re here was taken away from you, you’d still be here? Stop trying to confuse me with your words, Sonya. Their song is an awful shouty piece of bilge nonsense with lots of dancey dancey bright colours to distract you DON’T LISTEN JUST LOOK AT THE DISTRACTIONS WHEEEEE! JUDGES! Are about as insightful as a piece of unbuttered toast.

Working class hero and cry baby extraordinaire Chris Maloney is up next, wailing in his intro video about this extraordinary second chance he’s been given but oh, wouldn’t it be awful if his nerves got the better of him. His terrible, terrible nerves. He’s so nervous. And emotional. He could cry at any time. Or start shaking like a Polaroid picture being taken by a man with Parkinson’s on a vibro-plate. Gary talks about Chris’s nerves. Chris talks about his nerves. He says it’d just be awful if he got on stage and his nerves got to him and he just shit himself for 90 seconds without stopping. And it could happen you know. Because his nerves could really get the better of him. They really, really could. Because it’s not a contrived attempt to illicit sympathy or make a decent-yet-unspectacular singer more engaging or anything. His nerves could literally cause him to shit all over that lovely polished X-Factor stage, and that would be awful for lovely Chris. Chris will be singing Mariah Carey’s Hero tonight. I guess it takes a cunt to cover one. Luckily, Chris manages to amazingly transform himself from shambling emotional timebomb into cruiseship karaoke crooner, complete with head-tilts of emotion. And his shakes! They’re gone! Almost as if they didn’t really exist!

JUDGES! Louis congratulates Chris on overcoming his Parkinson’s to deliver such an effortless performance.  Louis also makes a sly reference to Chris’s time spent on cruise ships performing to hundreds. Nicole asks him how he feels, because she wants to scan humans with her Emotion Array so that she may better emulate their affectations.

It’s the last of the bands, Union J. Union J are distinguishable from District 3 only insofar as the former have 4 members, whereas the latter has 3. Or maybe it’s the other way around. I don’t want to think about it too much because I don’t want to get too attached, only to have my heart broken when one or both of these bands is sent home within the next 3 weeks. These boys are so playful and cheeky in their intro-video, like a young One Direction. “I think the queen lives here”, says one of them upon glimpsing Casa Del X-Factor Contestants. No dear, Louis lives in Dublin. Louis tells us that Union J are four good-looking boys and that young girls will love them. Oh Louis, you really shouldn’t reveal your brilliant marketing strategy to the world like that. Maybe that’s why you haven’t had a successful group in over a decade. The three original members of whatever Union J were called before they were four attempt to convince us they that they love their new member, George. The boys will be performing Don’t Stop Me Now, because if there’s one thing that 14 year old girls love, it’s the OTT camp flamboyance of Freddie Mercury. I think one of Union J can sing. Maybe. It’s probably George, the overachieving bastard. I’ve always hated you, George. It’s still a shit performance, however.

JUDGES! Louis, Tulisa and Gary have a big row over Lady Walsh’s outdated approach to song-choices. Zingerbot interrupts the row at precisely 9.20pm because her comments have been pre-programmed and nothing can stop her delivering them at the anointed time.

Jade Ellis is up next. Her intro-video is nothing but a series of shots of her and her adorable daughter, probably meant to trick us into voting for her so that the little ‘un can have a better life. FUCK YOU, X-Factor producers. If I can ignore the Trocaire kids then your blatant emotional blackmail doesn’t stand a chance. Jade will be performing Enrique Iglesias’s Hero from atop a piano. It’s about as interesting as slightly buttered toast with a hint of marmalade. It’s quiet and boring and this entire episode is just washing past me like in a haze of boredom and toast analogies. JUDGES! Louis tells Jade that she looks like an international pop star and he knows that because he met one once.

EJACULATE THE DANCEFLOOR! IT’S RYLAN TIME!  I feel like Rylan’s intro video should have some strobe lighting. Rylan is so fun, Zingerbot tells us. If anyone knows what fun is, it’s Nicole Scherzinger. And he’s so infectious! He’s like rampant crabs. Rylan and Ella randomly read harsh criticisms of Rylan from Twitter. I thought one of them was “You’re a cum-tree” but on further inspection, it's actually “You’re an embarrassment to your country”. Ella pretends to be concerned, because she doesn’t want anyone discovering that she wrote it. IT’S ALWAYS THE QUIET ONES. Unless the quiet one is Jahmene. It’s never Jahmene. Nicole tells Rylan what it’s like to be a star, because she has enough processing power to provide conjecture on what it feels like to actually BE a turbulent roiling mass of burning gases in deep space. Performance time! Rylan is doing Spandau Ballet’s Gold by way of Cascada. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s ludicrous, and involves the sort of ridiculous staging they would’ve given Kitty Brucknell last year. Rylan has a hard time keeping a straight face at the start. Then again, I imagine that Rylan has a hard time keeping a straight anything. He seems like he’s laughing at a joke and he’s the only one in on it. Maybe he’s a performance artist and the Rylan persona is a satire on TOWIE-style fame-chasing. If Rylan happens to be in tune at any point during this performance, it is only because he has bludgeoned the other notes around him into submission first. He ends his performance with his patented *Rylan Wink*.

JUDGES! Gary Barlow hates Rylan because of the inherent ridiculousness that is Rylan. Gary says he’s embarrassed to be sitting with the 3 judges who put Rylan through. Nicole spunks all over Gary then reminds him of the whole spreading-jam-across-your-arse phase Take That went through. Yes, that really happened. Louis tells Rylan that it’s never going to be possible to please everyone so you should please Louis instead. *Rylan wink*

Desperately trying to look younger than he is, and surely missing a few syllables from his name, it’s Kye! Kye is about 42 but wants us all to think he’s 21 and still gets ID’d when purchasing alcohol in Tesco. What kind of alcohol would Kye buy? Something alternative no doubt, because Kye is alternative, cool, and he owns My Chemical Romance albums and stuff, yeah. Actually, he probably only drinks absinthe. Kye sings Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror, which fits tonight’s Olympic Heroes theme because you really should take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror, you fat fucker, and become a barely legal sexually ambiguous diver instead. Maybe. Follow Kye’s example. He’s going to make a change. He’s going to start wearing age-appropriate clothes. It’s the most not-terrible performance of the show thus far, which means you can listen to most of it without your ears exploding or your eyeballs trying to escape your face through your nostrils.

JUDGES! Zingerbot says that she knows Kye worked very hard. She encourages him to take in the applause he’s receiving using his aural input devices, or however it is that non-ferrous life forms process sound. Louis says that Kye’s going to get a record deal. The show ends and we all go our separate ways because Kye has won in week one. Yay, Kye won! Tulisa says something about Kye being en pointe and I start to notice that this is about the fifth time she’s used that phrase tonight. I’m not sure she knows what she means by it. Maybe she thinks she’s on Strictly Come Dancing.

Fresh from spreading slanderous tweets about Rylan throughout the blogosphere, Wee Ella the pony is up next. She has such a long face. Like a little Sarah Jessica Parker. I notice a pattern in Ella’s intro video common across many of Tulisa’s acts and it’s that Tulisa has an answer for every way in which her contestants are suffering. Ella’s only sixteen! I’VE BEEN DOING IT SINCE I WAS ELEVEN! Jade wants her daughter to be proud of her! MY MUM WAS A SINGER TOO AND WHEN I SEE VIDEOS OF HER I FEEL THINGS IN MY EMOTION PLACE! I’m a lesbian! I’M A BIGGER DYKE THAN YOU! Ella sings that Take That song. You know the one with the overwrought music and the quiet bit just before the music soars and the vocals climb triumphantly because love conquers all? Yeah, that one. I have to hand it to Ella (no, not a bale of hay), she has a lovely voice and mostly very good control of it, especially given her age. Alas she’s a bit off-kilter in a few places, and her voice breaks rather obviously at the end. JUDGES! Tuilsa just wants to brush Ella’s hair, feed her sugar cubes and take her to the pony-dentist.

Carolynne Poole has done a lot of things. She’s been a Footballer’s Wife. She’s been on Fame Academy, God love her. She’s had IVF. But she’s never done a cover of Nicki Minaj’s Starships in a country style. That changes tonight. See, they’ve decided that because Carolynne looks kinda like Shania Twain, then Carolynne must do country. This is a very clever move, because country and western music is so very popular in the United Kingdom these days. DON’T STEP OUT OF THE BOX, CAROLYNNE. DON’T YOU DARE STEP OUT THE NICHE YOU’VE BEEN APPOINTED. Somewhere in the United States, Nicki Minaj pauses while administering a severe beating to Mariah Carey. She shakes her head, curses under breath and mutters “You a stupid ‘hoe.” She quickly finishes off Mariah, and feeds her corpse to the dogs from the All I Want for Xmas video. Then she phones her weaveman, Huwell, and asks him to answer two questions. One: “Where my fighting weave be at?” Two: “How long does it take to fly to London?” Nicki Minaj is going find Carolynne Poole. She is going to stab her in the tit with a stiletto. And then she will sleep with Carolynne's ex husband. In front of her. While playing Azaelia Banks’ 212. Then she will eat Carolynne’s heart and give glorious thanks to her god, Huitzilopochtli. JUDGES! Flee for their lives because they know what’s coming.

FINALLY. We reach the end of this mess. Jahmene is closing the show tonight. Zingerbot struggles to introduce him, as it appears that she’s momentarily forgotten his name. Someone needs a RAM upgrade. Jahmene explains that being on the X-Factor is very different to stacking shelves in Asda. For one thing, you don’t do photo shoots in Asda, he informs us. How odd. We did photo shoots all the time when I worked in Penney’s. “A lot of people see me as the nervous one”, Jahmene explains with the matter-of-fact joylessness common to serial killers. “But that’s actually a front I put on to lull them into a false sense of security before I pluck out their eyeballs and literally skull-fuck them to death. Mmmm, warm moist brain.” Jahmene performs an overly affected version of Imagine that strays into ridiculous territory with far too much melisma and wailing. There are no white people in the choir that suddenly appears and joins Jahmene. I bet he’s racist. Jahmene hates white people and wants to pluck out their eyes and ride their skulls. You heard it here first.

JUDGES! Tulisa is lost for words, so she can’t even tell Jahmene that his performance was en pointe.

And with that, it’s time for the never-ending performances recap, which reminds us that such luminaries as District 3 and Ben Mitchell still exist, just in case you’d forgotten everything that happened before Rylan. In fairness, that’d be understandable. I think the world can now safely be cleaved into two distinct halves: our lives pre-Rylan, and our lives post-Rylan. Join us tomorrow for the first ever X-Factor results show of the post-Rylan world, in which a jet-lagged Nicki Minaj murders Carolynne Poole while Leona Lewis plugs her new album.