X Factor 2010 (UK)

Starts this Saturday (21st August). Guest judges! (unless you live in or near London) Pregnancy! Malaria! Geri Haliwell telling Glaswegians that they're not talented enough! Louis Walsh!

i am mainly interested in this because nicole scherzinger will be one of the judges.

also i want to join in any cheryl cole backlash that may happen over the course of the series. surely.

At Scherzinger's suggestion the age limit for both the Boys and Girls categories was raised to 27, which will either be a great move or a total disaster.

well she's like 32 and still trying to break it.

the guest judges look awful btw.

these two scherzinger tracks from her ever-doomed-to-failure solo career are two of the past decade's great lost gems imo. the "whatever u like " video is so amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX-1q_Lpzp8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pvsexk-YzU

Nearly Christmas already eh? I expect Geri Haliwell to take a lot of flack.

At Scherzinger's suggestion the age limit for both the Boys and Girls categories was raised to 27

Girls (16-27)
Boys (16-27)
28 & Overs
Groups

According to a leak, Cowell is supposedly mentoring the Girls, Louis the Boys, Dannii the 28 & Overs, leaving Cheryl with the Groups.

Is there some sort of live autotuning going on with some of these contestants?

I've had my ear against the TV. Definite autotuning going on. Weirdly they used it to separate the shit/ok aspects of the gay/straight act and then not for when she was allowed to sing solo. Interesting technique, make you think the shit ones are shit and then the good one are good. Wonder if this will carry through to the end. tsk tsk

oh. my. actual. days.

jahm on the nototune there

thought i detected some autotuning. didn't even know it was possible to autotune a live performance. the girl with the flower in her hair was very likeable and cute.

Watching this on analogue ITV1 and the sounds so lousy that I can't tell. But there's certainly a lot more effort this year to edit the show so that the people who don't get through are obviously obviously terrible fingers-in-the-ears performers. Presumably so as not to make Cowell and co. look bad.

also, lol at 80's loving hipster who a) was born after the decade ended and b) can't remember 'We Are The Champions'. If only the same thing had happened to Daniel last year. Oh wait, I don't care about people butchering Queen songs.

yeah totally possible to autotune live. That 80's girl was either quintessentially hipster/camden/daslton (i tend not to talk to these people) or a complete parody of them. ugh. Love the woman who was just on, fucking mad. She'd be right at home in some french themed disco track from the 70s.

what's the point of autotuning it?! bizarre.

dermot just keeps on getting hotter though.

really?

oh yes!

i find him a tad too cheery/upbeat and positive. Not mysterious enough for me.

I have a feeling that some of these people ("there's so much negativity in the room") are actors paid to go on and be crap. Got that feeling a little bit with Jahm - no-one is that badly out of tune, they weren't even in tune with each other.

sneaking suspicions. I thought that when I first started watching x factor (circa 2008) but now I'm just a fucking believer. They won.

are the auditions still being held in front of an audience? If so I don't know if I'll bother until we reach boot camp.

yeah they're in front of an audience.

ah I decided to watch anyway. God this autotuning is painful, it's verging on T-Pain Factor at points.

auto-tune headline/front page hype-o-rama will probably kick in tomorrow depending on each paper's agenda. can't recall if say, The Sun love or hate Simon Cowell atm but either way the Daily Mail is getting in early:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1305115/X-Factor-2010-Outraged-viewers-Twitter-complain-auto-tune-technology-used-episode.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Never mind the autotune thing, what about the totally rubbish bloke with that girl?

Was that not the whole intention, to get her into the next round?

"You have a great friend there", yeah, prepared to make himself look thick, purely to get her noticed, etc.

Still, fairplay to her/them, it worked, and now nobody else can use that particular scam.

xp since it's ITV not BBC, the Big Rupe owned papers might probably leave off.

The Big Rupe papers should be all over it since they're trying to sell their own talent show http://sky1.sky.com/must-be-the-music (unless they're using autotune as well).

I have been suckered into this now, against my better judgement.

G & S were astoundingly odd and the whole thing seemed so false, like it's all engineered so that the annoying bloke can hang around and become a "personality" even though he can't sing. I hope I'm wrong. I think Simon was right in saying no to her - she was better than him, but she wasn't that good. Autotune very obvious to distinguish between then, even though it really wasn't necessary to make extra effort make him look bad.

X Factor announces auto-tune ban

'ban' is an odd way to put it, as if people were turning up with their own autotune boxes.

That could be a thing next year. Like those people who smuggled computers into casinos, except instead of computing gambling odds it pitch corrects your singing.

G from &S enjoying his 15 minutes in front of a bunch of weans in Linwood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V1n172KJSA

oh dear, "so much negativity in the room" guy is an MJ impersonator

Saw a bit of this tonite, needed more Autotune imo

oh dear, "so much negativity in the room" guy is an MJ impersonator.

He was on the Michael Jackson Live Seance show that Derek Acorah did.

No-one watching this any more then? Just turned over to see Storm (invented to give Simon a chance to be Mean Simon and Cheryl the chance to be Nice Cheryl and Louis the chance to just sit there being Louis) and the orangest girl in the world go through.

i forgot it was on but i just switched over. i kinda hate this audition in front of a big audience thing, so pointless and you actually hardly get to see anyone.

that was really good though - i was expecting justin timberlake's Cry me a river.

I remember this guy from the last time, he was the guy who liked like he was going to burst into tears all the time (I can't find the X Factor 2008 thread),

diet j beeber

This Coleen Rooney Stepford Boot Camp advert is very very freaky.

OW MY EARS

Birmingham's answer to Maria Pracatan!

Magarita Pracatan

I sure that some of these auditionees realise that they have no chance, and just come along because they want to sing in front of thousands of people.

16 year old Cher looks older than me!

xpost, yes, undoubtedly.

Oh, she has some bad moves. This had better not go through. I liked daft Brenda better, tbh.

weird voice and tics

Still, she is a proto-Cheryl so no surprise that Cheryl loves her.

she looks a bit meth-y

omg apparently the girl on right now is doing "turn my swag on"?!?! but i'm not near a tv :(

so true xpost

Oh Louispaws, stop singing along!

Wagner ftw

Oh fuck off, female Jedwards.

This is the face punch duo, I think.

My sister is her cousin HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK?

They are some kind of prank and acted by Catherine Tate or something, right?

Bloody hell, Vicky Pollard's real.

omg apparently the girl on right now is doing "turn my swag on"?!?! but i'm not near a tv :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JglWZ-wC3Vk

I LOVE HER

HOP UP OUT THE BEEEEEED
TURN MY SWAG OOOOOONNNNN

love that song! love that she chose to do a random bootleg remix. and seriously her voice is a LOT like keri hilson's.

i iddn't love her voice but she really "got" the track - i.e. had actually thought about what she was singing and communicated that.

http://twitter.com/MissKeriBaby/status/23047360487

:D

hahahaha she is awesome!

simon's face!

love the facepalm around 2.20

she definitely has the SWAG factor

i love how excited cheryl gets, you can actually see her thinking "that's the sort of pop star *i* wanted to be"

http://twitter.com/iamCherLloyd/status/23074958368

omg. so sweet. and i am so old.

It's getting to be that the auditonee's parents are looking younger than me.

wow. that was great stuff from cher lloyd. its so cool to see raw talent like that.

cher says that she would love to collaborate with nicki minaj. this girl definitely knows where it's at.

^^yeah just saw that i/v!

smh at the presenters obviously not having the slightest clue who nicki minaj is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s5h9OhCEgI

Cher probably has no idea who Philip Schofield is.

His verse on "International Player's Anthem" was shit tbf

Who rhymes "sofa" with "Gordon the Gopher"?

loving the ironing of Lex dissing others for lack of knowledge of personalities :-)

I will freely admit I am not terribly au fait with the young person's music of which Cher is an exponent, so can someone tell me is she actually proper brilliant, or is this all just wau because someone is bringing something which isn't terribly mainstream to the X Factor.

It's sort of both. a) she is actually properly brilliant, and b) this isn't the usual "I have eclectic taste in music... for my audition I will perform 'Angels' by Robbie Williams"

yeah, and you didn't get the different-for-the-sake-of-being-different sense either - just a kid performing a song she loved because, duh, what else would you do?

she's got a limited voice obv, like many successful pop and r&b singers, but she's got a precocious sense of stagecraft and a ton of charisma. she has swagger, basically.

also nicki minaj is actually famous.

Yeah, I suppose, she's not like John Wayne or Lee Harvey Oswald :-p

http://img.listal.com/image/579457/500full.jpg
L-R: Rufus Hound, Marty Pellow

just gotta make sure she hams it up for big fucking band week.

also nicki minaj is actually famous.

Yeah she had that one single that almost cracked the UK Top 70.

In mainstream UK mid-morning TV world Nicki Minaj doesn't even exist. Philip Schofield is unlikely to have heard of half of the more famous acts she has recorded with.

omg, just watched that This Morning interview. She's amazing!

i am mainly interested in this because nicole scherzinger will be one of the judges.

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Wednesday, 18 August 2010 19:57 (1 month ago)

This is on now, so hoping you are near a TV or TV enabled Internet complaint device...

I mean compliant device

The staged laughter at this girl with the eyelashes is horrendous.

I'm not liking the way this whole thing has been engineered to make Simon look like the nice guy.

Yeah, it's super-obvious, isn't it?

oh i loved her.

Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaging this one out - do ITV1 viewers like really predictable stuff?

so great to see an attractive woman without hooker boots &c too

That last lassie? She was terrific, yes.

yes she reminded me of martina topley bird

Turns out Chloe with the eyelashes is a prostitute. And she has the worst website in the world.

http://chloemafia.co.uk/

oh dear :s

Oh God, this woman on the Xtra Factor just now. Just, like, no. Stop it!

xpost yeeeeeeees. She also has a profile on what appears to be a social networking site for prostitutes. It is... interesting. I'll paste for full disclosure, but not hyperlink for the sake of sanity, referrals, and so on: http://www . adultwork . com/ViewProfile.asp?UserID=992991&SE=1

http://www.starnow.co.uk/chloemafia

Q. can i take pictures or film?
A. yes sure babe this is 100 pound ontop of the fee
Q. Do you do anal?
A. Yes i do at my discression, there is a 50pound extra charge for this

she's somethin alright.

ALSO IM THROUGH TO THE 4TH ROUND OF XFACTA

what's the fourth round? Not that I think that's necessarily a proper spoiler, since well yeah.

xxp on that profile I think she forgot to mention that she'd been on BBC3's 'Snog Marry Avoid'

the 'enjoys' list on the escort website is amazing, I haven't had enough sex in my life to have had the time to try all that out.

Just in case anyone doesn't know, the final live audition show is on tonight.

OK, final set of auditions on now. Then next week we can concentrate on the real singers. Unless we get another Jedward...

Me and my big mouth. It's gay Mancunian Jedward...

gawd, not saying it's impossible for 20-somethings to like bill withers or anything, but are these shitty cliched audition tunes really what kids listen to on their ipods on the bus into town?

but someone actually sang a bill withers song tonight.

i reckon that guy marlon was with his boyfriend and his mum & kids (which is cool, obviously)

Nicole whatsit was irritating. And I didn't like a single one of the auditionees.

can't fucking believe louis didn't know who tupac was, such an outrage

I think he was as per Cheryl, wondering how this guy was Tupac.

Simon: "So, what are you in it for?"
Bloke: "Sex <snip> rock and roll!"
Simon: "Well, at least you're honest"

Unlike ITV, right? lol.

painter & decorator guy is adorable.

[also, since ITV was briefly left on there, can i say that Mick Hucknall needs some plastic surgery asap]

I think he's already had a bit too much.

really? his eyes bags are like actual shopping bags.

I must have caught a bit with his mouth open for a high note or something, because it looked like his skin had been stretched back. I can only sort-of see the bags as ITV1 on analogue is like watching through a sheet of gauze.

Painter and decorator guy was lovely, yes. He's going out though, I don't think Simon likes him at all. Haven't decided whether they're going to keep Chloe in for maximum tabloid media exposure. Presume the kid that didn't want to do the dancing is earmarked for sleeper candidate now, aye?

I'm going to be that person who doesn't like Cher. While I totally get what she's about, and I think it is really good that she's not just going to reinterpret Radiohead songs in the style of Mariah Carey like every other female contestant, I basically don't like her voice and I don't think JUST being different should be enough to carry her through.

never want to hear that bloody adele song ever again.

This is some long drawn out tedious nonsense.

so the over 28s is predominantly a bunch of mental patients?

the ads for when the judges get given groups:

'oh i totally wasn't expecting that'

gf just said, 'well it's got to be one of 4, can't be that much of a surprise. Unless they get told they're managing the ALLIGATORS!!'

can't stand aiden gold digger.

over 28s got the lol-factor huh.

doesn't make any sense really, there were two boys in there that aren't group material (liam and henry?) and one girl that isn't (blonde, nice looking, can't remember her name)and yet they let that guy through to the boys who was cheesy and bad and who they kept saying was like someone from a buy band from five years ago?

"You're going to be mentoring... some people who can actually sing, don't have out of control egos, and can get through an audition/show/rehearsal/tea break without bursting into tears!"

not henry, harry.

but liam has an excellent voice as a solo. so silly.

was really hoping the big surprise for those final 9 was that they were going to be the support act for the live tour or something.

ha!

"You didn't get through, but we've got some good news... You're going to be runners for the production team!"

they just give louis the shittest category each year don't they?

the lolouis factor

No-one at all surprised that Cheryl got Cher in her group. I thought Liam not going through was a terrible decision, and then making him into a boyband was just awful. Simon's doing the groups, and he has basically just invented two of them himself. That'll go well. Also they put non-dancer Zain in the boyband as well, surprise!

My current favourites are Guma, Annastasia, Rebecca and painter-and-decorator bloke.

i'm not really feeling gamu and i feel churlish saying she seems fake but she does, to me. not putting liam through on his own was madness. the age gerrymandering actually works against their favour though, making the boy & girl sections an embarrassment of riches (haha, relatively!) and the over 28s a joke category.

where is this daft cunt "storm" from? scotland?

Somewhere in America, but originally from Edinburgh, I think he said. I was certain Simon would have him at his house for the "lols".

I missed Gamu's whole backstory thing, but she does have a lovely voice.

favourites: rebecca & painter & decorator. rebecca already has a voice that seems genuine but current. cher's def got something, although her solo performance was all over the place. she needs to strike a better balance between her actually pretty good singing voice and her talking/rapping voice which sounds flat. at least she's trying something ailsa?

On voice alone, I'd go for Rebecca Ferguson and Mary Byrne, both of whom gave me chills on their first audition.

Still think Cher Lloyd is kind of amazing in her own way.

I also like Trayc Cohen and Gamu Nhengu. Raquel Thomas has a lovely way about her.

Keri Arrindell is just so beautiful I can't really remember how good her voice is, but I think it's pretty good (she was the one from a Supremes tribute act)

There's something I don't like about Matt Cardle's singing style but there's a lot I do too. He's the only guy I really like, actually.

I think John Wilding could be a dark horse – they've barely shown him so far, but he's got a huge, unexpected voice. Not really for me though.

So the two thrown-together groups are called 1 Direction and Belle Amie.

1 direction! haha

i think cher lloyd's first audition is my favourite thing of 2010.

Keri Arrindell is just so beautiful I can't really remember how good her voice is, but I think it's pretty good

xxp They should change their name to Zero Direction

at least she's trying something ailsa?

I did acknowledge that, but I don't think that in itself should be enough. Simon absolutely doesn't get it at all though, it's fun to see his brain struggling to deal with the fact that other people do and there's probably something in it for him if he can get his head around her.

Which one is John Wilding?

I adored Gamu Nhengu's take on the Adele song (which I first heard at a friend's funeral last year, so I'm somewhat biased in its favour).

Chloe was just on This Morning. It made for some grim watching.

That Cher girl pre the X-factor (on some kind of talent thing called the 'text factor' - maybe a school production??)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6VMq7c1m6c&feature=PlayList&p=08A1AC03AC290EB6&index=0&playnext=1

If there was a 'rehearsal' phase, it could be called the Next factor.

("Max Factor" joke in 72, 71, ...)

Or the W Factor? And there could be a show where the people who didn't get through to the live finals are given lessons in "how to use a tape recorder to discover how bad your voice is", called "The Y Factor".

Then you can do a follow-up on the careers of everyone who isn't Leona or Alexandra or JLS, and it could be called the Z-list Factor.

John Wilding at home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZuRwkrh4J0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

No-one? I'm an hour behind, but dear fucking God, Sharon Osbourne's face!

please stop this drop-crotch trouser madness!

xp does Sharon have the same plastic surgeon as Priscilla Presley?

I will be having Sharon Osbourne nightmares this evening! I do love how Louis has no actual friends to call on now that Ronan's a national disgrace.

There's another one and a quarter hours of this tomorrow, so it's going to be drawn out somewhat.

Jeez, really? I am well behind here, am catching up on Sky+. Just at Storm making Louis all teary. Louis' teary face is never going to stop cracking me up ever.

will.i.am's white armband makes him look like a volunteer first aider.

Louis' teary face just looks like he's chopping onions!

lol. haven't got to that yet, obv, but his glasses when Cheryl introduced him (and freaked the fuck out of Cher) looked like the shit they used to make you put on in school chemistry classes to stop acid going in your eyes.

xpost about will.i.am

Louis' teary face is incredible. seriously, I think it's my favourite thing about the X Factor.

will.i.am probably has one of those Salter Science chemistry sets with the unsafe burner that burns meths. He's probably recorded over the Johnny Ball cassette tape though. Or sampled it.

I think it's my favourite thing about the X Factor

My favourite is Simon's harumphing face when everyone else is tearing up. He's going to be the grumpiest pensioner ever.

Sinitta's outfit!

Twem look like Gavin Henson playing dress-up as Gok Wan. Diva Fever can go and fuck off, btw.

Is no surprise at all that the groups Simon invented are pretty good.

Sinitta's dominatrix get-up was was o_O but better than last year's palm leaves. If both the made up groups go through to the live finals, I'm calling shenanigans.

i think you'll be calling shenanigans

Yeah, shenanigans signposted in big shiny neon signposts, I reckon. Also not unconvinced he's going to break 1 Direction back up again and make Liam go solo.

Princes & Rogues and The Reason don't deserve to be anywhere near the live shows for their god awful names alone.

Oh I think I will be as well. The way Simon was 'oh we're settled on these two'. The only question really is which 'real' group gets the third slot.

Dreadful names, but I sort of quite like Princes & Rogues. I'd not mind if they turned up in my pub providing Saturday night entertainment, but they are not X Factor winner material.

Katie's eyelashes!!!! also, she is fucking shite, why is she even here?

i know, she didn't use the umbrella ella ella in her performance.

*didn't even

Ouchie, just watching the Cher/Cheryl love-in shitefest.

total shite + pain in the arse.

at eyelashes lassie

yes, she's horrific. that's two ways she's fucked up (audition + cheryl's house), which is way unfair on decent people who never made it this far.

I suspect the massive Cher push could well backfire. But she'll do OK regardless.

I really want Matt Cardle to win, I think.

Yeah, quite like Matt the Hat.

Zain looked like a total stiff in whatever the heck that band is.

so, who we predicting?

I reckon:

Girls: Cher, Gamu, Rebecca
Boys: Matt, Aiden, Paije
Overs: Mary, Storm, Yuli
Groups: 1 Direction, Belle Amie, Husstle

(note, this is not necessarily who I would choose)

Zain was bound to look like a stiff due to whole episode being based round him being shit at dancing and running away.

Not feeling Husstle, but that one girl's haircut cracks my boys up. FYD were really good I thought. And yeah, Belle Amie were quite polished, and looked like quite a straightforward lot to market successfully, apart from the shite name (wondering if they were named after Craig or David).

predictions:

rebecca (winner!)
cher (hm...)
Treyc or Keri, i don't think Gamu will make it.

bel ami (pretty good all told)
one direction (2 great voices, should have been a 3 or 4 boy band at most)
Diva Fever (i'm calling it)

matt cardle (damn, boy)
paije (pretty amazing tonight)
aiden (stop singing like you've been in the biz for 20 years)

over 28's - don't know or care.

I never actually thought about the name until I heard it said out loud tonight! It is terrible, isn't it? I'm not feeling Husstle at all, but I reckon Simon will put them through. It's occurred to me though that he might put through someone shite like Diva Fever to make his chosen groups look better, but they might hang around forever like the Macdonald Brothers or Jedward and he'll have to practice his mentor face.

xpost

You might be right about Gamu, I think she'd be through if it wasn't Cheryl mentoring. Would have no problems at all with Keri or Treyc going through.

Can't stand Aiden.

Love Diva Fever.

Cher to win.

Ok, maybe 'love' is a bit strong. I like them. The one who's always on the left is so striking.

poor cher. :/

Over 28s: Mary, John & Storm (god help us)

Actually I'm not sure about Aiden. He can sing, but, hmmm.

I should stop thinking this much about X Factor!

If you can't overthink the X Factor on this thread, where can you?

Forgot about John for the overs, reckon he's a good shout. Put him in in place of Yuli. Mary and Storm should be safe through, no question about it.

lol Katie. Painful show-off indeed. James Blunt, Sophocles off the Apprentice, that bloke from In Bruges and Jimmy Carr. Well done.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/showbiz/xfactor/1013668/Ex-Apprentice-star-Michael-Sophocles-on-X-Factor-favourite-Katie-Waissel.html

Michael met Katie at a party in his north London flat in March 2008 when friends gathered to watch him in Lord Sugar's hit BBC1 show.

Well I bet that was a fun evening for his friends. "Hey come round to my flat, I'm having a party! The theme is 'Watch How Great I Am On The Apprentice'!". Sophocles fancies himself so much and is so full of shit that I can't really believe anything he says. Every unpleasant personality trait he accuses her of could equally be applied to him. I don't like Cowell much at all, but I like how he's above this kind of thing.

And on last night's show Katie screwed up the words of a song when it was the only song she had to learn. She's not going through to the live finals.

Now, I think he's a big a twat as they've ever had on the Apprentice, but if you were on the telly, you'd have your mates round to watch you, aye? But bringing extra people round that you *don't* know = HI DERE WATCH ME ON TELLY I AM GREAT LOVE ME AND SHAG ME PLZ (except he forgot how much of a twat he was all the way through).

I would very much like an X Factor devoid of screaming fame whores who want to be famous rather than who want to be singers.

xpost Mary fucked up her words as well, but her category doesn't have as many choices in it, so I think she'll still be OK. Katie has fucked up twice (forgot her audition words as well), but I have a worrying feeling she'll get through due to massive onscreen focus. But then again, I thought that about Chloe as well.

Blubathon COMMENCE!

how on earth are they getting an hour and a quarter from this? And why am I watching anyway?

Why do they keep saying "there's no room for error", and then not. putting. in. the. effort.?

xp partly because there's bugger all else. Oh wait another commercial break already?!

They all have a lot of "this is the hardest decision of my life".

also...

And why am I watching anyway?

― Antoine Bugleboy (Merdeyeux), Sunday, 3 October 2010 19:48 (1 minute ago) Bookmark

They need to be wearing name labels because there's too many of them! Aiden looks like he's escaped from a NKOTB tribute band.

Aiden absolutely reminds me of someone I know but I can't place. I worry that I'm going to remember who it is, and it's going to be a woman.

WTF, Paije out? DANNI U MAD.

Aw, I want to hug John so much. Fucking Nicolo's going through here.

Nicolo through - yes he's a colossal twit but I think he's in it for reasons other than fame/money.

Can only assume Dannii's pegged Matt Cardle as her potential winner, so not putting through anyone likely to challenge him too much? I mean, it's a travesty in itself that Liam isn't here.

xpost, can't get past the colossal twitness, really.

He's the dark horse, I think he'll be in to at least halfway through.

Probably. But I reserve the right to just not like him.

John was a bit too David Brent imo. Aiden's face when he sings reminds of Paul Young, that whole shut-eyed chipmunk-cheeks thing.

Poor Paije :(

xp Nicolo will be the most annoying contestant after Katie - if she goes through, and if she does (crystal ball tea leaves advance prediction) she and Nicolo will start dating.

I have been trying really hard to not just see John as being played by Ricky Gervais, but it's nigh on impossible, really.

The overs are a really bad category, aren't they? Wagner is good for lolz, but he's not a contender. I worryingly think Storm might be the best one there. Him and John. Mary should be OK. Justin looks like a fucking gremlin.

I'm just pretending househusband Stephen doesn't exist, btw.

Yay John! Louis is shit at lying face.

no Wagner. :'(

Fucking hell, it has just occurred to me how fucking bad Louis mentoring Mary could be. It'll be fucking shamrocks galore :-/

sorry, that was a bit sweary.

I really don't care about the groups. Diva Fever are probably the best, but even they are Jedward do summer season at Blackpool.

FYD through. Can't see beyond the two Simon-invented groups now.

I like how they don't get to sit down for teary hugs.

Yay for FYD! Simon obv. not a Diva Fever believer.

Simon's permanent smile while giving his bad news is kind of disturbing. A little bit of sociopathy to it.

I would totally support a Princes & Rogues upset here, but there's no way Simon could do that to, well, himself.

Wand Erection up next.

oh FUCK YOU Cowell

lol xpost

And that is the only bit of entertainment that Wand Direction (haha) will provide for the entire remainder of the contest.

Seriously, if Diva Fever release a Christmas single, I will buy it just to stick two fingers up at Simon.

Piano shopping mall version of 'Sweet Child O' Mine' possibly the most irritating background music I've heard this episode.

The piano version of Mika's Happy Endings was bad.

I predict blubbing and controversy from Cheryl's lot.

Keri reminds me of my mate's wee sister, she is absolutely beautiful.

WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU CHERYL YOU IDIOT!

Gamu out? This is really going to be another wrong-o X Factor year isn't it.

absolute upset

Why is Cheryl making out like she doesn't know who she has to choose from? She was picking 3 from 8, not one from each arbitrarily-chosen little subsection?! OMG I HAVE TO CHOOSE FROM TREYC AND CHER OH NOES!

Cheryl got in my good books after that "little bit annoying" line, but OY. Katie messed up two audition phases!

yawny fucking yawn. Matt ftw.

Or Rebecca. But I can't see a third Cheryl win in a row.

Ick, the makeovertastic official clips! Storm's hair!

oh, and a BIG TWIST!

Cher from the Girls, Nicolo from the Boys, Over 28's = ZZZZZZ but Storm (wtf at that dyed red hair) just to annoy Simon, Groups = ZZZZZZZZZZZZ but FYD just to annoy Simon...

Keri reminds me of my mate's wee sister, she is absolutely beautiful.

Is she on Facebook?

xxp the BIG TWIST will be that Dermot comes out on stage, does that annoying little spin, but goes SO FAST that he drills to the centre of the Earth.

Does the big twist mean Gamu gets reinstated?

that was my initial thought, but can't see how they'd justify sticking an extra girl in. other judges would be a bit peeved, no?

Contestant swap with The Apprentice?

lolol

haha, Chris you pervert. I have no idea. I haven't seen her for about 15 years.

xpost big twist = Gamu in, aye. Perhaps after Katie is thrown out for being annoying.

Sorry!

little scrap of paper profile thing about Cher on Xtra Factor - "occupation: studnet" (sic). lol

yeah but it could be a bit of a 'Simon gets so angry at the casting off of Gamu he takes her into his group regardless' making him the hero. Or something. It smells like a scam.

come on kids, big twist is obviously gonna be JEDWARD!

Gamu fourth favourite in the betting right now with two bookies at the moment. Just saying, like.

Xtra Factor stealing the "Belle Amie, are they named after David or Craig" joke from this very thread.

According to the Daily Star:

In a sensational stunt on the first live show on Saturday, the acts will be joined by another four new finalists.
Each judge – Cheryl, plus Simon Cowell, 50, Louis Walsh, 58, and Dannii Minogue, 38 – will get the chance to choose a “wild card” act for their categories.

That means one losing act from each group, seemingly kicked out at the Judges’ Houses stage tonight, will get a second chance.

And once they are in, it means they could even go on to win.

The wild card surprise is a big new stunt for the ITV show.

And producers think it will bring in even more ratings, as well as creating more competition among the acts.

A senior show source said: “Simon had been thinking about playing wild cards for a while and this year he decided to do it.

“The ‘final’ 12 acts chosen tonight will think they are the only ones slugging it out to win because that’s how it has always been.

“But there is a massive surprise in store. On the first live show next Saturday, all 20 of the singers and bands who didn’t make it through will come back on the show.

“And on the night, the four judges will get the chance to choose one act each to include in their category – effectively throwing some of the losers a lifeline to be on the show and ultimately win.

“This is a major shake-up for the show and it’s bound to upset the original 12 acts who were chosen at Judges’ Houses.

“As far as they were concerned the others were out of the running. But now four will be back in the race. The judges know about it now but didn’t at the time when they made their choices. The fur will no doubt fly!”

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/156611/X-FACTOR-CHERYL-CRACKS/

Internets reckons that of the four let back in (Paije, Gamu, Diva Fever, Wagner, I reckon), next week's live show will be voting to put one of them through to join the other twelve, so only a teeny reprieve.

I wouldn't normally post on an X thread but the subsection of my FB friends who are black and under 30 and watching X Factor is PISSED OFF.

http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2010/Oct/Week1/15750628.jpg

cher a singer from hell?

She's mucked up as well, she was way behind Gamu and Treyc in terms of ability. I think it was the wrong decision, but it was obviously going to happen.

as well as Katie, I mean. Who should in no way be through.

well Katie through is madness but i would replace her with TrayC rather than Gamu. Cher deserves her place for her first audition alone imo. Dannii clearly a racist, Nicolo rather than Paije, gtfo! seriously who is going to vote for Nicolo? he's not even train wreck amusing like Katie.

massive LOLs at Wand Erection.

Keri, Treyc, Gamu, Raquel and Annastasia all shafted by the disgusting Katie. Particularly upset about Treyc because she seemed so sweet, and Keri, because she was so gorgeous. Raquel's voice really impressed me this week too. Not sure Cher is ready, but it will be interesting. Shame they screwed this lot over by changing the over 25s category and putting Katie through. It was such a strong set.

I don't really rate Paije, btw. He's technically good and seems a nice guy but I don't think he has the X FACTOR.

I fancy 1 Direction to win it.

http://www.anorak.co.uk/256750/tv/how-the-x-factor-and-sony-bmg-fixed-it-for-katie-waissel-aka-katie-vogel.html

Katie apparently Not What She Seems.

hearing Wand Erection every week is going to keep me watching, just like Danyl Johnson / Daniel Johnston did last year.

omg she knows chaz jankel!

Not sure Cher is ready

This is a good point. When you look at folk like Liam and Annastacia who have got so far and failed and then come back when they've grown, you wonder why they won't afford Cher the same story. She just doesn't seem prepared for this at all, and I wonder if a year or so to grow wouldn't do her some good. Except that Cheryl is the only one who knows what to do with her, and she got the girls, so might be her only chance to mentor her, who's to say if Cher came back in two years she wouldn't be stuck with Louis trying to turn her into a stand-up-for-the-keychange balladeer or something?

I think that has a lot to do with it, yes.

New theory as per Daily Star: Cheryl was forced to drop Gamu as there were doubts about her UK visa.

My theory: They film everyone getting dropped, cue genuine sad eyes, etc.

Then they film everyone getting put through (it's easier to fake the happiness)...

And then, after the event and no-one being outed by the press and/or having 'difficulties', they edit together the final choices.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1318078/X-FACTOR-2010-Cheryl-Cole-visits-wildcard-Gamu-Nhengu-prepares-leave-UK.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

it's all going off re: Gamu...

Simon clearly not convinced there when he said that he had the best category.

Yeo Valley :/

Big up ya chest, reprazent tha West (Country).

Surely Louis doesn't think that Wagner is going to win?

jesus christ the hotness of the guys in that yeo valley ad.

i nearly died laughing at the "are you ready"/"I'm ready" cheryl/treyc bit of TV burp tonight.

aaaaaaaaaand let's play 'Spot Which Members Of FYD Can't Sing?'

To be fair, with your eyes shut you could point at the screen and pick the right one.

Speaking of keeping eyes shut...

(it's Matt)

hatt

The way he keeps shutting his eyes then forcibly opening them makes me think he has cataracts.

He looked wiped out at the end of that and he wasn't even moving around.

VG

Oh dear... John is going to be severely hampered by Louis' song choices.

oh boy

Umm. Yeah.

Damn I feel sorry for him - he's k-fucked and he knows it.

weird song choice, not the most comfortable fit for her but superb nonetheless. the little fills and variations from the original are totally her own. i totally love her.

totally!

Don't see it as a young person's song I'm afraid.

WAIT WAIT WAIT AWESOME

That was pretty good. He's still an annoying twonk though.

Storm shouldn't have been peeping through the letterbox while those kids were spraying graffiti on his front door. Also he teeth were a bit dodge imo.

Belle Amie were terrible, why are the judges being so nice? Oh yes, because they are one of Simon's two made up groups.

More than anything, the pose at the end reminded me of that old Kit-Kat advert.

I liked it after the key change. Before, not so much.

I think of them as Bellamy, in tribute to David.

yeah that was pish. i do think they could be good though.

are they being instructed by the producers to be nice? that was fkn terrible!

Was that really Jedward in that pre-ad-break bit? Oh how the mighty have fallen...

I'm a bit behind (was taping as other half was watching Merlin), but there are so many ads and filler, I'll be back up to speed in no time.

I love Matt.

Simon's "this was number one in New Zealand, Louis" bullshit was just that, btw. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Sweet_Day

JLS love to play with their Wii...

Agree that Teardrops is not the right song to showcase Rebecca with, but she's so good. Would be delighted if she won.

This isn't gay at all, is it...

Not in the least. I always change behind a silver lamé windbreak while some guy gesticulates in front.

Cowell: "I think the world has become quite a boring place over the last couple of years..." - no thanks to you, squarehead!

fuck off with trying to motivate Scotland to vote for Storm, Louis.

ailsa, i need you in real time next week.

i like paije but that was rotten.

Won't be on the internet at all next week, jed, sorry :-(

Christ, if I fastforward past Bellamy right now, that would save (1) time and (2) my ears

Yeah, I'm really happy that he's there but that performance should have been arranged better. Also the choreography was lame. When he walked behind the judges I thought he was in danger of falling into the crowd. Also dressing him like Turbo B might have been a mistake.

maybe i'll go out next week!

A car alarm outside my house is massively improving We Are The Champions. Actually, it might be a house alarm, it's a more constant tone.

Speaking of The Champions, I wouldn't mind it if Katie got lost in the Arctic Circle...

Is that really the sort of song you do in the first week?

And Louis says "bit of Madonna bit of Gwen Stefani", but I say "Anthea Turner".

yeah i wondered that.

she's so original and individual you would never guess a team of stylists took a week putting that together.

xpost lol@ anthea!

I would say that out of the contestants so far, Mary has the best chance of a singing career if she doesn't win.

snoball OTM about Paije. Cher was v. good.

Katie up now, so I've just about caught up with you guys.

haha, OMG, she's like a tesco value Lady Gaga. That welder's hat contraption thing on her head! But Anthea Turner spot is a good one.

She's shit, obv.

And where the fuck was that James Brown song number one?

Federal Republic of Jamesbrownland?

mary byrne absolutely fantastic!

i was moved!

Yeah, it was a good song for her all the same.

Katie's eye makeup is lovely up close, but looking at her chatting to Dermot from a distance, she looks like a drag queen.

Wow, Mary is great!

She sounds in places like Shirley Bassey if Shirley lost the weird slurring affectation.

This guy is the worst of the bunch so far.

Nicola that is.

I think I'll use this juncture to laugh at Cheryl's bad fake tan job.

Mary so awesome. Even if Nicollo (ubertwont to Storm's regular twont) had come out riding a diamond encrusted unicorn he wouldn't have been able to compete. But looking like Lembit Opik's son wearing Sue Pollard's sunglasses with hair like a 1920's cricket player?

xpost not anywhere near as bad as Diva Fever's, but at least they were colour matched.

i don't think he was the worst. still bowled over by mary tbh.

I have a feeling that Nicollo has lost his nerve just a tad.

xp all tonight's performances are available for download on iTunes (FFS I sound like Dermot now...) - I wouldn't be surprised if Mary's performance was Top 10 tomorrow.

I think Dannii's shafted Nicolo royally with this song choice. Can't he say no? He's a twunt, absolutely, but he's better than this.

i'd have thought the song choice was right up his street.

I think it's awful. He's got a good voice and it was lost in the middle of the brashness and bad showmanship and what is basically a very simple song.

And now the second of Simon's made up groups - Wand Erection! (still lolling at that btw)

Wand Erection are doing Coldplay. Do I need to add joeks to that?

And I'm back up to speed with you lot. Sadly means I can't fast forward past Wand Erection being not very good.

They are terrible, ITV Summertime Special terrible.

This is like a shit Westlife b-side to a Christmas single. It's bearable when no-one's singing on their own. Just.

That was like a charity single by the Arsenal youth team.

Actually this shower are the worst.

If they're not in the bottom two, something is dreadfully dreadfully wrong with the hearing of the UK public.

Loving Louis trying to claim they were his idea. If I was Simon then I'd be giving him the credit.

I love how Wagner speaks with a Brazilian accent, then says 'Dudley' just like someone from Dudley!

OMG! Wagner dancing!

NOT CAMP AT ALL

The earrings! It's like Bill Bailey parodying an X Factor contestant.

Have just turned to ITV to see a terrified old man, what's going on?

ha, oh God. Bongos! Segue into Loveshack!

This is like a bad Eurovision performance. Jedward screwed up "She Bangs" last year, but Wagner is giving them a run for their money!

And tit rubbing???

bongos! lol.

This is some horrific prank, right? Louis shouldn't be allowed to mentor anyone, ever.

LOUIS HAS THE BEST CONTESTANTS THIS YEAR, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

One deadly medley there.

Simon: "Embrace the madness."

i thought wand erection were good apart from the obvious cock ups.

wagner utterly astonishing.

I love how this year the contestants are a real mixed bag. Last year everyone was normal and kind of boring, with only Jedward in the OMGWTFLOL category.

it took me a few minutes to remember who won last year.

Yeah, was discussing this with a mate a couple of weeks ago and we decided it was definitely a bloke's turn to win this year, having both completely forgotten the existence of Joe McElderry.

I think I saw him in the lower reaches of the top 40 earlier.

He's so vulnerable = Donnie Darko, obv

Serious Aiden has serious face.

And appears to be in a straightjacket.

He looks like he's just got back from 'nam.

omg

Overdoing the "teenage vampire chic intense look" a bit.

his mum looks the same age as me, which makes me feel v. old.

That was very good, but his serious intense face was very distracting.

It was like he'd just smelt a really noxious fart.

wtf are they talking about?!

ah bless. the judges are trying so hard to do something new. actually, a bit too hard. it will be interesting to see who copes best with cocteau twins week (jk.)

You're very current, you sound like Michael Stipe. Shut up Simon.

The Rhydler would have done that much better.

his mum looked like michelle from corrie

cocteau twins week, would watch

uh super predictable song choice for Treyc

I would have believed that performance of Mad World a lot more if they'd have drafted in Wagner on the bongos.

Bang-up hair and makeup job, she looks incredible. Also, what a voice!

But ugh @ the song!

Does Dermot ever remind anyone else of Mr Benn?

^^^ ha

omg i'm LOLing at the idea of wagner bongo-ing behind aiden doing mad world.

xxpost ha

I reckon we could work it out for Cocteaus week

Mary Byrne - Song To The Siren (a cheat, I know)
Wagner - Pearly Dewdrops Drops
Treyc - The Spangle Maker

As if by magic the shopkeeper appeared...
Shopkeeper: "Sorry De... I mean, Mr Benn. We don't have anything in stock this week. How about becoming a TV presenter on a completely over the top TV talent show?"

Matt - From The Flagstones
Rebecca - Donimo

vulnerable:

FYD
John
Waissel

oh and Nicolo

Cher - Ivo
Diva Fever - Cherry Coloured Funk
Paije - Sugar Hiccup

no one's going to vote for him are they?

Recaps, and I'm actually in tears at Diva Fever. I may lose it when I have to see Wagner again.

Double elimination tomorrow! Plus live appearance from Joe McElderry. And Usher.

Storm - Hitherto
Wand Erection - Wax And Wane
Bellamy - Evangeline

double elim? i missed that.

for all the praise heaped on aiden i can't see many actually liking & voting for him.

I tell you something, Wagner's gonna clean up if they ever do double points for the best Dieter Meier lookalike.

The groups is the weak category again. Only Diva Fever stand out and they may not be that versatile (Big Band week?). Although FYD have a secret weapon in that bald guy with the glasses. The question is, will they realise it? (/dermot)

xxp I think Aiden's safe for the moment, he has the teenage girl vote.

Nicolo - Frosty The Snowman
Aiden - Love's Easy Tears
FYD - Iceblink Luck
John - Great Spangles Fritillary
Katie - Orange Appled

That wasn't as straightforward as I thought it would be.

Xtra Factor just now, Storm sporting a cracking shiner. That'll explain the makeup then (lol at Guardian liveblog, describing him as the Fonz Riddler)

i have just watched most of these clips on youtube, as usual.

cher - still <3 her. the rap!! her face!
mary - fkn hell why did no one tell me about her before now! she's AMAZING - love her voice and she has a ton of personality too. was going to say "susan boyle if she was good" but that's unfair, there's no comparison; mary can actually pull off the showtune diva thing, and in such a no-nonsense fashion too
rebecca - like her too, though despite picking a good song i agree it was probably the wrong song for her; mmm yes, what you want to do to a sade-alike is make her into a disco queen
aiden - lololololololololol overdoing the ~intensity~ just a tad don't you think?
matt - so. boring.
belle amie - one of them seemed competent, overall it was a bit of a sub-atomic kitten karaoke thing. don't think they were in sync w/each other at any point
treyc - boring song aside she has a fantastic voice, i thought at first, and then the camera panned round and it was like HOLY SHIT YOUR ASS IS AMAZING. serena, trina, jennifer lopez.
storm - rmde at these add-riddled attention-seekers
niccolo - as above but x a million, fuck OFF
katie - UGH FTTTTHHHH DIE. immediate unbridled hate. TOO MANY KOOKS. everything is just stupid about her. that HAT, christ, did she make it out of discarded beach detritus? YOU ARE NOT GAGA. also you can't fucking sing anyway. DIE DIE DIE.

i did not watch the rest as i did not have the strength.

i kind of wish katie was more gothy just so i could say "too many kooks spoil the goth" :(

I appreciate the work aldo has put in on Cocteau Twins week, but I need to know what the rap is that Cher will shoe horn into Ivo.

I think I would pay money to see Paije sing Sugar Hiccup. It could actually work.

Matt could sing virtually all of the Cocteau choices aldo has made. That controlled falsetto makes him a shoe in.

My penny worth on tonight: Aiden, Mary and Matt stood out. Trayc - great voice, but how many times have we heard Simon say this isn't Stars in Their Eyes? Cos Trayc did a blinding Mary J Blige impression with no real personality or original content.

Desperately want 'wannabe' Katie to fuck off home, but I am afraid Wagner may beat her to it. I really hope I am wrong.

Sorry, add the astounding Rebecca to my stand out list. Of all of them, she is the one I really want to win this thing.

Belle Amie - Simon said he wanted something different from the usual girl band and then gave us a sub-standard All Saints, with the poor Shazney alike taking virtually all of the vocals (she has a decent voice though).

i remember being pretty blown away by rebecca's audition. she seems totally lovely, too.

Yeah, part of Rebecca's appeal is her seemingly genuine naivety. But that voice is to die for. Better than Sade IMO - closer to the Billie Holliday original.

Just remembered double elimination - Katie could be going home after all.

simon thinking he's the new malcolm mclaren this year is starting to grate.

early money on wand erection btw.

lex you owe it to yourself to at least watch Wagner's performance - a completely demented early 80's Eurovision style trashing of 'She Bangs'.

Double eviction whatever-they-call-it tonight. My money's on...

• John Adeleyle (unfortunately, crap song choice, I feel bad for him),
• Belle Amie (Atomic Kitten karaoke is about right),
• Katie (like they're doing a Lady Gaga clothes range at Asda),
• and Wand Erection (Simon tries to hit the Bieber zeitgeist with a scattergun approach)

I'd rather give "Ivo" to Wagner. "POM-PA-DORRR!"

diva-fever is necessary viewing too.

I was thinking Cher could do the first bit as her inept dutty girl rapping, then sing the 'chorus'.

i did notice that this year, there seems to be a much greater range of contestants, and picking a theme as all-encompassing as "number ones" meant they actually got to show off what made them distinct (or if not distinct as such, in most cases it seemed to display their, uh, essence pretty well). hopefully this continues, though i support the lobbying for cocteau twins week and would like to pitch for dancehall week after that.

favs are obv cher, mary and rebecca so far.

mary i think is least vulnerable - nobody else remotely like her so no fickle fanbase switching to fear; she seems to be able to knock it out of the park technically with ease every time, so i doubt she'll fuck up (and she's probably a lot more versatile than we think, so i don't think she'll be a victim of weird theme weeks); ireland can vote now, and regional voting will be enhanced by someone actually being good.

rebecca prob most vulnerable of those three - her strengths are all rather subtle and she might get erroneously characterised as boring because she's quiet and reserved (to the beenfit of her actual music) (all of this applies on a larger scale to sade herself! and equally wrongly).

cher obviously the least technically adept of them, she could flame out in tears in the next round or win it all - x factor producers clearly wanting to craft some bs ~dramatic~ narrative around her, not sure how true any of this fragile stuff is? she seemed distraught in boot camp week because she was REALLY ILL - she seemed fine this week. i just want her to do "hard in da paint" (ciara version) next. actually i have a whole list of songs i want to hear her do.

i'd be fine w/katie sticking around for another couple of weeks as it makes it a lot more fun to have someone so hateable to cheer against. no further though. the priority is getting rid of the anonyboybands before they hit their stride.

i am so into it this year!!

Would watch Wagner doing Skeng, definitely.

I assume Matt's safe due to being popular, because his song choice was quite poor and pretty forgettable (guy's got a voice though). I think John and Katie will go tonight.

i think john and FYD

from a bottom, how many? 3 or 4?

I think that Katie and Wand Erection both have a small but significant eccentric fanbase. John (sorry dude) and Bellamy to go (GBP seems to hate X Factor girl groups even when they're good - like those two that went out early last year).
I think FYD could stay in for a while - but they need to bring bald guy w/ glasses forward. The same thing they did with Aston in JLS. That was half way through the series though.

this is definitely the campest x factor ever. there are surely gays in FYD, Aiden surely gay, is Paije? Nicolo surely too... and that's before diva fever.

sorry about my excess of "surely"s

how long before a sex-pest allegations against ex PE teacher (!), Wagner?

i didn't get a gay vibe off aiden, thought he was just northern and weedy. then again my gaydar is notoriously shit.

Katie has had more bad publicity than anyone else though and that should do away with the fanbase? Two separate contracts previously under different names with Sony or BMG?

Her and John to go, with Bellamy pushing them hard. I predict a Wand Erection/Aiden fite for the teen girl vote in about week 5.

northern-dar

Wagner's got that PE teacher build, hasn't he. I'm a pretty lousy judge of character based on first appearances - over on this year's Apprentice thread I put my support behind a contestant who turns out to have been arrested with an extendable baton and knuckledusters in his car, on bail for fraud, and allegedly fired from a job for watching pr0n at work. So on that basis Mary could turn out to be a serial killer.
I've no idea who is gay or straight. Doesn't necessarily follow that Diva Fever are gay, despite what I said upthread about them being a "gay Mancunian Jedward". Jedward themselves were the campest thing ever last year and they're two straight lads. I never would have figured that Joe was gay, yet he came out last month.

aiden said elvis & james dean were "hot pieces of ass". so pretty sure he's gay.

xxxp I don't think that the bad publicity around Katie will make a difference. She's at or near the bottom of the 16, she's used up her chances (screwing up *twice* during boot camp and judge's houses), she's annoying, and she has no sob story to get her sympathy votes.

Aiden's contrived vulnerability is eurgh.

I actually quite liked Matt's voice last night, but he's too polite and inoffensive for my liking.

Zain Wand Erection was a bit of a disaster wasn't he.

Girl who sung the verses for Bellamy didn't own it at all.

simon thinking he's the new malcolm mclaren this year is starting to grate.

― i feel the same way (or something), Sunday, 10 October 2010 03:31 (10 hours ago)

Adam Ant week? Nicolo could do 'Beat My Guest'. No wait, Aiden could sing that - wearing a leather hood to go with the straight-jacket from this week.

Storm was outed by the Evening News during the week. Mind you, in the same article he moved from Scotland to LA then phoned home from Times Square, so who knows.

i think louis is on a hiding to nothing trying to get scotland to vote for storm. there are few things the scots like less than a scotsman with an american accent.

what do scots think of john barrowman then?

i'm not sure what anyone thinks of him. i just think of him as one of those people you wonder why they're famous but i've only seen him on the odd chat or quiz show.

oh dear - I suppose that every group number is going to be some sub-Glee mess?

man, that montage of classic usher singles was not the best lead-in to whatever dross is this current one :(

Usher just can't sing and dance at the same time - half his lyrics are on tape.

That performance was, what, five minutes? And he's sweating so much he needs a towel? Maybe he shouldn't have worn that Bacofoil jacket.

Usher just can't sing and dance at the same time

he used to be able to :(

Louis is still wearing that leather collared jacket that makes him look like the manager of a Harvester restaurant.

i had forgotten joe mcelderry existed. really really want his tiny shelf life to be over already, he's such a space filler.

also this song is terrible.

this is his first single!

It's like a song Kylie rejected several years ago. It's just finished and I've already forgotten what it sounds like.

yay! for john

I'm happy for him - hope he gets a better song next week.

lol Dermot pronounces it "Wand Erection"!

ha!

Bottom 3: FYD, Nicolo, Katie

& ha!

Nicolo goes: "I feel... like crap"

(somebody please sample that and put a beat behind it)

for once, well done the public. how did nicolo even get this far?

*almost* felt sorry for him.

also, was storm not an utter twat when he was saved. "yes! yes! yes!" incessantly and endlessly, and then addressing all his fellow competitors by name o_0

xp I almost feel sorry for him as well: bad song choice, then he had to perform after Mary, and very publicly find out that he isn't as good as he thinks he is. We've all had humbling experiences but not in front of millions of people live on TV!

wow this FYD are bad. they just...can't sing. or dance.

F.K.D.

lol that was a terrible choice of song.

This is competent enough to stay in I think.

FYD totally FKD I reckon.

xp Katie could have stolen it here.

I thought for a moment there that Louis was going to say "I'm going to do the right thing... and send it to deadlock", in which case I would have put my foot through the bloody screen

Shame as FYD were quite likeable. Just very weak vocally, but that didn't stop Wand.

one of FYD was v hott

so i'm sad!

xxp No-one in FYD looks like Justin Bieber. Everyone in Wand Erection looks (sort of) like him.

it'll be fun to see katie flail for another week or two. no way does she grow in the public estimation, she's the x factor equivalent of trying to make "fetch" happen.

what's fetch? but yes she's never going to be liked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ENNA0cBHm8

:D

Soooo fetch!

-xpost-

mean girls <3

yah, not a surprising result, Katie = far more entertainment potential.

A group of vaguely competent boys vs a train wreck every week? Well done Louis.

couldn't find this elsewhere and probably deserves to be on a different thread but a friend showed me this:

"Cage Against The Machine! 4'33" for Christmas Number One!

Let's repeat the success of Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name' Christmas number one with 4 minutes and 33 seconds of avant garde silence. Make Dec 25th 2010 a silent night: input your email to receive a reminder & chart eligible buy link on December 13th"

http://www.facebook.com/#!/cageagainstthemachine

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dEtiMjBucEVVOV9SZE9KZWxnSVBIMnc6MQ

"Cage Against The Machine!"

OK, now they have a catchy title for the project,it could happen.

lex said upthread that it would be better if the weekly themes were more flexible, and it seems that's what they're going for - this week's being 'Heroes'. Hopefully this spells the end of the dreaded 'Big Band' week.

If this is how Storm treats his heroes, how does he treat his enemies?

hahaha

Louis mentors someone singing a rock song. Right. I bet he's never even been to a rock concert. "Woo!" indeed - Walsh you shoulda thrown up the horns!

ok this is the first time i've watched the actual tv show and there's seriously a commercial break between EACH CONTESTANT?

no - just after the previous week's summary and the first performer.

It actually works out OK, as during breaks everyone can rush off to Twitter/ILX/etc. to make snarky zings.

man, i miss ruth lorenzo.

treyc needs to pick more interesting songs.

I don't need a gap to fire off snarky zings! Storm is really terrible. I do think Simon should hijack Cage Against the Machine by making 4'33" the winner's song, though.

Are they going to dress Treyc in Alexandra Burke's cast-offs every week?

At first I thought Storm was going to be this year's "Jamie Archer = real music by real musicians for real people" kind of guy, but he's not even that.

He's like an above average Butlin's redcoat.

ITV has to get 2 breaks before 8pm, that's why there's been ad breaks.

and soooo looking forward to cher, hearing she's going to do jay-z.

as long as it's not "empire state of mind"

please let it be "can i get a..."

you ain't gotta be rich but FUCK THAT
how we gon get around on your BUS PASS?

Backing vocals are turned up too loud against Paige's voice.

perkifying "if i ain't got you" is nagl

and what was w/the weird echo throughout?

he's sort of like a pound shop cee-lo

Well that performance sounded almost like a Luther Vandross b-side from some time in the mid 80's.

(also Paige's mum wants her jacket back now please...) (I mean, I like the guy, but there are so many problems to iron out)

Wand Erection! They all look like actors in a Children's Film Foundation movie.

v odd song choice for Wand Erection? But then I don't understand the kids nowadays.

Something's very wrong with the relative volume of the backing vocals - way louder than the band on the chorus.

did I mis-see on turning back to the TV from the computer there or was there a teleprompter at work for them?

agh 12-yr-old doing crotch thrust at dannii calling him a heartthrob

They're about 2cm away from harem pants

announcer dude, Louis, and Dermot all call them Wand Erection!

They're about 2cm away from harem pants

was getting definite "extras in bbc adaptation of oliver twist" vibe

was there a teleprompter at work for them?

There are so many lights and reflections on stage that I can't tell what's going on. I'm surprised that no-one's been dazzled by all the searchlights, walked off the edge and fallen into the audience.

i'm surprised no one's done that on purpose

CHER!!!

From some angles John looks a bit like Eddie Murphy.
Oh dear it's Diva Fever...

In other news... European spray tan shortage...

what the shit is this

Children's TV beckons. Easily the worst performance of the night so far.

the kind of gays who make me feel homophobic

Louis: "It was like a big disco in Blackpool where everyone's having a great time" - er, no, it was a shitty lame flop of an excuse for a performance.

OK the only explanation is that Simon must be doing bong hits during the commercial breaks if he thinks that's going to #1.

it's slightly less insane than calling wand erection the most exciting pop group in britain or whatever it was

Gotta download that, was amazing.
also the kind of gays who make me feel homophobic

otm

I snorted with laughter when Dermot referred to Aiden as a "brooding hunk".

the kind of gays who make me feel homophobic

probably making a lot of people in the uk right now homophobic. talk about trying to enforce awful outdated stereotypes, ugh.

Brooding hunk makes him sound like a mysterious piece of cheese lurking in the back of the fridge xp

Why would anyone want to watch ITV2 in high def?

we probably won't hear any criticism of them though - louis' gay, they're simon's act, and they represent some and all of cheryl's and dannii's fanbase repectively.

REBECCA!

That purple lipstick is mesmerizing.

whistle register! GET IT GIRL

that was amazing

Yeah that was great. I like her shyness, reminds me a bit of Beth Gibbons.

Actually I just spotted the teleprompter on that long tracking shot, poking up through the dry ice. I don't think it's for the performers (Rebecca for instance would have been too far away to see it) - it's probably for Dermot. You know, in case he forgets to say "amazing".

quite disturbing to have a mindmeld w/dannii minogue re: bond theme thoughts

admit it, you're in her head working the controls...

"...and you're from LIVERPOOL?!?"

Lex, for there to be a mind-meld there needs to be TWO minds at work.

Simon has that look on his face that he only gets when he sees money.

Aiden llloool..

He's too tormented to sing properly.

itching to slap aiden. stand up STRAIGHT. stop SHAKING like that. what is WRONG with you, you perform like you're about to expire of leprosy or something.

1st half: imminent explosive diarrhoea
2nd half: desperate for a wee

xp he could have thrown in the odd consumptive cough for effect/sympathy

I can't believe I'm watching this. Apparently the fashion gays are watching this on large screen at the George & Dragon.

Aiden reminds me of that cock from Razorlight

Aiden: "It was a bit rubbish" - well don't worry son, up next is Katie and Wagner (separately, not together, thank fuck)

xp aye, Johnny Borrell

Someone tell louis a big v for when Wagner's on

Not just looks, he also seems to have the same delusions of profundity. BUt, sheesh, kind of a bummer seeing him cry all the same. xp

it helps being drunk watching this nonsense

wagner isn't actually that crazy? like, this is just package holiday entertainment. slightly pointless but he has far from the worst voice in this series.

everyone pronouncing Wagner with the W causes me an odd kind of pain.

^^^ particularly as he pronounces his name with a 'V'. Basic rule of politeness, pronounce people's names the way they pronounce them themselves.

I would rather go deaf tbh

i feel that katie being forced to play it determinedly straight is a minor victory in the war against quirk

when louis confused walls with posters and simon was like "eh?" and the best louis could come up with was "you're too old", like ooh these new emblems of the cultural zeitgeist POSTERS! him in a nutshell, just a reactive div with no wit. "I brought you back here katie ME!" and his constant shameless pandering to the audience and the way he always says "yes my guy was shit this week but next week is THE BEST THING YOU'RE EYES WILL EVER SEE so PLEASEPLEASE PLEASE PLEASE VOTE!" he's such a whopper.

Gwapple your gwrapenuts it's Bellamy!

er, because four young women are really going to have The Kinks as heroes?

blondie who was crying about only getting one line - be thankful you're even allowed up there, you're clearly the weakest of the four

There's only six different lines in 'You Really Got Me', and they're all sung pretty much the same way, so WTF were they arguing about?

i think i hate all the judges to varying extents

MARY!!!

It's so obvious when Simon is bullshitting because a) he can't maintain eye contact, b) his head keeps turning to the right, and c) he makes that gesture with his right hand held vertically, like he's directing traffic.

mary so good.

i am pretty sure i don't give enough of a shit about matt to watch him, i'm off out.

he's doing bruno mars. good choice.

mary so good.

Was about to type exactly that. Amazing, brought a huge smile to my face.

I will let Mary off because she's pretty awesome. But generally I am not happy with people dicking around with Dusty. Not happy at all.

it seemed exactly the same as last week. and she'll probably do exactly the same thing again next week. eh.

WTF has this male vocal coach got a different comedy wig for each camera angle?

She kind of took a dive on the chorus.

This one sounds like he's straining his bowels and will do a small poo on the attempted high C.

Treachery on the High C's...

LOLLLLLLLLL

lollll louis is on the glue tonight

posters... posters... I mean posters... you're too young... posters

Louis SHUT UP!
"Can you download that Simon can you? Canyoucanyoucanyou? You're like Bono if he did that song."

I thought he was going to do With Or Without You when I heard the beginning of the intro.

Yeah, STFU, Louis. He makes me want to eat my own head.

it was probably in his script; simon just blanked him to make him look like even more of a tool, lol.

and no fucking way is bruno mars that guy's hero.

yeah now louis is repeating the number one on sunday thing simon says like everything else simon ever says. prob just embarrased FOR him at this point, he's like the daft one in the pub that paul whitehouse used to do who just repeats and agrees with whatever was said last. we all know one!

Yeah, I'd go along with that.

i'll tell ye what, that louis, what with him repeating that number one on sunday thing, he's just saying what simon says, as he always does, he does.

He's looking increasingly like a cabbage patch doll every week.

If this iTunes malarky results in X Factor #1's from here to Christmas, I'll fill my ears up with concrete.

turns out wagner apparently IS a bit mental. just jovially threatened to spray deodrant down john's throat if he were to cut his hair off while he slept.

xpost the live performance downloads have been made ineligible for the chart, for the sake of maintaining integrity - on the basis that it's best that the public doesn't know who's most popular. Louis of course had enjoyed a little too much of his substance of choice to remember that.

Ah I see, thanks. I'll call Blue Circle and cancel my order. Earlier in the programme Simon said the same thing as Louis, so maybe they're both out of it. Kind of difficult to imagine what Cowell's poison is though - he's not really a drinker despite being photographed once at a party holding - gasp! - a half empty bottle of beer OMGWTF!!!

Matt was absolutely superb as was Rebecca followed by Mary then the rest... I'm sort of in love with Rebecca. Aiden horribly pretentious - him to go please.

I just had this weird dream: Simon was being mugged by One True Voice, but he was rescued by the singer from The Script (AKA The Most Boring Band Ever).

Simon was predicting - and he could well be right - that Duck Sauce's "Barbara Streisand" will probably be Number One on Sunday - not Diva Fever's second-Boney-M-song-in-two-weeks reverse disco edit...

"We had a mishap. It wasn't my fault." will be Louis' epitaph.

lol Dermot nearly said "Who goes? You decide."

the announcement's at half 8, right? i ain't sitting through katy perry or diana vickers. who the hell let vickers have a career anyway, she didn't even come top 3.

Treyc's teeth were covered in lipstick there, wow.

xp I think you have at least half an hour before Dermot says the words "In no particular order (apart from the order that causes the maximum audience tension)".

Vickers blurring the articulation of the words so much that I thought she was singing in French for the first few lines. Also, as bad as Katy Perry is, she'll show up Diana.

I didn't think that was awful.

This, on the other hand, is awful.

That audience would clap a coma!

I did turn the sound off. She sounded like a bad Toyah Wilcox impersonator. Slightly offset by dressing like Wonder Woman does whenever she goes to Amazon Island.

("TURN. THIS. WUR-ULD. UP! SIDE! DOWN! TURN. SUH. BUH. BEE. AH. IN! SIDE! OUT!")

Bottom 3: Diva Fever, Bellamy, Storm

damn, the british public really hates girl groups, doesn't it? not that belle amie are particularly good, but still

bye bye Storm

xp even when they're good, girl groups have a hard time on X Factor

fuck off storm. you can let the door hit you on your way out if you want. twat.

xp ;_; for miss frank

if diva fever somehow survive this i will kill someone

focusing on the actual competent acts, i fear matt and wand erection - having been bored by both at first, i'm swiftly starting to hate them, but they are genune THREATS to my favourites in a way that the joke acts aren't

xp They're up against possibly one of the worst X Factor live final groups ever (discounting Jedward), I think they might pull it off.

Wand Erection are onyl just about competant when they're all singing at the same time. Give one of them a solo line and the backing vocs have to be turned way up to cover the inadequacies. Agreed though that they are the act that are threatening to balls up the whole thing for everyone else. It's pretty much a certainty that they'll be in the last 5-6 acts, even if they came on every week and sang '3 Blind Mice' acapella.
Matt I'm not so bothered about. I think people will get bored with him soon enough. Either that or he'll have to pull something new out of the bag, but he hasn't shown any signs of being able to do that so far.

these guys are seriously trying to ruin homosexuality for everyone, aren't they.

this performance, i can't even

BUN DEM

possibly the most obvious song in the world for diva fever to sing. dannii will probably save them though somehow.

oops!

uh... I wish there was a Jabba the Hutt style trapdoor in the stage, specially for Diva Fever right now.

ah yes a reminder that belle amie are pretty ropey themselves

savvy choice of song though, the kind that actually takes well to vaguely amateurish all-girl singalongs

1st and last singers in Bellamy fluffed their lines. Should really have been a duo.

DF are annoying in the extremee but Bellamy suck really badly.

haha even dannii couldn't possibly choose diva fever

The guy on the right really hasn't bothered to put any effort into what he's wearing, right? I mean, right now I'm better dressed than him.

Thought that Belle Amie might have come to a belle end there.

They should rename themselves Bête Noire.

Belle Amie stay; diva fever will end up on Bel Ami in a few months.

great result & great 5s performance of telephone by cher.. i'm happy.

What the dick is up with the groping at the end of Wagner's performance this week?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zysEoj882o#t=02m10s

Yeah, I noticed that and thought it was a nit much and then vaguely thought "Oh, must be gay dancers and it was all a consensual laugh".

A bit much, rather.

Simon: "I bear responsibility, sorry Guys"
Dermot: "So, will you make it up to them?"
Simon (off mic) "I'm not going that far" (or something very similar)

Aye, Diva Fever were on the Xtra Factor last night saying they wish they'd had a mentor that looked after them and gave them decent songs to showcase them properly. Don't think there was much love lost between them, obv.

I never really noticed Wagner's backing dancers at the time, but my husband and brother were both a bit "hang on, that's a bit much". It was kind of off, wasn't it?

Thought the lead guy in Diva Fever had a great, strong pop voice. Shame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAKJBzE8a3A

Next week is 'Guilty Pleasures'.

Bellamy doing Footloose, Treyc doing Stairway To Heaven

Two major conspiracies brewing:

1) Generic themes every week so Cher stays in and can keep doing Cher-type songs.
2) Led Zeppelin have never featured before because they were charging too much for the right to do one of their tracks. Storm said on FiveLive this morning that he had been promised if he made it to week 5 then he could do Stairway - are SyCo cashing in on the fact they've agreed to pay LZ by shoehorning it in with someone else?

It'll be a medley with "Freebird", I reckons.

xxp before I clicked 'play' on that I was thinking "damn Stephen Fry will stan for anything these days..."

what, like this sort of thing, you mean?

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2010/8/24/1282671234212/mrs-stephen-fry-002.jpg

I mean like Apple fanatic Fry being spokesperson for Windows Mobile 7.

Are Zep a guilty pleasure? Really? Or is this what is causing the conspiratorial whispers?

Whispers are that it's conclusive proof that the contestants get absolutely no say in what happens (see also Bellamy doing The Kinks). Yeah I know, lol people are naiive.

Last year (?), the Mungo Jerry lookalike was given that old "Unchained Melody" to interpret, but it was clearly not working, so Simon and dude changed the selection.

Is it that the majority of contestants don't have enough 'courage' to state what they think they *should* be doing?

I don't think they get a choice, judging by Diva Fever's reaction on Xtra Factor last night. They got to choose their sing-for-survival song, but really weren't happy at having to do Barbra Streisand on the main show.

Don't remember the contestants actually blaming their mentor on the live show before.

I'm suspecting they realise their SyCo boats were burned before they even set sail.

1) Generic themes every week so Cher stays in and can keep doing Cher-type songs.

this is one of the major improvements imo, there used to be little more uncomfortable than seeing contestants shoehorned into styles they weren't remotely suitable for. there's still scope for genuine all-rounders to show off their versatility here. quite a few of the song choices have still been disappointing so far (treyc more than anyone - can you GET any more conservative than "one" followed by "purple rain"?) but, early days yet.

The real problem with the themes is that they seem to be making a mockery of it. Last week Simon made a big deal out of "One Sweet Day" only being No. 1 in New Zealand. (Totally wrong - it was no. 1 in USA for 16 weeks!). Why nobody called him out on his absolutely stupid picks for "Heroes" is a scandal.

Simon - Kelly Clarkson, The Kinks, Duck Sauce?! (Barbra Streisand is a stretch - how she is a hero for UK gays is beyond me, particularly Diva Fever types) - EPIC FAIL
Danni - Alicia Keys, John Lennon, BRUNO MARS!??!? - fail
Louis - Donny Hathaway, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, Bruce Springsteen - pass
Cheryl - Prince, Jay-Z, Etta James, Nina Simone - only Cheryl passes with flying colours.
I'm glad the public at least seems to be punishing Simon for his poor choices.

Dunno, Louis' choices pass muster I reckons.

1) Generic themes every week so Cher stays in and can keep doing Cher-type songs.

I don't think this is true (or fair) - all the acts doing a specific theme would suck at this stage with this many contestants. 12 acts, half at least that are completely hopeless, all doing Disco or ABBA would be horrific. Best to save those kind of themes till the latter half of the competition, and leave it open ended right now (which they've done in all the recent seasons). Also, artist specific weeks have almost always been a disaster anyway - remember Take That Week, or Wham! Week or Britney week.

The real problem with the themes is that they seem to be making a mockery of it.

Definitely. But then it was probably even worse last year that for Musical Heroes last year, 4 out of the 12 acts did Robbie Williams because he was the mentor (& then 3 did Whitney for Divas Week because she was the mentor).

Wagner getting fucked off with it all as well:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1322520/X-Factor-2010-Wagner-tape-slating-famous.html