X Factor 2012 (UK)

Nicole Scherzinger replaces Kelly Rowland as judge.
Louis starts his usual inter-judge 'banter'.
...and, er, that's it really.

First of the audition shows is this Saturday.

An X Factor contestant has had her music taken off sale online in what she says is a "joint decision" with the ITV programme.

Soon after Lucy Spraggan's audition aired on Saturday evening her tracks and album began to climb the charts.

Spraggan says there's a "part of me that's disappointed" but that it was "fair on everybody involved".

"Obviously I was asked and I've obliged because you've got to do, what you've got to do, to get somewhere in life."

So that's finalist #1 confirmed then.

Well, quite possibly.

It was more the "oh, they're singing their own songs, how is Simon Cowell going to get his grubbies on their publishing then?" if the songs were downloadable already.

And now we know!

sooo is anybody watching? i'm not! yet!

It's heavily edited, even more so than last year.

Judges' Houses starts this week. For once Louis doesn't get to mess up the Over 25's.

If someone could time how much of this weekend's shows are people blubbing, it would be much appreciated.

Dermot does the Gangnam Style dance - the look on his face afterwards...

this is my first time watching this year. those guys were not good.

is there a theme tonight?

wow now even white people are young *random black people* to louis.

I'm watching for the first time tonight as well. If those harmonies were "on point", as Sherzinger claims, then I can't wait for the first one that isn't because it'll be like a sackful of fighting cats.

I guess the theme tonight is "guess which 6 didn't have SyCo contracts before the competition".

The theme is "Heroes", which means the usual 'group of 18 year old girls inexplicably idolises The Kinks' kind of nonsense.

Fuck me, that was the woman from that Beyonce video at the start there, surely?

oh no what's james arthur doing.

So this guy, who looks more like Alexis Taylor than a hunk, thinks Kelly Clarkson is a hero? Of course.

James Arthur - his voice sounds muffled when he's singing quietly, and the diction is all over the place when he sings loud, and the enunciation of the words isn't clear when he raps.
I like that they havn't tried to cover up his tats.

if i was doing a louis drinking game i'd already be obliterated.

Tax dodge Gary Barlow giving a lecture on integrity, nice.

- comparing someone to a black artist from the 90's DRINK A SHOT
- 'recording artist' DRINK A SHOT
- interuptig Gary DRINK A SHOT
- 'made that song his own' DRINK A SHOT

RETURN OF THE TRANSLUCENT BOX

Melanie Masson - this is actually properly good, even if she's more like a contestant on The Voice.

ya. though the instant 0-100 emotional build is jarring as always.

It's because they each have only 2 minutes to sing.

Louis saw Led Zep at Woodstock, apparently.

"Melanie, with those flares you looked just like JIMI HENDRIX"

Lucy is her own hero, then?

lucy spraggan was a hero to most but she never meant shit to me.

Hahaha "You remind me of Victoria Wood and Kate Nash, someone like that."

The judges are liking this now, but how about when she comes on with that acoustic guitar for the 4th week in a row?

xp lol I was going to say "she sounds a bit like Victoria Wood" but held off because it sounded a bit dismissive

what naughty thing did nicole say?

WTF how many commercial breaks are there?

MK1 have a shit name as well, but mysteriously Louis didn't ask them to change it.

Chris Maloney, this year's Steve Brookstein

so much male grooming this year.

At least adding George means that union J are no longer named after an Australian radio station.

Uh-oh, first Queen sighting of this series' live shows.

And Louis is cribbing every single move from the Wand Erection playbook. Especially the 'stand on a box with the band's name on it'

I still don't get Queen, at all, why would you choose that song to show off any semblance of talent?

"Louis, since you last worked in the industry things have changed." Top zing from Barlow there.

The effect on Jade's voice makes it sound like she's singing in a tunnel.

Jade's "Sweet Dreams" Rebecca Ferguson moment is going to be amazing, isn't it

ugh, Spock beard on both Wossy and Stephen Fry

and speaking of terrible beards, it's Rylan, who's dressed like a extra in a Derek Jarman movie

Who the fuck is this prick?

Looks like a cross between George Michael and Adam Ant, sings like Johnny from last year.

Unbelievably he got worse when he started performing.

Also throw in a bit of Russell Brand.
The funny thing is that Rylan's probably straighter than Tom Jones.

An Abba/angst x-post. Who would ever have predicted that?

I actually agree with Tulisa here, on both counts. Also I think Dappy is a knob, so three counts.

Gary BarlOBE

Fuck off Chris. During the VT he went all the way from being sympathetic to Ella leaving to being 'tough shit'.

Did Gary get an OBE? You'd think they would have mentioned it. Still, I'm looking forward to Ella next.

Watch in disbelief as 'Motown Classics' gets stretched out to include anything by any black US act ever.

One song turned out to be quite enough, thank you.

Anybody whose name is an anagram of 'JAHMENE' has a fighting chance of getting through to next year's live finals, because they'll want to re-use those giant letters to save money...

"Lets get it on" not murdered there!

Chris's performance so daytime TV that I half expected Donny MacLeod to come on then instead of Dermot.

James still the only one I don't dislike. Jahmene wanting to "bring back Motown" - where's Justin Lee Collins when you need him?

Doing community service?

Unwritten joke was surely "why would you ever need him?"

Well I already have a floor mop.

Robbie Williams announces stadium tour for UK and Europe

He'll be selling pies...
No, actually he's singing. And the support act is Olly Murs, uh...

that was literally the least swinging bit of jazz singing ever performed.

also, why am i still subjecting myself to this.

I don't know. I don't even know why I'm subjecting myself to this.

If someone had asked me earlier this afternoon what song I thought Chris would sing, I would probably have said 'You Raise Me Up', because it's the most fucking obvious predictable shite.

And Chris singing a Bubbles song was a bad idea, it just highlighted how leaden his singing is.

Union J just sound totally disconnected from each other when they sing. They're not "cool" under pressure on stage like Nicole said, they just don't have any personality.

FRANKIE SAY JAMES TO WIN

have to hand it to him there i suppose. tho nicole has to take the plaudits if he wins for consistently giving him the best song choices.

...and James' version of the 'Power Of Love' was so good, it made me forget the shitty cover used on that M&S ad with the snowman.

He's the only one inspired by music, as opposed to being inspired by Westlife..

Why do I shout "FUCK OFF!" whenever Gary winks at the camera at the start of the show? Also Louis is wobbling around like he's drunk.

Rod Stewart, the latest in a long line of veteran singers to get pulled into X Factor's blandness vortex. Next year: Chuck D.

and louis greets him with YA REMIND ME OF A YOUNG STEVIE WONDER.

"You remind me of Robin Williams in a Tina Turner wig!"

DA NEXT BIG BOY BAND

I fist-pumped the air when Dermot announced Jahmene was through. Union J are OUT! Louis' dreams of Wand Jr. winning this are ASHES!

we just knew, here..

Two hours tonight and two hours tomorrow. There is going to be a lot of padding.

I used to have a toy keyboard that played 'Flashdance' as it's demo tune - it was about a billion times funkier than Chris's version.

I think James will win, because everyone thinks he should...

Out of the three of them, James is by far the all round artist. The slight problem with Jahmene is that sometimes he sounds a bit too much like his influences. The major problem with Chris is that he's shit.

Anyway, if you all thought Chris by himself was bad, he's performing a duet with meat-and-two-veg Barlow in a bit.

piss awful

Ever had that feeling you are watching TV, and the camera shot makes you feel like you got hit on the head from behind, and you fall to the ground and blackout?

The amount of padding in this is incredible. "Hey here's Rio Ferdinand for absolutely no reason, just because we're in Manchester and him and a bunch of his team mates were available."

2 contestants. 2 hours.

could be all done in 15 minutes.

in fact, if they cut the padding and just got the chorus rather than bore us, i would probably have watched a lot more of this season.

(well that and the fact that the selections have all been really crap .. )

^^^ While this has been on tonight, I've been simultaneously listening to some music, watching some videogaming livestream, posting to ILX, and googling for electronic circuits, and really I felt like I've missed nothing.

they really hate supermarket workers

is this a real song?

James' mumble-singing obscures the melody of this song when it's really the vocals that are supposed to carry it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWdrO4BoCu8

James looks like he's wearing a smoking jacket.

We were pondering the lack of Christopher on Sunday's show.

Apparently, he had a sore throat...

I didn't even notice he was missing.

If even 10% of his 'behaviour' stories are true, he is in 'danger' of never being seen again.

(Beyond the 'X-Factor live' tour, obv)

They read out some of the voting totals (each week, top two) on ITV2.

Pretty much 1: Chris, 2: Jahmene for the first seven weeks.

I sure that all these 'Chris has a huge strop and refuses to perform at the final' and 'Chris has a huge row backstage with Carolynne' stories are just being made up by the papers to try and get some kind of controversy out of a more or less entirely controversy free year. He's just the most boring XF contestant ever, it's not realistic that he'd suddenly start behaving like this.