X-Factor Week 3 Recap | Jonathan Flynn
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 SHOWThe 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!
You can see more of Jonthan's writing on his blog, Off The Top of My Head.