Thex Factor - Number Ones - 'I don't understand why you're number one'

These are the salient facts before we begin…

1. It’s the first of the live shows
And these are almost always wonderful because the judges feel the need to cause controversy and because so many performers do not feel the need to sing well. Think back to Leon desecrating the Beatles, Sharon threatening to quit, Lloyd making Bleeding Love bleed and Dannii calling Danyl a big girl. Aah – happy times. Tonight’s show was of a pretty high quality – everyone was fine bar one insanely amusing act, two very bad ones.

2. There are categories and judges
And if you don’t know who these are by now, I am not the person to explain it to you. Ask your hairdresser. In judge fashion news, Dannii is a good-looking Miss Havisham (with a lacey wedding dress and crazy hair) while Cheryl looks bizarre and her forehead is different colours in different places. Bits of it are so dark, I keep expecting her to attack her forehead in a club toilet

3. There is a big twist
And it’s one we all read about in the paper. Each category now has an extra contestant, chosen by the judge for their category. These extras are called ‘Wild Cards,’ which can be roughly translated as ‘more filler.’

4. The theme is number ones
And not just UK number ones - the song can have been number one anywhere in the world. So it’s pretty much just ‘hits’ week. Despite a plethora of choices, the judges still make some wonky decisions. (A rock Kelly Rowland cover? Really?) Usher and Joe McElderry perform live because they’ve both had number ones. How tidy.

5. History is made
For the first time ever, the first evictee did not have a vagina. (Think I’m making this up? Roberta, Addictiv Ladies, Unconventionals, Kimberley, Bad Lashes, Kandy Rain went first their years.) The nearest we got to kicking out a cunt was having Katie in the bottom 3.

On with the rankings…

1. WAGNER – ‘When marimba rhythmns start to play’
Wagner has won my heart in a way that no PE teacher ever has before. He seems to have won Louis’s too who announced him by saying: ‘For music lovers everywhere, it’s Wagner.’ He gives good VT by telling us he’s from Brazil via Dudley and compares being picked a wild card to being resurrected from the dead. He also forgets his words and looks either drunk or baked throughout.
He then out-Jedwards Jedward with a remarkable cover of She Bangs. He has his hand on his hip like a little teapot and sings in Broken English. He wears giant hooker earrings that would make Chloe Maffia say ‘oh no, they’re too much.’ He then starts angrily playing the bongos before breaking into Love Shack. The whole thing is glorious and ends with all his backing dancers sticking their tongues out and rubbing their tits. Dannii Minogue looks horrified but goes on to give Wagner some Jedwardian feedback praising him for being entertaining. I know it seems silly to have such a bad singer a high ranking but this is one of only two performances I rewatched on YouTube. And it’s the only one that made me wee myself, just a tiny tiny bit.

2. 1DIRECTION – ‘Jerusalem bells are ring a dingin’
1 Direction tackle Viva La Vida and it turns out the song sounds okay when it’s serviceably sung and no one raps. JERUSALERM BLUD! In fact, it sounds better than okay because it appears all the members of this band can sing, apart from maybe the ugly one who has been cursed twice. Zain sings well but looks nervous. Harry dances and stares furiously. The Eoghan Quigglet is ok – and does amusing hand gestures like he’s in Butlins. Liam does most of the singing and sounds better than he should and looks worse than I can deal with. Everyone goes on about Cher looking frail but if anyone needs forcefeeding by a drip, it’s Liam. I’m sure I can make out his skull. These 5 boys make more noise than JLS ever could – the woah woah bits are particularly good – and earn rapturous praise. It’s not the world’s most exciting performance but they are ones to watch.

3. CHER – ‘Gypsies, tramps and thieves, we hear it from the people of the town’
In her VT, she says some people don’t think she’s strong enough for the competition, which I’m not sure was the real issue. Rather, most people didn’t think she was good enough for it.
She then performs Just Be Good To Me, which is an awesome song on many levels, as a very meta mash-up thing with Just Be Good To Green. It is ace and much better sung than almost anything sung so far. The rapping is infinitely better than the attempts made by Simon’s bands. The dancing is frantic but doesn’t affect her singing, which is perfectly pop without ever going Disney.
Louis loved it and Dannii said she was watchable and in great voice. Simon reiterates she deserves to be in the final 12 which remains debatable. (This was good but I’m sure Gamu or Kerrie would have sounded better.) Bowled over by the praise, Cher says she feels wicked in her best Westwood voice. The Jerusalem bells are truly ring a dinging

4. MATT – ‘If you live at home with your mama, oh yes son I’m talking to you’
In his VT, Matt says it’s ‘not cool’ living at home at his age and that it’s awkward when he brings girls home to fuck and his parents are there. As sob stories go, that’s pretty relatable. He gets criticised by Cheryl Cole for shutting his eyes, about which I call so much bullshit. I think Cheryl should learn to sing well before criticising eye-closing. Also, she shouldn’t have Rebecca in her category or even call Aiden by name if it bothers her that much.
Matt is made to sing Kelly Rowland because Dannii loves giving contestants dance songs that don’t suit them (see also: Rachel doing Robyn, Nicolo gone Gaga). To make it butcher, it’s a strange rock cover that reminds me of something you’d hear on Radio 1 covers albums. The song is bizarre, and Matt himself is a little fidgety, but there is no denying he has vocal tricks the others would eat Cher whole to get.


5. MARY – ‘The town gets infested with Langers’
Rotund Irish diva Mary has quite a dull VT where we learn she lives in a two-bedroomed house. But how many bathrooms Mary? And is there gas central heating? We want all the tedious details. She also tells us she has laryngitis because the producers want her to stick around for awhile – the Celtic phone vote is a good bit of income for the show, after all. Laryngitis derailed Vickers entirely so I’m worried how will it affect someone who is a bad singer and who is too ugly to be a popstar anyway. She offers a shouty James Brown which gives me horrible flashbacks to last year and Danyl screaming at the end of every song, showing us his breakfast and his horse teeth. She tries to act, by shrugging and giving us nigh on constant Jazzhands. Bits are purely drill sargeant shouting but some bits are vaguely forgivable, when you compare it to FYD. I wrote in my notes ‘Some people will eat this up and I was dead right: the audience don’t stop screaming and she cries
Dannii calls it ‘one of the best vocal performances on the show’ Gosh, there are a lot of conditions to that praise aren’t there. It’s essentially saying you’re seventh best of the night. Simon Cowell calls her ‘a trier’ and she looks pissed, almost as if she understands he meant that as an insult. Maybe she’s not as dumb as her singing attempts make her seem.

6. TREYC – ‘You’re starting to bore me’
Treyc is given the Pimp Spot and gets to perform last. It’s almost as if someone feels guilty that this woman’s been turned down twice in two years. In favour of that jughead Murs last year and women who can’t finish a song this year. Speaking of which, Treyc tells the nation in her VT that Cher and Katie are jealous, jealous bitches. Well, she said ‘their reception weren’t great’ but we know what she means. These VTs usually pretend everyone gets along, and never have such explicit reference to bitchery, so clearly some shit’s gone down backstage.
Treyc sings One, the song that got Rachel Adedeji evicted, and it’s effortlessly well-sung (until the final runs) but slightly boring. She’s a less good Maria Lawson from what I can see. After Leona, Alexandra and Jedward, I’m not sure that ‘less good Maria Lawson’ cuts it any more.

7. AIDEN – ‘It’s scaring me, I wanna go home’
While a lot of positive things have been said and written about Aiden, no one has mentioned the ah-MAZ-ing Aiden impression that Louis does in the VT. If I could find it on YouTube, I would link to it but for now you’ll have to trust me that it was brilliant. There’s much muttering in the VT about Aiden performing to himself and not opening his eyes. He is encouraged by all the judges and coaches to open his eyes. Oh how wrong they were…
Aiden is doing Mad World with his face pointed down but he’s looking up, which makes him look evil. Do it in front of a mirror yourself, it’s not flattering. He has huge vulture’s bags under his eyes and squirms around in a chair. He opens his eyes and angrily exhales between words and his lip wobbles like he’s about to cry. Or have a tantrum. The singing is fine when it’s soft but his voice is thin and unpleasant generally. Also, there is dry ice everywhere and dead trees. See for yourself that it’s one of the scariest faces and performances the world has ever seen. He looks like he's a five year old who’s just drowned his little brother. Who’s hoping if he twitches enough, he’ll bring his brother back to life. He only wanted to play!
The audience like it but they seem to like everything tonight.
Louis praises Aiden but grins as if he realises how fucked up that business was. Cheryl liked it too and Simon compares him to Twilight and Michael Stipe. A gay vampire? I bet that’s Aiden’s dream. The only person to reference how awkward and batshit crazy Aiden looked is Dermot. Maybe he should be a judge?

8. DIVA FEVER – ‘I’m spinning around, move outta my way’
Louis jokes that this band are very Simon and very camp. Ha – he’s just called Simon gay! How witty! Oh the banter that must happen backstage at this show.
Diva Fever are not that awful during their VT – maybe they’ve read my blog and have decided to be less obnoxious and ignorant.
Scratch that – on stage they wear purple spangly suits. There’s a weird striptease dance routine where they hide behind a sheet and come out in aerobics outfits. They’re okay singers I suppose, in a PWL way. They get very flat at times but it is all relative. Speaking of relative, these two fairies look amusingly butch compared to their dancers. Who at one point fan themselves with their limp wrists.
I’m giving Diva Fever the benefit of the doubt this week – and a pretty high ranking – because I found out one of them sings in Arabic at weddings. He’s bilingual! And possibly intelligent! Shame the other one’s only into analingual.


9. REBECCA – ‘Please don’t wake me, no don’t shake me’
In my notes during her VT, I wrote ‘difficult losing her kids blah blah.’ Says it all really. Louis says Rebecca has not much personality and her interview does not to falsify this claim.
She’s singing Teardrops, which I know as a minor dance hit from the 90s. By Lovestation. Was it a number one? Turns out it got to number one in the Netherlands. This is a very bizarre choice of song that would only really make sense if it was Minor 90s Dance week and you only had 10 songs to choose from.
She sounds very shrill and looks about 40. It is a severe stepback from her wonderful Fireflies last week.
Louis compares her to Sade and Norah Jones. Aaah, my sleeping and cooking music respectively. Dannii calls her a Style Queen even though she’s wearing maternity pants. Simon tells the miserable woman to ‘enjoy every second you have on this show.’ Enjoy it while it lasts? That’s good advice after tonight. I think Cheryl’s putting all her eggs in Cher’s basket.

10. KATIE – ‘I served my sentence but committed no crime’
Katie is very aware that there’s ‘a lot of controversy around her category.’ She’s a bright spark, her. I wouldn’t have realised that the elimination of better singers and the deportation of the very best one could be seen as controversial without being told.
She’s singing We Are The Champions almost as if she wants to prove she knows the words and can finish it this time, unlike her original audition.
She is dressed appallingly. The best way to describe it is to say she looks like Lady Gaga without the thought process: she has a helmet, a silver jumpsuit, pink tights and feathers in her hair. She plays a keyboard and sings wimpily, while visibly shaking. Like Aiden, her voice sound okay when it’s soft and, sort of to her credit, she doesn’t go for big votes unnecessarily. But soft and restrained doesn’t really cut it when you’re doing Queen.
Louis rightly says she’s more style than substance, while Dannii doesn’t even like the style. Simon thinks she’s original and different but – as I’ve said before – you could go to anyone mediocre student union or vegan café and find a Katie a day.
The voting public agree with me and she ends up in the bottom three. Her song is entirely pointless and involves her singing ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ a lot, quite poorly.
Without the helmet and visor, there’s not a lot to her.

11. NICOLO – ‘Mambo Italiano’
This Italian young man is very handsome and has an attitude that I quite like but is the complete opposite of what a (successful) X Factor should have. He always looks bored and contemptuous.
His performance however was a big disappointment. Much like Katie, he’s offering us Lady Gaga without the thought process. He wears silly shades. He has lots of dancers who look ‘broken down.’ He’s even doing a Lady Gaga song but he sounds flat and he can’t quite the words out in time and sounds a bit drunk as a result.
Cheryl is the voice of reason on the judging people and didn’t like it or the silly shades. He looks very angry when he’s told this but not as angry as he looks the next night when he’s eliminated with little fanfare and doesn’t even to get sing again.

12. JOHN – ‘Brown sugar, baby’
Just like our Italian friend, John Adeleye is very handsome and pretty cool but let me down this weekend.
In his VT, Louis calls him a dark horse and John acknowledges he’s ‘not the person everyone’s talking about.’ Everyone’s talking about the gypsy wigger and after comparing their performances, I can’t help but feel that ‘everyone’s’ got it right.
John sings Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey. While wearing a suit that would be worn by a 90s boy band, like Boyz II Men. While sporting the dreadful haircut that would be sported by a 90s vocal harmony group, like Boyz II Men.
His voice sounds thin (next week, drink every time I write that!) and this song sounds pretty terrible without Mariah pleasantly shrieking over it. The whole thing has been set up like Louis’s dream performance. There is a gospel choir. There are purple snowflakes. There is bouncy dancing and a very cheesy smile. Then a horrendous falsetto squeal.
Dannii says it’s not current while Cheryl loves the song and John’s face. Simon then bitches that this song wasn’t a #1 in America, even though it was and even though the theme isn’t American #1s. Simon’s toolishness aside, there is a lot to be unhappy about here. This performance was so much worse than his jaunty Billionaire that I wept a little, deep inside. I wanted a new electrifying darkhorse like a Ruth Lorenzo. Instead I’ve been given a new Andy Abraham.

13. STORM – ‘May auld acquaintance be forgot’
Storm now has bizarre bright red hair, like the Riddler. Or Ronald McDonald He tells he was ‘born in Edinburgh, Scotland.’ Yuk. How patronising. We know where that is. Well, most of us. Storm’s Californian/Scottish accent is as stupid as his hair and it may explain why no record labels have wanted him.
Storm has a silly dance routine (which at one point involves him crowdsurfing) and has authentic Rawk make up (which at all points involves him looking like a tool.)
He’s singing We Built This City and he’s not out of tune or anything but he does nothing to make a bad song sound better.
The judges say okay things apart from Simon Cowell who unleashes a barrage of awesome criticism. First he says Louis has ‘turned him into something out of Batman.’ Ha! Like the Riddler, Simon? Our minds are one. Then he up the ante by calling Storm ‘somebody that’s failed to be a rockstar’ and coolly ends with: ‘It is kind of absurd but maybe it’ll work.’ Storm must be a complete tosser backstage because I’m not sure I have ever seen an attack like that on a first show.

14. PAIJE – ‘Let’s all go to the lobby, let’s all go to the lobby’
Honeyvoiced cinema usher Paije tells us he lives in a Maisonette. I have no idea what one of them is. Is it like a bungalow? Is it a poor thing? Simon calls Paije a yoyo because he’s been told no then yes so many times on this show. By Pixie Lott and Dannii Minogue no less!
When I realise he’s singing Killing Me Softly, I write ‘Ace’ in my notes. I hope that he’ll rap or at least yell one time two time refugee camp. But alas, all we get is a limp cover over an inexcusably cheap backing track. Also, he’s wearing a stolen MC Hammer jacket which is even worse than John wearing a stolen Boyz II Men jacket.
Cheryl says he came out tonight and was a diva. Oh Lord, not another one. Is Matt the only one selling a heterosexual, fucking-girls-with-your-mum-next-door lifestyle to the sweet, young youth of today?

15. FYD – ‘I can’t dance, I can’t sing’
First on, second out. FYD had a lot going against them.
They’re a group – they often go first.
They’re a group with black people in – that didn’t work for 4Tune, 4Sure, Addictiv Ladies or Voices With Soul.
They were on first – that landed Rachel Adedeji and Kimberley in the first bottom two of their years.
Simon doesn’t seem to like them much – and gave them a song that John Adeleye killed just last week.
Their dire performance didn’t help matters. Their harmonies are shrill and off key. Their rapping is embarrassing, like when a primary teacher uses slang. They try to make Billionaire uptempo, and add a weird reggaeton breakdown, and make it sound very shit. Then it’s over.
The judges try to sound positive while telling them they can’t really sing. And that they’re somehow dancing too much and too little. They end up in the bottom two and do similarly terrible, out of tune things to Rihanna.
The judges don’t bother to sound positive while promptly sending them home. Being worse than Katie? That can’t be good for their already sketchy self esteem.

16. BELLE AMIE – ‘I could really use a wish right now’
Simon tells us he’s picked their song wisely and that ‘didn’t want to do girl band does girl band’ This has a wonderful cosmic irony as they’ll be doing ‘girl does girl’ in three years’ time. Or they’ll be receptionists. Either way, they definitely won’t be a successful girl band. In their VT, we learn their sound check was a disaster. I didn’t make much of this – as they used to ludicrously make out that Alexandra and Leona sometimes struggled in rehearsals – but I should have taken the VT more seriously. For my own protection.
They proceed to butcher B.o.B’s Airplanes. Their voices are shrill yet tentative. Their harmonies are as loose as Chloe Maffia. Their rapping is worse than anything I have seen on this show. Towards the end it sounds as if one of them might be able to sing but then the other three quickly drown her out. Being named after a gay porn company is clearly the least of their problems.