Sunday, November 3, 2013
The X Factor, fourth live show, review
Anyone up early this morning might have caught Nile Rodgers on BBC Breakfast saying that he'd never seen a single moment of X Factor. Ten hours or so later, there he was, opening Disco Week with the Chic medley that's been dragged onto every TV show and festival stage of 2013. A good lesson to our pop hopefuls that integrity is not a requirement of international pop stardom, especially when you're enough of a legend that Dermot O'Leary will spare you the "Who's your favourite act?" banter and just let you plug your greatest hits CD instead.
The good news is, this week's live show was a lot more lively than the last few weeks of soppy ballads. Luke Friend, who initially seemed like both an eyesore and an earsore, is fast growing into one of the best contestants, as he demonstrated tonight with his highly entertaining rendition of Play That Funky Music. Could it be that Louis Walsh might actually get somewhere this year?
Talented urban trio Rough Copy and suburban diva Sam Bailey also stood out, Disco Week being the perfect showcase for their soulful voices, while Tamera Foster and Nicholas McDonald were a little dull but vocally flawless, so should both stick around for a few weeks yet. However, the best performance of the night was from Hannah Barrett who, after last week's wobble (she found herself in the bottom two despite previously being a favourite to win), came back fighting with a hugely bold and powerful take on Somebody Else's Guy. It's just a shame that, even though we keep getting it drilled into us that she's "just 17 years old", some well-meaning stylist or other is making her get trussed up in Sharon Osbourne's floor-length sequinned cast-offs when she'd clearly be more comfortable in some jazzy leggings and a pair of trainers. Still, her admission, live on TV, that she "can't breathe and it's hard to go toilet!" shows just how down to earth and likeable she is compared to some of her brattier rivals.
It wasn't such a good week for boy band Kingsland Road, who sung the Jacksons and probably ought to Blame It On The Rather Weak Vocals, or one-woman Radio 1 Live Lounge compilation Abi Alton, who predictably delivered a tiresomely "quirky" version of I Will Survive. They, along with stocky Essex boy Sam Callahan, who murdered Relight My Fire (in the wise words of Twitter's most concise X Factor critic, Take That's Howard Donald, "not good"), are at risk of getting voted off tomorrow. It will remain a mystery for another 24 hours though, since the damp squib that was Flash Vote has happily been killed off already.
Source : http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568414/s/333b400f/sc/38/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cculture0Ctvandradio0Cx0Efactor0C10A420A20A90CThe0EX0EFactor0Efourth0Elive0Eshow0Ereview0Bhtml/story01.htm
