Tag: The X-Factor

Who's going home on The X-Factor? Last night I thought the judges were done voting and it was just the viewers vote that count. Not so. The 10 contestants with the highest viewer votes are safe. The bottom 2 will sing again and the judges will decide which one stays and which one goes home. Kind of odd -- would any one of these judges vote off a contestant in his or her group? I think Leroy Bell will be in the bottom two. He's got a great voice, but he's 59 and I doubt his fans voted 50 times each for him.

Update: So glad I was wrong about the bottom two. I totally agree with the viewers' votes. I'll be back after the show has aired on the west coast (to not spoil it) as to why I think the bottom two got the lowest votes. I'm surprised I didn't think of it before, but I didn't. [More...]

The X-Factor Live show tonight: Judge Nicole Sherzinger criticized singer Rachel Stow for changing, at Simon's request, the line in the song she sang, Katrina and the Waves' "Walkin' on Sunshine," to "You're My Sunshine." Nicole ssid she preferred the original version.

But the judges didn't say a word when Malanie Amparo not only changed a few words of the Eagles' Desperado, but sang verses out of order, combined lines from different verses and left lines out of a verse. She sounded great, but she butchered the lyrics and no one said a word. [More...]

The X-Factor seemed to start off on a bad note when it dropped British judge Cheryl Cole. Replacement judge Nicole Scherzinger didn't seem to me like a good fit during auditions. But now that it's clear the judges' role is not just to vote every week, but to train their assigned group of contestants, I've changed my mind. I can't see Cheryl Cole coaching any of these teams to musical super-stardom. Nicole may be lacking in the magnetic personality department (as she was on DWTS, which she won) but after watching the judges' home segments, I think she'll be a winner as a coach.

It was definitely a struggle to stick with the show through the weeks of auditions. L.A. Reid and Simon were the only reasons I kept watching. For the most part, the contestants were either very physically unappealing or far too young. But in the end, with tonight's selection of the final 17, it was worth it and made for pretty riveting TV.

The X-Factor is not the same as American Idol. To say it's more emotional is an understatement. It's like Queen for a Day on steroids. [More...]