In line with the Halloween weekend, The X Factor embraced the scary festivity with a Halloween themed show. And that wasn’t just with the song choices, the theme of Halloween got to the wardrobes and to the heads of many, with some rather eerie performances.
With the girls mentor stuck in the States with the “flu” (a thumbs up or down after each performance was out of question for Kelly), the seat next to Tulisa and Gary had to be filled, and who better to fill Kelly’s shoes other than X Factor’s very own Alexandra Burke. The winner of the fifth series may not have been as fresh out the oven as guest star Cher Lloyd, but she certainly had an opinion like no other, with even Mr Serious (Gary) not having the powers to hold her down. Not trying to outdo our Kels were we Miss Burke?
Flying the flag for the groups, (and the cats) judge Tulisa donned a black leather catsuit complete with a chain, ears, and skyscraping heels to top off the purrrfect Halloween outfit. Although Tulisa’s fellow judges decided to opt out of the fancy dress leaving her looking a bit out of place. Alexandra had her locks in sleek mode dressed in a stunning sequin mini topped with bang on trend, shoe boots, meow!
Now to the all important performances, and starting with the groups, after a crisis week for Tulisa’s young kids on the block, both The Risk and newly named Little Mix, previously called Rhythmix (I just hope the music charity doesn’t sue us for this!) had plenty of issues and decisions to deal with. Firstly with the boyband, The Risk, members Charlie, Derry, and Andy lost a member earlier on in the week. Ashley Baptiste who had caught laryngitis last week quite shockingly quit the group after realising the commitments of being in a boyband. You can’t blame the guy, a hoard of risky groupies is enough to send anyone packing!
But in good old X Factor 2011 style, a lifesaver was on hand, and the trio was quick to rob booted out boyband, Nu Vibe’s, Ashford Campbell to take Ashley’s place. A case of human scrabble I say!
The newly refreshed boyband took to the stage with X Factor’s familiar Halloween song choice, ‘Thriller’. As the music started, my head literally drooped, and my mind instantly thought no. The Michael Jackson hit has become an old piece of furniture to the show as it features every year, and every year, whoever is lumbered with it is usually lumbered with the negative feedback. But, this time round, the boys did in fact prove me wrong, thankfully! Not their best performance to date but they did deliver a satisfying set of solid harmonies. It was probably the best cover of ‘Thriller’ the X Factor has plugged.
After dealing with a name change and weighty issues, everyone’s favourite ensemble of teenage girls, Little Mix, morphed into scary robotic dollies with a repeatedly outstanding performance yet again. Katy Perry’s ‘E.T.’ was taken to a whole another level by these girls, the styling, the vocals, the choreography , where do I stop?!
Over to the overs, and after weeks of being the show’s novelty act, Johnny Robinson geared into shape and belted out a “ballid” (as Tulisa likes to call it). After singing Ella Fitzgerald’s ballad ‘That Ole Devil Called Love’, Johnny received much praise from judge Gary, the whole works I would say! Never seen Gary give that much love to anyone in yonks. A kiss, a hug, and a hand shake, Johnny must have done something right. And all to Johnny’s excitement, it had him jumping for joys, blowing kisses back like there was no tomorrow. Gary Barlow’s misses better watch out!
And now to the people’s favourite, Kitty Brucknell. Kitty’s cover of ‘Sweet Dreams’ was definitely a true definition of Halloween. After landing in the bottom two last week, Kitty rocketed her way to the top with her performance of the Eurythmics classic. Although her being spun upside-down on a giant target made me a little nervous and sick to the stomach. But whether we like Kitty or not, it was very hard not to like her this week.
Onto Gary’s pride and joys, and being the only judge with all of his acts still left in the competition, his boy Frankie didn’t leave him looking so smug after all. Even all of Frankie’s victims couldn’t save his inked up buttocks after a dreadful song choice of ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’. The jack the lad quite simply talked his way through and delivered a poor performance, way below average this week! Week after week Frankie hasn’t been impressing much but has still managed to worm his nest of a head through to the following week. I want back the Frankie who we saw in the beginning stages of the competition, I’m still convinced that we haven’t seen the best of him yet!
The best performance of the night had to be from Craig Colton. And yes, it was really only because of the song choice! Craig took a beautiful Adele song ‘Set Fire To The Rain’ and tried to make it as scary as possible with his signature mouth movements (who wouldn’t be fighting for a blanket?). As solid as ever, but not so Halloween I would say! Next week shall be interesting.
My favourite boy, and the most entertaining of the night, Marcus Collins, painted the town red with his energetic performance of ‘Superstition’. This was the Marcus we had all been waiting for, and you could see it in his eyes that even he was comfortable with what he was doing up on that stage. The Stevie Wonder track was also mixed with INXS’s ‘Need You Tonight’ which made the performance even more spectacular along with an eye gripping of dancers with walking sticks. I’m just glad that Gary let free the Marcus we all fell in love with back in his first audition, now where’s that Frankie got to?!
Poor Kelly’s girls were left battling it without their mentor, and one girl in particular who got left in the dumps (unfortunately) was Janet Devlin. I love Janet to bits, I loved the whole styling this week with the crimped hair, and the twilight make up, but, it still hasn’t convinced me. There’s just something missing from the pale faced angel that we are ALL still dying to see. ‘Every Breath You Take’, was so not the song I would have given someone who is still waiting to break out of their shell. The performance was very much haunting, but pretty dry to be honest.
My “babygirl” Sophie Habibis came at us with the predictable song choice of ‘Bang Bang’. As faultless as ever, yet at the same time repetitive. Sophie’s song choices have become as obvious as Louis’ wrinkles. An exceptional singer lumbered with the lousy songs, I’m sure that Misha’s taking first pick in the list of song choices.
Now to the shining star of the competition, or shall I say the diva? With her creative cover of ‘Tainted Love’, Misha B yet again proved that she could do any theme, and smash it! After an ordeal of a week with bullying claims coming to the media’s attention after judge Tulisa exposed the queen bee, Misha proved that even she couldn’t be tamed by judge Tulisa as she rapped “I just Lethal Bizzle pow”. I spy a sly dig! (N-Dubz v Lethal Bizzle – long story!).
Down to the nitty gritty and the results reached a right old shocker as Kelly’s two girls Misha B and Sophie ended up battling it out in the bottom two. Kelly’s absence must have had an effect! Or maybe the headlines caught up with Misha, we’ll never know. All that I know is that Sophie, who was in fact voted out of the competition, certainly didn’t deserve to go out so early on in the competition, let alone being shot down by Kelly! Sophie we will miss you babygirl!
By Melek Derebeyli