Torple

So I'm going to throw in my own tedious and unnecessary ranking as ever 01. Kitty Louis may be an utterly out of touch old fart, but against all odds he has managed to pull one utterly GENIUS song choice put of his arse here. It couldn't have fitted Kitty any more perfectly. Bonkers, loud and utterly out of place on the X Factor. Very natural and fitting for her, and it was almost FLAWLESS. None of the shakiness that showed up last week. I really can't decide if I'm on board with her or not right now, but a couple more performances like this and I certainly WILL BE. 02. Misha B Wonderful arrangement, and scoring himself another ON-THE-BALL SHOCKER MOMENT, I was completely on board with Louis when he said this could work as a hit in it's own right. I will repeat my sentiment from last week; she is providing EVERYTHING the show demanded (and failed to get) from Cher Lloyd last year. By far the most interesting prospect this year, and I am definitely on TEAM MISHA at the moment. 03. Craig The I'M-A-SURVIVOR mannerisms that plagued his performance tonight were a little TOO queen-like to really work, but vocally he remains pretty much flawless. Despite appearances, there is an odd charisma to this guy. 04. Sami I don't think this was as solid as Free last week; there were a few little tics and shakes throughout, and I agree it was perhaps TOO big a song for someone to try and tackle in that it REALLY exposes the slightest weakness or tremble in the singer's voice. I think she may suffer vote-wise for the fact that she was given SUCH a predictable and old standard to perform at a time when most of the other acts are at pains to make themselves contemporary. I can't see how they're going to successfully market her if she WERE to win (1% of that happening) with Louis so intent on turning her into a 50 year old woman. Both this week and last I forgot she's only a few years older than me. 05. The Risk Everything Nu Vibe aren't. Vocally adept, able to at least put on the appearance of being a tight-knit group even if they aren't, and actually quite CLASSY. Less of a boyband and more of a manband; more Take That, less The Wanted. 06. Rhythmix The surprise of the night. The harmonies were SO much improved on last week's ropey effort, the new arrangement of I'm Like A Bird felt very natural, and there's a certain joy/energy to them. There's a likeability to them that I think every other girlband in X Factor history have lacked (*watches as they're voted out tomorrow*) 07. Marcus I had to agree that this really wasn't the best choice for him. It's always good to try and step out of your comfort zone, but this really DIDN'T reflect Marcus as a personality or an artist at all. The fact that he had to be specifically ORDERED to stop smiling, and indeed barely made it to the end of the performance without doing so, told me that SLIT-YOUR-WRISTS Rihanna tracks just DON'T fit in with him. Capable singer as he is, I think he also struggled to identify the tune in that track, the middle eight/final chorus verging just a little too close to shouty. 08. Janet Her enunciation isn't QUITE as jarring as Vickers, but jarring it is nonetheless. I still think she's a simpering slop who will have her shortcomings and lack of variety brutally exposed as the series progresses. 09. Sophie I'm with Tirren on this; quite disappointing really and I think she's in trouble this weekend (Sophie / Nu Vibe are my predictions for the sing-off tomorrow). It's not so much the fact that she's had no headlines that will harm her, but more so that I can't really see WHO is going to vote for her. Even if she doesn't share Janet's vocal tics, I think Sophie's preference for floaty/acoustic performances steps a little too close to Janet's territory for Sophie to really form a significant fanbase of her own, and even if we disregard that and look at her as a straight-up female diva, nor is she as vocally solid as Sami. I thought she was very shaky and at times came very close to falling off-key tonight. Pleased as I was about it last week, I'm thinking now that Kelly may well have been better off going with Amelia who would have stood a much better chance of progressing here. There's nothing yet to suggest to me that Sophie will be anything other than this year's Lucie Jones. 10. Nu Vibe There's just NO charisma, energy or any sign that they actually WANT to be here. Sapping the life out of whatever song's given to them, they're simply NOT as vocally capable as The Risk, and the harmonies are non-existant. Poor. 11. Frankie Dreadful. Deathly dull during the verses, audibly strained during the chorus. I'm under no illusion that he'll be in the bottom two tomorrow (we are stuck with him for a while), but I'm glad the judges have finally dropped their unconditional support for him. JOHNNY I'm incapable of ranking this. It was at the same time the BEST and the WORST thing to ever appear on an X Factor show. I genuinely don't know which side I fall on; I half agree that it's a shame he's being turned into an absolute gimmick when it's evident there is SOME sort of a voice there. But at the same time, he simply wouldn't be HALF as entertaining as he is if he were to go serious (note that Wagner left the series last year during the one week he submitted a SERIOUS "real music" performance). Absolutely barmy, and I genuinely spent the whole three minutes in hysterical laughter. I LOVE the banter with the judges as well. He manoeuvered Gary Barlow into dropping the stern headmaster act one shining brief moment, and for that I can only applaud the guy. As an aside, I realised tonight that I really do prefer this new judging panel. Much as the gays all loved Dannii, and the Heat readers loved Cherly, I'm not missing them at all. The new lot haven't yet got themselves waist-deep in behind-the-scenes politics, and without Simon there, there's no top dog that the others all feel the need to defer to. The interactions feel FREE and much more genuine. Gary fills Simon's bad-cop act perfectly, but WITHOUT openly playing puppet-master or feeling the need to dominate proceedings. Tulisa is Cherly with the ability to offer actual useful criticism, and Kelly is Dannii with human warmth.

I'm no major Kitty fan, but THAT could go either one of two ways; car crash of absolutely THE BEST THING THAT SHOW HAS EVER SEEN

Highest selling single of the decade, and it's behind a #24 Natalie Imbruglia hit? LOVE

I was SHOCKED to see Milkshake make it's exit so early. I'm sure I remember it being THE track of the moment for MONTHS

Does this not mean we're going to be getting BALLAD OVERLOAD? Celine Dion fans REJOICE

Another Chance and Naive behind Kristian Leontiou and LISA SCOTT-LEE?! http://www.moopy.org.uk/forums/images/smilies/grin.gif NO WAY

So it's been confirmed that

I hear the theme is to be Tin Tin Out productions and collaborations circa 1998.

When it comes to music and music talent shows, Digital Spy is as bad as Buzzjack (if not worse) when it comes to being unable to see past their own generic preferences (their music reviews in particular are predictably dire - everything the Saturdays or Girls Aloud release is a 5/5). As we do ourselves, they tend to forget that internet-gays make up only a small section of the voting public. The fact that they predicted Two Shoes would finish well ahead of Craig and Misha B says it all I think.

To be fair, I suspect in 2011 the Pet Shop Boys would struggle to do much better, even only 2 years on. But having said that, strong as Erasure's chart career was at it's peak, they never QUITE seemed to earn themselves the same tag as "pop legends" that the Pet Shop Boys did. The PSB seemed to have a certain amount of crossover appeal and are a lot more "visible" so to speak, whereas for the past 15 years or so Erasure have completely retreated into their ageing-gays niche.

I'm sorry guys (and I genuinely am as I quite like her), but only in the heads of internet forum teenage gays is Sophie a potential winner. She SMACKS of being Lucie Jones Mark II. Lovely and pleasant, but I really can't think where she's going to pick a solid fanbase up from.

01. Craig 02. Janet 03. Misha B 04. The Risk 05. Frankie 06. Marcus 07. Kitty 08. Johnny 09. Sophie 10. Rhythmix 11. Sami 12. Nu Vibe

I really can't say I'm disappointed. I maintain that Moves Like Jagger is essentially a Jamiroquai track with a celebrity namecheck.

Roxy seems to have systematically had all her links to the Square removed over the past 18 months. Peggy left, Glenda left, Ronnie's in prison, she cut her ties with Michael, she fell out with Phil... They've done all that but at the same time failed to build up any other relationships for her. Christian and Jack aside (and those are fleeting at best) there's literally NOTHING.

I've only just caught up with EE today, and God you're right. She fell victim to the writers wanting to focus on the implosion of the Moon family, and it almost felt like they felt it was a chore having to include Vanessa in the episode. I'm half-surprised they didn't just say to hell with it and write her off off-screen. It's pretty symbolic of Vanessa's character though, after she spent a year almost playing a guest character in the Max/Tanya big love affair story. I hate to admit but I'm one of those who has slowly switched off from EE recently. I really can't explain exactly what it is, but there's little that's capturing my excitement. I think the Masoods are in danger of being irrepairably damaged. We all KNOW they can do the drama, but I really think that they're fast becoming the resident MISERY family, which isn't something I think they should ever be. I really hope that once the Yusuf strand is inevitably wrapped up, they allow the Masoods some LIGHT time for a few months at least, just to remind everyone of how they came to be loved in the first place. The Moon brothers are pretty mediocre and far from worthy of all the airtime they've had recently, and I think the temporary absence of BIG characters like Max and Bianca is showing, especially on top of the likes of Ronnie and Peggy departing permanently. I also don't know why we're still seeing so little of Pat.

This has to be one of the most RIDICULOUS statements I've ever read anybody make. Are you seriously implying that for a song to be interesting it has to focus on just ONE aspect of music (the rhythm) and completely dispense with all other things such as TUNE and MELODY? How incredibly narrow-minded. And on a different note, POOR BRAVE ULTRA NATE. Not even an X-Factor appearance can return her to the top 300 :(

That's exactly the problem Sami faces. Out of everyone in that final 16, she's really scored the bum deal because under any of the other three judges she'd be safe as houses. Louis Walsh however has consistently displayed a belief that "entertainment" should triumph over vocal ability, and he specialises in the Jedwards and the Wagners of the contest. I'd love to be proven wrong but I honestly think Sami's f***ed.

So I've only just caught up with this this morning. The standard was generally better than I thought it would be; I remember thinking through the auditions that there really wasn't anybody who wowed me at all. But there were a few decent performances last night. I don't really get how anybody could be disappointed with Misha last night. I personally thought she provided everything Cher Lloyd promised and failed to deliver last year. My only small criticism was that the rap didn't really fit the song at all; I know rapping is a big selling point for her, but I think the production team need to make more effort to actually integrate it into the context of the song she's performing, rather than just have her chuck any old shit in for the sake of it. Good as it was, it felt very shoehorned in. Other highlights; Craig (OBVIOUSLY), who did a wonderful job conveying genuine emotion. Samantha, whom I am resigned to the fact she's leaving tonight because she's not as headline-grabbing as Kitty, not as gimmicky as Johnny, and not a soldier like Poor Brave Jonjo - an outrage nevertheless as she's by far the strongest singer of the four - even if Free is a bit of a karaoke song, it was still the most confident vocal of the night and the only one not peppered with nervous trembles and shakes throughout. I also very much hope to see Marcus, The Risk, Johnny (never going to win in a million years, but we may as well have some fun whilst we're waiting) and Sophie survive tonight; they all demonstrated huge potential last night. Sophie in particular really has come from nowhere - I sadly think it might be too late in the game for her to overtake Amelia and Janet, but I live in hope nonetheless. Teenage Dream was quite the spine-tingling moment. Of the others, I can't say I'm particularly rooting for any of them to stay. Frankie was nowhere near as terrible as I expected, and his indie-frontman schtick very much worked on the A Team, but I still find his personality repungant and a damning display of the sexism that apparently still exists in society (would people be appluading Kitty if she revealed seven names of seven guys on her arse? I think not.) Kitty is hugely entertaining as a personality, but in terms of her big voice, I'm not convinced she'll be anything but a sub-par Stacey Solomon or even a Niki Evans. Janet was someone I'd never paid any attention to during the auditions, but last night I found myself completely agreeing with everybody who has identified her as being Diana Vickers' little sister - except I also have to agree that I can't see simpering Janet pulling off tracks like Call Me either - even if Diana had a shaky voice, she nevertheless had more attitude and more energy to draw upon. Janet I predict will be very one-note. Amelia was the worst of the girls' last night, but that was purely down to her poor timing I think. If she can sort that out, she'll be a proper little Christina Aguilera (less-cunty) waiting to happen. Two Shoes was just hen party hell, and we already have Johnny to provide the camp factor. James and Jonjo were plain dull although I expect Jonjo to succeed a la Daniel Evans purely because HE'S A SOLDIER DON'T YOU KNOW. Nu Vibe are going to lose out because we already have a vastly superior boyband in the contest with The Risk, and they seemed to sap the joy out of Beautiful People - there was no sense of them actually enjoying themselves. Rhythmix were nowhere near as good as Buzzjack and Gary Barlow seem to believe. I think a lot of people here are (predictably) blinded by the fact that they're a girlband and that they were performing a relatively current track from an artist few would expect to see on an X-Factor primetime TV show. Beyond that the harmonies weren't terrible as such, but utterly NON-EXISTANT, and only a couple of them came even close to pulling off their solo rap sections. A stone cold mess. PREDICTIONS James, Sophie, Samantha and Nu Vibe out DESIRE James, Janet, Jonjo and Nu Vibe (or Rhythmix) out

OMG YES. ESSENTIAL 01. Feel So High 02. Life 03. What's Your Sign? 04. You Gotta Be 05. You Gotta Be (1995 edit) 06. You Gotta Be (1999 edit) 07. You Gotta Be (2011 edit) 08. You Gotta Be (2012 Olympic Re-issue) 09. You Gotta Be (Tin Tin Out Radio Edit) 10. You Gotta Be (Live) 11. You Gotta Be (Acoustic) 12. You Gotta Be (David Guetta featuring Des'ree and Nicki Minaj) ad infinitum

Very odd tracklisting. I'm sure they professed to hate Shiny Happy People (hence it's exclusion from In Time), yet that's included over Daysleeper and Drive? Very odd.

Yes because they are at least visually interesting and know how to put on a SHOW. Which is what I was getting at when I said you have to have EITHER a big voice or a big (stage) personality. They're not my favourite singers by any means, but there's no denying that GaGa, Katy Perry and Rihanna have presence and star quality in SPADES, and are all hugely recognisable. And between them they've come up with some of THE pop classics of the century so far (Bad Romance, Poker Face, Hot N Cold, Firework, Umbrella, Only Girl In The World). Rachel Stevens simply HASN'T got that same presence; she's a nice girl but there was never anything distinctive about her at all. And whilst some of her tracks were reasonably good, I don't think she was ever going to come out with a Bad Romance really. Some Girls could have been sung by almost ANYBODY.

Do people REALLY want Rachel Stevens back? She fitted in fine back in '03, but the standards have been raised these days and the public generally requires either a BIG voice or a BIG personality. Rachel fails abysmally on both counts. And yes, her "sound" would probably suit the current musical climate fine, but naturally this also means that she wouldn't actually be bringing anything new to the table at all...

LOON POST: Both the first two Corrs albums. Talk On Corners took almost a year to reach #1, and it was three years before Forgiven Not Forgotten reached it's #2 peak and started shifting serious numbers.

Clearly somebody is VERY slow on the uptake.

I'm not sure I entirely get the Moves Like Jagger love. It's essentially a Jamiroquai track ten years out of date.