“Shamazeballs?”

With it being ‘Guilty Pleasures’ week on The X-Factor, I thought it oddly fitting to finally share my thoughts on the current season of one of the world’s most famous ‘talent’ shows.

The X-Factor was created by Simon Cowell and began its run on ITV back in 2004. The show has five stages: after initial Producers’ auditions that take place months before the broadcast shows, acts perform in front of four judges, as well as a live audience. In order to advance to the next round, called Bootcamp, the singers must receive at least 3 ‘yes’ votes from the judges. During Bootcamp, the number of contestants is narrowed down to the judges’ Top 24. These hopefuls are split into four categories – Boys, Girls, Groups and The Over 28s – with each judge being chosen to mentor one category. At the Judges’ Houses stage, each judge eliminates a further three acts. There are therefore 12 acts that perform in the Live Shows. This season finds Gary Barlow (leading man from Take That) mentoring The Over 28s, Nicole Scherzinger (need I tell you who she is?) mentoring the Boys, Tulisa Contostavlos (member of N-Dubz) mentoring the Girls and Louis Walsh (manager of Boyzone and Westlife) mentoring Groups.

Right, with all that out of the way, let’s discuss what is expected of the 12 finalists in the Live Shows. It’s very simple, really: each act sings one song, with each week having a different theme, ranging from Love and Heartbreak to Best of British. After each performance, the judges are meant to give their opinion on the act, potentially even be useful and give them some advice on how to improve. Unfortunately, this part of the show very often deteriorates into heated arguments between judges, with attitude and insults flying around like frisbees, and no real constructive criticism being offered. At the end of the show, all of the contestants sing together and then it’s over to the people at home to send in their votes. The results are revealed on Sunday night, at which point the two acts with the least votes sing for their survival. The judges must choose who to send home and in the case of a tie, it’s the number of audience votes that determines the singers’ fate.

I missed the auditions this season and only really tuned in once the acts made it through to Bootcamp. I picked my personal favourites quickly and was hesitantly optimistic about the quality of the acts that would compete in the finals, as it seemed that the judges were finally picking real singers, not just pretty faces. Here is a breakdown of the contestants still in the running:

The Boys

It was touch and go for Jahmene Douglas in the beginning. There is no denying this boy has singing talent in spades, I would even venture to say he has the best vocal range I have heard from a male contestant on the show, but his nerves almost prevented him from competing. He has thankfully overcome these pre-show jitters and continues to wow me every week.

James Arthur isn’t a favourite of mine, but I can see his appeal. He has a distinct and unique style and there is so much raw emotion in some of his performances that it came as a shock to find him in the bottom two this week – but more on that later.

I honestly thought that Rylan’s presence in Nicole’s house was a joke… apparently not, as he’s still around acting like the world’s biggest diva and not adding much to the show apart from flashing lights and club tunes.

The Girls

Well, technically, as this goes to print, there are no longer any acts competing from this category. That being said, I will still talk about them, because two of the girls have been my favourites throughout.

Let’s start with Lucy Spraggan. She auditioned with an original song entitled “Last Night”, which was amusing but it wasn’t until she sang another original song – “Tea and Toast” – during Bootcamp that I became a real fan. Was she the best singer on the show? No, but she has real talent when it comes to writing lyrics and I hope her short stint on X-Factor was enough to open some doors for her. I still can’t listen to “Tea and Toast” without tearing up…

This week’s elimination of Ella Henderson has left me reeling. She’s only 16 years old but, together with Jahmene Douglas, she had the best voice this season. Her rendition of Cher’s “Believe” is nothing short of genius and if you don’t believe me, I urge you to watch the video on YouTube and find new meaning in the song. She has been likened to Adele and described as the best singer on the show since Leona Lewis. She was a true class act, one that didn’t need any gimmicks to make her performances special and memorable.

The Groups To be honest, I don’t much care for this category, so this part will be short. There’s only one act left anyway – boy group Union J. As much as it pains me to say it, they’re not bad, but do we really need another band like The Wanted and One Direction? How about rewarding originality for a change?

The Over 28s

Did you know that there has only been one winner from this category and that was all the way back in 2004? Why is that? This year’s contestants have been good but apart from Christopher Maloney, they’ve all been voted off and I have a feeling Christopher won’t last much longer. It’s not that he can’t sing, but he’s quite cheesy and there has been a lot of controversy surrounding him.

This Week

As you may have gathered, James Arthur and Ella Henderson were in the bottom two. I wish I could be mad at the judges for not unanimously saving Ella, but in this situation it was really tight as Ella’s performance from the Live Show was in my opinion better, but James was absolutely amazing as he sung for survival. Either way, neither of them should have been in the bottom two in the first place and this is what frustrates me about shows like this. This is meant to be a SINGING competition so I wish the audience would just vote for the acts with the best ABILITY TO SING, and not the guy who needs 20 scantily clad dancers on stage to distract from the fact that he can’t do much more than grind along to the music. Am I the only one who thinks this? Maybe not, as X-Factor managed to lose yet again to Strictly Come Dancing in the viewers’ ratings last week.

It is my strong belief that the world needs more singers like Adele, Leona Lewis and Robbie Williams (before his stint in rehab) who can not only sing, but whose songs resonate with an audience that is not solely composed of teenage girls, because ultimately, those are the singers that will be remembered.