Now that the big X Factor Louis Walsh mystery has been cleared up – no, he’s not quitting; yes, it probably was all just a massive publicity stunt – we can look forward to another round of X Factor eliminations.
This is always the part of the X Factor series we like the best; the joke contestants have – more or less – been eliminated, and the the remaining singers are starting to exhaust their supply of popular songs that suit their singing voices. Look at Journey South. They’ve done Bryan Adams, they’ve done U2, they’ve done Bon Jovi, they’ve done The Eagles. So by now they’re running out of sincere soft rock artists to cover. Where do they go from here? Try singing a different style? Do a Chico and write their own? Or just keep mining the obvious choices?
More than ever, the song choice is important in this week’s X Factor, so what will the contestants sing, and who will go? Here are the latest betting odds for tomorrow’s X Factor elimination, with some help from Betfair.com…
Shayne Ward – A lot has been made lately of Shayne Ward’s comfort
zone. He knows that he can cruise up on stage, croon out any old
rubbish, flutter his eyelashes at the camera and get ten billion votes
as a result. But now the public wants more from him, so he’s been given
the most unlikely song imaginable to sing - I Believe In A Thing Called
Love by The Darkness. Is that a mistake? It’s one thing to step out of
a comfort zone, but quite another to step into an ironic comedy heavy
metal zone. Ah, who are we kidding – he won’t get voted off tomorrow.
Current odds – 44
Andy Abraham – Andy has an image crisis at the minute. Sharon can’t
decide if he’ll sell more records as a Nat King Cole soft jazz crooner
like he was last week, or a randy sexed-up youngster like he was the
week before. In reality he’s neither – he’s a stinky impoverished
binman – but the choice needs to be made. This week he’ll sing I Have
Nothing by Whitney Houston. Wait a minute – didn’t he already sing a
Whitney song? If a Whitney Houston song wasn’t guaranteed to be such a
popular choice we’d scold him for being lazy. Oh, we’ll do it anyway.
Lazy Andy! Lazy lazy lazy Andy! He won’t be eliminated, though. Current
odds – 40
Journey South – Journey South, as we’ve already mentioned, have
mined the blokey sincere soft rock busker songlist almost to
extinction. So what will they sing tomorrow? That’s right, another U2
song. They already did Angel Of Harlem a few weeks ago, and now they’re
coming back for a go at I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.
Which means more chances for the guitary one to pull his scary face and
the non-guitary one to punch the air with his fists. Like a fool. A
fool who we want to slap. Nevertheless, we think they’ll be safe.
Current odds – 34
Brenda Edwards – Now we reach the contestants who have a real chance
of being eliminated tomorrow. Brenda has hung on by rolling out some
very self-assured performances over the weeks, but now she needs to
start singing some really big songs. Songs like I Will Always Love You
by Whitney Houston. Another Whitney Houston song? What the hell? They
could at least mix it up by singing songs by other warbling dickwads
like Mariah or Celine. But no, it’s Whitney all the way. If we get
through tomorrow without deliberately smashing our head on the corner of a table
we’ll have done very well indeed. Anyway, Brenda might go tomorrow, but
she probably won’t. Current odds – 5.6
Chico Slimari – Chico can be eliminated safely tomorrow if he wants.
He’s already made his fortune with the soon-to-be rush-released It’s
Chico Time single. And it’s just as well – Chico is covering Billy Jean
tomorrow, a difficult song in any week, let alone the week when Michael
Jackson‘s voice has been broadcast all over the world calling Jews
"leeches". But if it’s between him and The Conway Sisters, we have a
suspicion that he’ll stay. Current odds – 3.85
The Conway Sisters – We’re secretly pleased that The Conway Sisters
are still in the competition. Only because you can tell that all their
low self-esteem and paranoia has made them so jittery that they can’t
sleep. That means we’re in for another round of crying and weeping and
whining through Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us by Starting Line. We like the
defiance in the song titles that The Conway Sisters choose, if only
because it’s so misguided. Favourites to go, but we’ve been saying that
for a few weeks now. Current odds – 1.68
Come back on Monday for the latest odds of each act to win X Factor. In
the meantime, head over to the UK TV Special Bets section of Betfair.com. You get free stuff when you join up, look…
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[story by Stuart Heritage]
