Before we begin, we just want to say one thing. we're sorry. ?No, listen. WE’RE sorry. Remember how you watched The X Factor for 2 and a half hours on Saturday? Well we're going to tell you about that in quite an unnecessary amount of detail now.
And what's more, you're going to like it. Yeah, in a sexually testing sort of way. Yep. Yeah, you're going to feel vulnerable and alone afterwards. No, we don't do cuddles, that's how people get attached. You kind of knew what you got yourself into when you turned on ITV1 on the 20th?of August 2011.
Or when you then subsequently googled ?Kelly Rowland’, followed by ‘The point of anything in the universe at all? with mild curiosity. So, in a way – you deserve what is about to happen to you.
So this is it ? the first X Factor live show. The first of 12. That's 12 weeks. That's three months. Do you know what you can achieve in three months? Well, yeah you COULD obtain a basic level motorcycle license, and sure, you COULD learn how to make your own yeast, and sure, MAYBE, your unborn?foetal?self could develop fingerprints.
But what actually is going to happen, is that you are going to spend quite an inordinate amount of time gunning for a wistful pale girl called Janet Devlin who sings about her hair. Well, if we're going to do this, let's do this properly?
WOW THE X FACTOR! Look here! Black and white slo-mo shots of our potential Bowies, Springfields, Franklins and Cardles making their way up to their first auditions, where we first got to hear their raw, cutting, and totally unedited talent in it's unhoned gestation period. Like, literally looking at baby tadpoles, if baby tadpoles sang Adele covers and then weeped uncontrollably at their own brilliance.
Actually, that sounds like the framework for a Cadbury?s viral video at some point. ESCAPE KEY. ESCAPE KEY.
So, who’d have thought it? The X Factor survived the departure of Simon Cowell and became THE NEXT GENERATION! YEAH! LIKE STAR TREK OR THE RUGRATS ?ALL GROWN UP? AND STUFF. THE FUTURE. THE BETTER, MORE IMPROVED FUTURE. Even Scott Mills was excited about it, and you know how much of a serene beacon of broadcasting he usually is.
?There's only one goal. To find a Superstar.? Says Sincerity Barlow, but then unbeknownst to him, ITV1 cut to one of the rubbish auditionees singing rubbish straight after this – which is really, really funny because that's a juxtaposition of two abstract concepts.
?LIVE FROM LONDON!? ?Peter Dickson squawked against a tracking shot of London in case we dared not to believe. Dermot O’Leary legged it out on to the stage looking sickeningly excited, and tells us that the theme this week is ?US vs UK? Ah! A tongue in cheek reference to the notably more financially viable and successful US X Factor there. Aha! Very classy and very clever. Cool. We get that. X Factor ?, right? Professional post-structuralist theoriests the world over must be absolutely creaming themselves chuckling at that one, because we know we are.
Oh our respective GODS. In replacement of the standard Simon Cowell salute of 2010, Tulisa engaged in a fucking Gladiators fist pump. Kelly Rowland attempted to compensate with jazz hands, but in all frankness it was so-so, BUT she is wearing the front cover of a special edition Goosebumps book as a dress, so props to her man. Props.
But first thing?s bloody first. You've all been dry humping the backlog of Digitalspy forums all week to find out. The big twist. That big, bloody twist. What could it be? What could the big twist that we all found out about last Thursday be?
Dermot exclusively revealed with all his pervasive acumen of a QI researcher that the big, big twist was that there was no public vote this weekend, the judges are effing-off truckloads of the contestants instead (or ‘four’ for the more mathematically minded of you out there). Be still, our aching myogenic muscular organs!
Gary explained to Derm that the reason for doing this was because there's oh so much pressure on the contestants. True. So much fame, and expectations and ITV1 lighting fixtures. All those highly medically taxing things. But never mind that right now, because at the moment we’re going to pretend we don’t know anything about it but then tell you at the end, because we are like the Christopher Nolan you never had.
First up was Amelia Lily, who now has pink hair. Do we smell ROCK STARDOM? Oh no, no, that's just our loins burning. She sang a vaguely heavier composition of Billy Jean if you can imagine such a thing, and then if the sweat from our collars couldn’t glue to our neck hairs any tighter, she only went and wore a leather jacket AND a denim skirt! The judges were a bit like ?meh avril lavigne bleurgh not even legal yet bleurgh meh bleh? but Amelia wasn’t at all arsed. Good.
?Here?s Johnny!? said Louis as he announced his first act. We assumed he was quoting the more innocuous Johnny Carson style ?Here?s Johnny? rather than the Shining’s ?Here?s Johnny? because we’re sure Louis would never liken any of his acts to terrifying myers from Kubrickian psychological horror of course. Oh no wait, it’s Johnny Robinson, we hereby retract all of the above.
Hey guys, question. What do you do with someone when they sound like autotune BEFORE the autotune? Cake them in bacofoil and masquerade them as a ?diva? we suppose. Okay, here’s another question. What do you do when someone sounds like autotune when they're incredibly weak and riddled with osteogenesis imperfecta? Do EXACTLY the same thing, just with larger sunglasses to cover the crevices a bit more. Johnny sang Believe by Cher, obviously, and look, it was just amazing. What do you want us to say? The man is 502 years old and we’re honest. Tulisa called Johnny her ?guilty pleasure? and everyone elses. AU CONTRAIRE Tulisa ? we have nothing but sincere respect for Johnny?s italo-disco musical aspirations. Guilty pleasure. Pfft.
This guy is Kraftwerk reborn, and Gary Barlow agreed with us, as he told Johnny with all the precision and seriousness of Ghandi that he is seriously disappointed in Johnny; in particular the embarassing lack of UNKLE samples and the mostly misjudged 1/16 paced sequencer rhythm. Johnny waved this all off with a sexually repressed limp wrist and a “OohbettyI'mfree” to the delight of pretty much the universe.
Gary on the other hand was still gravely concerned about the lack of musical integrity Johnny is displaying. To be fair though, Gary is gravely EVERYTHING. Louis tells Gary to listen to the public because they LOVE him. Yeah Gary, listen to the mentally unstable shivering humans surrounding you that are so grateful they managed to break into the building without being shot, that they're rogering themselves to death with their own self-made oxygen masks out of sheer excitement. Just listen to them, Gary ? because they know.
But Gary persevered, telling Johnny he looked ?cheap?. ?It costs a lot to look this cheap, Gary!? Johnny hit back with lightning fast comic precision. Don't you just love unscripted live TV?
And then an ad-break came and totally widdled one out on our chips by telling us that ITV have given Jeremy Kyle a QUIZ SHOW. It’ll probably have questions like: ?For a hundred pounds – what the hell are you doing with your life and why are you even bothering trying to contribute to the failing human race by trying to have sex with this lovely innocent drug dealer??
After this awful revelation, the mostly (and by mostly we mean entirely) pointless group category were next to take to the stage. Taking out the EURGH out of Eurythamics ? introducing RHYTHMIX! They sang… wait… we should say rap AND sing! It was all urban and amazing and we really couldn't care less. It was fine, but evidently not going to wash on a programme where we much preferred a dying eunach coked off his mind on lo-fi and foil rather than this lot, no?
Regardless, Tulisa – with all the power of her legs and opinions and misjudged bleach gave them the first standing ovation of the show. No fair. Louis would have probably done the same if he hadn?t swapped his leg muscles for Westlife in a drunken bet made decades previous. In a moment of pure, unadulterated clarity Gary called them ?the best girlband that have ever been on the X Factor? which is a truly amazing achievement in his cruel girlband-less, world.
Regrettably, next up was Frankie Cocozza, who hadn?t so much as had his terrible chauvinistic personality shaped as he had his eyebrows. Frankie explicated in his introductory VT that his life is already changing so much. ?There's girls screaming outside, there's girls asking for my autograph?? girls agreeing to consent without calling the police? It's all going on for Frankie as he got up on stage. It’s kind of good that he did in a way, because we always did wonder what would happen if there was such thing as?a midget John Cooper Clarke impersonator, and if it would be a good or bad thing.
We now know.
Then came Sophie Habibas, or Sophie ?HER NAME SOUNDS A BIT LIKE ?HER BOOBIES? as Peter Dickson delighted in bellowing. Sophie sang brill cuz she's brill, so that’s that. Louis figured out she was singing a PIANO-LED KATY PERRY COVER about three quarters into the performance, and wrote down some fake notes about how brilliant that is. Can we at some point try and get a copy of Louis? notepad by any chance, because is it not just a star quality/YOU LOOK EXACTLY LIKE MARIAH CAREY/you belong on that stage Venn diagram?
Following directly on from that last statement was Jonjo Kerr, who is a soldier who impregnates his wife when he's bored, ie: ALL THE TIME. Imagine being the world's most boring person in the world, and THEN being bored.
Jonjo covered You Really Got Me by the Kinks while showing us what the worst thing we have ever seen in the world looks like. And we've seen a cat eating it's own premature born kitten. It even had a misjudged camera zoom at the end, and Jonjo squatting in a suit. If you don't believe us, here?s the link to Jonjo?s groundbreaking performance.
?IT WAS NOT MY IDEA.? Louis screamed over and over as the performance came chugging to a halt. ?I'm guessing the girls in hot shorts weren't your idea as well? quipped Gary, because homosexuality is wrong. ?Jonjo (who is a professional warrior) retaliated with something boring and blokey and then went back to the war where he can shoot someone in the face in the most boring way imaginable.
Mercifully, ?totz amaze? Two Shoes came to save our tedium, allowing us to yell ARGH, ONE OF THEM IS PREGNANT AND WE DON?T KNOW WHICH ONE, WE?RE TERRIBLE PEOPLE! And oh, Two Shoes. You were so amazing in your eccentric pink car and effeminate songs from Veet adverts. All the judges are dancing, except for Gary who was watching it from a serious singer-songwriter’s point of view, as per. ?Tulisa and her roots chastised Gary for this, and told him that he was WRONG and that Two Shoes are AMAZING because Essex is SO CURRENT right now. That's true actually. The only way IS Essex?
?Two shoes or NOT Two Shoes? That is the question!” queries Dermot, except that it is not a question, because shoes isn’t a verb which would take the subjunctive out of the original quote’s context so that wouldn’t really necessitate the correct sentence structure to…well, we don’t really want to get into that right now.
Next up was something gut wrenchingly terrible, and his name was Vervey Spiv McRinglets. Oh, okay killjoys – his actual name was *Mumbles something incoherent about Google and 404 errors* Anyway, the facts are – he appeared to be a human man, or something to that effect, so don’t tell us we don’t do our research. In his VT, he bursts into tears on a 834 seperate (But all totally?permissable,?obv) occasions due to the fact that his family are stupid and have misjudged issues with real estate. ?So all in all, a terrible human being. His hair looks like Ben Stiller?s ejaculate hanging from his ear, which is probably a cool post-ironic Topman trend that we must have missed because we were too busy being happy that day.
He sang The Carpenters’ version of Ticket to Ride on the set of Oliver Twist in a three piece suit and it was the funniest thing we had ever seen for about five minutes until it got incredibly awful and psychologically arduous of course.
And to think that this guy gave up public school to play the guitar. we're really glad he did ? because that E minor chord is sounding spot on, mate. You know what? Sod all the other ones, just play that one consistently throughout the entire performance, LOVE that chord. Sounds all sad and thoughtful and such.
And you know what else? Less IS more. Less music that is. WE LOVE MUSIC. Oh no wait, sorry. We've just mistaken this for music. This is just an audio rip of a snake shedding it's skin over a 72 hour period. Just a pile of ponce. We bet his boots smell of Urban Outfitters perfume.
Misha Bryan was next, equipped with an Adele song. You know what, bring that. Bring fuckloads of Adele covers, all dolled up in a dress made of newspapers! Remember, Misha’s too poor to afford real clothes. Fabric ? MAVERICK more like. She sang a remix of Rolling in the Deep and ?cool things? because she is cool. It's totz awesome obviously. But so is the sound of rotting sand after James? performance.
Then came Nu Vibe ? (yes, Samuel Johnston. Phonetic spelling! Imagine!) who all hate each other with intense lustful agony. They sang via the Matrix because they're all massive fans possibly, except for the one on the far left who thought the sequels narrative structures were a bit convoluted if he's being honest.
They sing one of those songs you hear on ?Radio 1? and it's cool and dewy and?and existant?and ABREAST. It's all of those things, and more besides. Mmm-hmm. Yeah. One of them shows off their saucy abdomen at the end. Lovely culturally relevant abdomen. The clarkgablemoustache one (See, this is why JLS had an accessible colour co-ordinated system, guys) says that this is the stuff that dreams are made of. Aw, that's quite touching, actually. Not to be a dick or anything, but FYI, dreams are actually made from emotions and sensations generated during the REM state of the unconscious brain muscles, so technically dreams are made of neurotransmitters, serotonin and histamines rather than say, appearing on The X Factor in a jacket. Technically.
We were then treated to Marcus Collins. Boy, where do we start on Marcus Collins? After all that Marcus Collins-y based hoo-ha has been swimming around the ether for the past 200 years. God, we love Marcus Collins so bloody much and have absolutely no idea who he is.
?One minute you're a hairdresser from Liverpool, the next you're being scrutinized by the press.? Gary philos in Marcus’ VT. Ah, that old chestnut. But who cares because Sammi Brooks, the one of eyebrows and misjudged turbans is back!
She's not supposed to be here, but because Goldie had a dense eccentric fit, she here she is, to absolutely everyone's joy and merriment. Hopefully She'll fill in the rest of the post-disco eras that Johnny didn't have the bone marrow to muster. Oh, that she did! Look at her go in her sparkly tunic and leggings, the little minx! Coleen Nolan must be clawing her TV down to the core with desire, hammering key words into Debenhams online.
Tulisa then promptly went about telling Sammi that she is quintessentially (okay, she doesn't say ?quintessentially?, the residents of Camden would have her stoned again) ?the voice? of the competition, and then treads down a slippery slope of trying to comment on Sammi without saying ?YOU?RE FAT AND OLD?. She goes with ?You represent??strong? women.? Good one. Gary tells Sammi how friggin? incredible she is and how she's exactly like Mary Byrne without all the emotional problems and children. And so she should, because for every great soul singer, there should be a sparkly bolero. Sammi has earnt hers. And just quickly, let's just write this down?
Gary says to Sammi ? ?If you're not here next week, I am leaving this chair.? Right, let's see him get out of that one. Set in WORDPRESS DRAFT STONE, that one, Gar?.
Then Risk happened. Well. Didn’t happen. BORING. Craig Colton then waddled on-stage, and he’d picked his own song because he’s really into anarcho-primitivism just really likes this song. To rapturous applause, Tulisa took a pop at him for ?hiding behind all the comedy?. What comedy? That's not comedy Tulisa, that's mild obesity. Not a laughing matter at all.
Anyway.
You know how you're all wasting away and your stress levels have reached weird levels to the point your hallucinating various floating pieces of medieval torture devices and your doctor?s a bit iffy about the whole situation? Hi there Kitty Brucknell.
So, sometimes things sound great on paper, and sometimes people just turn up on the X Factor dressed in all the remnants of the Foot and Mouth disaster (RIP The Moocows of 2001) and scream incoherently about immortality for a few minutes or so. Kelly was concerned for Kitty due to the fact she was shaking during her performance. Kelly, the woman is clearly quad-polar, 80 times over and sucks the milk loafs in Sainsburys in the vein hope of extracting alcohol from them, of course she was shaking.
And last of all (YEAH I KNOW, WE?RE SO HAPPY TOO! No, don't cuddle.) is Janet Divbin. Janet has red hair now, because red haired people are endearing. No not Nicole Kidman, she's a natural blonde. No, not Christina Hendricks either. No, not Lindsay Lohan, we said ENDEARING redheads. Anyway, whatever. Shut up, because Janet is sad. She is sad because she doesn't get time to play her guitar in a house full of people and just wants to be alone and wear paisley and walk on lots and lots of pebbles, but she just CAN?T, because she's so famous and successful and some idiot called Janet Devlin put all her videos up on the world's most globally recognised video sharing website and everyone just loves her? to such stupid degress and it's NOT FAIR IN THE SLIGHTEST.
Janet warbled Chicken Huntin? Slaughterhouse Mix by Insane Clown Posse some wet by Coldplay and it's just a real testament to Janet that she can make a song that is already of the highest proportion of Twee to new levels of quaint dainty balls. It sucks arse, in other words. And then Tulisa, Gary, Kelly and Louis had the audacity to tell Janet how amazing she is even though all she wants is to be alone in a desert eating cucumbers making origami swans.
But then Kelly says ?As you've gone through the competition I've watched you come into yourself.? Oh, well, erm, *tugs allegorical collar* Well, just carry on Janet, carry on.
THE RESULTS
Oh yeah, one last thing. Guess who totally got shunted off the show last night?
Only bloody Jonjo, 2 Shoes, Amelia Lily and the dickhead who ruined music forever! We know, right? On the results show, absolutely bupkis happened.
Even Matt Cardle turned up halfway through, as some sort of sick, sick joke. CeeLo Green couldn't even be bothered to sew lycra to his face and sing Kung Fu Fighting, but still ? that was an hour of our time that we spent not having sex with absolutely anybody that we are obviously ruthlessly trying to get back now.
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