X Factor Blog: Paula’s meltdown

Come on America! What have you got against the groups? It isn’t looking good for Ms Abdul right now.

I have to say, I felt sorry for Paula on this weeks elimination show. She is a fantastic mentor and chose three really strong contestants for her category and she seemingly puts in a huge amount of work with them, but after the second public vote it’s clear that America is not warming to the idea of voting for a group as once again Paula was faced with both bottom 2 acts being her own.

Prior to the phone vote though, at least this week we were treated to a little better with the celebrity performers than last week. First to the stage was Willow Smith with her new single….I have to say it….that girl is too young to be in that industry. She’s too young to audition for X Factor, but there she is performing on it. I didn’t think much of the song, it might have worked with someone older (as would her outfit…as it happened, she looked like a boy), but not with her.

However finally we then got a celebrity performer worth watching with Jessie J doing her newest single Domino. Yes, it’s a blatant rip of Katy Perry’s Last Friday Night, yes she was even sporting a blue wig ala Katy, but it doesn’t matter, it’s a great song and Jessie J has an amazing voice. That’s the sort of thing I expect to see as a celebrity guest.

When it came time to the voting we were treated to yet another recap of everyones performances which irked me a little. They spend so much time recapping and showing useless fluff earlier on in the show and then Steve has to really rush the judges through their decisions when it comes down to their vote, I watched the performances, they are on youtube if I want a recap, what I WANT is to hear what the judges have to say at voting time.

Lakoda Rayne and Stereo Hoggz were bottom two this week, while I feel The Stereo Hoggz were justified I don’t about Lakoda Rayne. I still think Chris Rene or perhaps Leroy Bell should have been there. Their save me performances were both average. Stereo Hoggz don’t work without a huge production behind them and Lakoda Rayne haven’t been together long enough to be able to sing that well on such short notice.

The judges vote was an exercise in cruelty. It’s bad enough for Paula that for the second week she has both of her acts in the bottom two, but to not let her vote last for another week and force her to choose is not fair. I didn’t even feel that it made for exciting TV, it just made it sad to watch. Paula broke down in a mess being forced to choose and wanted to abstain but as there was already a majority for Stereo Hoggz to go home that was pretty much casting a vote anyway.

Steve tried to throw the rules at her and I admire Simon for putting his hand up and saying it was ok if she didn’t want to vote. In the end though she was forced to vote to send home Lakoda Rayne in hope that Simon would to and it could be sent to deadlock but Simon wisely chose to send home the Stereo Hoggz and so they were sent packing leaving Paula with only one act left and many more weeks to go.

It will be interesting to see what happens next week. I’m curious as to what Paula is going to do with her remaining group now she can focus solely on them. I sincerely hope America likes it because I think Lakoda Rayne deserves to go further. I like having groups in the competition, it makes a nice change from just solo after solo. Still, we shall see.

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