X Factor Blog: Rock? I don’t think so

I’m just gonna come right out and say it, last night’s episode of X Factor was woefully disappointing. Rock week it may have been, but rock it did not.

Steve Jones tried his wooden best to make things sound exciting throughout the show, but considering he has the on stage charisma of one of those dolls you pull the string on and they spout forth a pre-recorded saying…nuff said…

What saddened me a little is the fact that Paula, after losing 2 of her acts 2 weeks in has gone a tad wooden herself. All of her backstage interviews looked liked she was reading from an autocue. That is a woman who has lost all belief in her category winning, luckily for her, her last remaining act brought one of the best performances of the night.

Opening the show was the unnaturally youthful Leroy Bell with We’ve Got Tonight. LA is right on the money, he’s a boring performer. He has a good voice, but his performances are lacking, and rock week should have been an opportunity for him to let loose a little, and he didn’t…poor mentoring from Nicole in my opinion.

Rachel Crow, despite being universally praised for her take on (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, didn’t rate so highly for me last night. It was good, but fell short of last week’s performance. Her age did work against her with this one. Still, one can’t deny she has stage presence.

Chris Rene and Stacy Francis followed and this is where the rock theme started to get a little dicey. LA can blag on all he likes about Bob Marley being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but No Woman No Cry is a reggae song through and through. Chris gave it his all and poured all his talent into it…so naturally it was average. Bored now, please America, send him home. Stacy Francis was a train wreck. Flat out worst performance of the night. Of all the Meatloaf songs, that was not the one to pick for her. It was almost pantomimey the way she went at it. If she went home tonight I would not be surprised.

Melanie Amaro gave a stripped back version of Everybody Hurts. She tried to inject some power into it at the end but I would have preferred something where she could really have let loose. Still, with a vocal like that it’s difficult to fault her. She didn’t take out top performance of the night though, that goes to Josh Krajcik who fully embraced theme and owned the stage last night. Finally Nicole, you got something right (but don’t let it go to your head, and please just stop speaking altogether on the show). Taking on The Foo Fighters Josh nailed it. Absolutely amazing and his best moment yet.

Astro was never going to be that suited to rock week, what do you do with a hip-hop/rap artist in rock week? Apparently you give him Puff Daddy’s I’ll Be Missing You. Not rock…but as close as one could expect I guess. Boy is talented so makes no difference, he still gave an incredible performance.

Lakoda Rayne gave the second best performance of the night I thought. Simon was unfair on them. It wasn’t a mess, it was the first time they have really gelled as a group. Once again Paula is proved to be a very very capable mentor. Simon however dropped the ball with Drew. It could have been amazing as she has the voice for With or Without You, but it was desperately crying out for some epic drums or an electric guitar to come in half way through and was sorely lacking due to the absence of either.

I agreed with Simon over Marcus Canty’s song choice though. Good performance (weird staging though…not so sure about all the leather clad dancers), but odd song that didn’t work so well for him. Piece Of My Heart doesn’t sound right sung by a man, it just doesn’t.

All in all, a disappointing rock week on X Factor. Bottom two should rightly be Stacy and Chris (I’m not gonna be happy until he’s gone). Though despite my dislike of Chris…I think Stacy deserves to go home off her performance. We shall see tonight!