X Factor Blog: Nicole has a lot to answer for

Well, if ever my dislike of Nicole Sherzinger could peak it happened on Friday’s elimination. To jump the gun straight to the results all I can say is, Nicole…you screwed it up!

Last week’s theme was meant to be dance songs, and the Pepsi challenger performances (chosen by the viewers) but due to a “technical hitch” which was never explained the contestants had 24 hours to polish up their save me songs for their second song of the night. What this left us with is a first half of well rehearsed, full blown stage productions, and a second half of…averageness.

Melanie opened the show with a brilliant version of Adele’s Someone Like You. It only served to push her further into the lead and distance herself from the other contestants in terms of her talent. Her second song was the Whitney/Maria power ballad When You Believe was predictably great, but seemed like a let down after the energy of her first song.

Marcus Canty did a good job with Aint Nobody but at this stage in the game, good is not good enough. We want to see amazing and he isn’t delivering it in my opinions. His limitations are definitely apparent on the slow songs.

Rachel surprised me a little by doing Nothin On You, but she carried it well. She has grown so much as a performer since the start of the show. I thought it was slightly mean of LA to put her on the spot by questioning who it was being sung to, but I loved how she didn’t miss a beat and casually said it was for Nicole and Paula. Beautiful! Her second song, while still a downer after the first highlighted once again how impressive her vocals are for such a young girl.

Josh was, I hate to say it, disappointing. Dance music is not his forte and Nicole tried to get votes by giving him one of the biggest hits out there right now, Rihanna’s We Found Love. Unfortunately it came off a little drab and lacking in energy. As such, his second performance trumped his first.

Chris Rene….still don’t like him, not gonna lie. Live Your Life was really quite bad for me. Though, I’ll concede, his original composition for his second performance was not bad, and quite possibly his best one yet. I don’t doubt he will manage to land a record deal following the competition but I don’t for a second think he deserves to win.

The results last week is where it all went horribly wrong. Following the usual recaps of the previous night, the bit you just saw before the break, and of the recap you saw just before the bit just before the break, it finally got announced that Melanie, Josh and Chris were through leaving Marcus predictably in the bottom 2 again, along with Rachel (unfairly, as much as I think Josh is an amazing vocalist I think her performances were better than his the night before). For their save me songs they had to break out previous performances considering their save me songs had already been sung. Marcus redid I’m Going Down, which I thought was disappointing the first time and didn’t change my opinion this time. Rachel brought out I’d Rather Go Blind once again, which was stunning the first time, and was similarly stunning this time.

Simon and LA backed their own acts naturally. Paula rightly chose Rachel to stay and so the decision fell on Nicole. Nicole who has since admitted publicly that she thought Rachel would not have polled at the bottom. She expected Marcus would have got the lowest number of votes. So she copped out, and sent it to deadlock and Rachel was revealed to be the lowest polling contestant. What the hell Nicole? You couldn’t just man up (figuratively) and send Marcus home? If Simon brings back Nicole as a judge on next years series then he deserves to be slapped. It was one of the worst X Factor decisions I’ve ever seen. The boos she got following the decision was a testament to that.

From this week on, the decision no longer lies in the judges hands. The only thing Nicole can further screw up is Josh’s song choices (and she hasn’t proved herself very adept at that throughout this season)…thank goodness for that!