26th and 27th November 2011
With the remaining acts entering the home straight, week 8 saw the stakes upped further, with each act having to perform twice, for their place in the series semi-final. The first round saw a theme of guilty pleasures, before the second song saw the acts pay homage to their own personal musical heroes.
Little Mix chose a mash-up of Justin Bieber's Baby and The Supremes' Where Did Our Love Go to open the show which, surprisingly, fits well together as a hybrid song. Already done on the American X Factor, it wasn't as original as it might have been had Rachel Crow not already tackled it, but for the UK audience, it was a solid choice. Having flown under the radar for the majority of the competition, they are really coming into their own as a band now.
Janet returned to up tempo pastures with Hanson's seminal MMMBop, but it all fell apart for her once again this week. A fantastic song choice for a guilty pleasures theme (it's a beast of a song, admit it) but she forgot the words once again, and the wheels fell off the entire operation as they did previously. An absolute car crash. Once was perhaps forgivable, but twice? Career suicide. Misha showed her how it should be done as she ploughed through Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, which was solid, if unspectacular.
Marcus chose right once more, taking on Wham's I'm Your Man, before Amelia showed a different side to her persona performing T'Pau's China In Your Hand. A great song, and a powerful vocal, but let's face it once again, Kelly did pick a song that many of the younger generation could have perhaps considered to be "obscure".
Round 2 saw Little Mix strip it back on Christina Aguilera's Beautiful, which was a good performance, if not a patch on the original - Aguilera is up there as one of the best though vocal wise. Janet shouted her way through Red Hot Chili Peppers' Under The Bridge, as her fate looked more sealed. For the first time in the competition, she was really looking to be in danger of losing her place.
Misha killed us softly with the Fugees track of the same name, reminding me why I still hate this song all those years later and Marcus also played it safe with a rather unimaginative choice of Lately, by Stevie Wonder.
Then, the bases were loaded, and Amelia knocked it clean out of the park.
I have said for weeks that she is a superstar, and with some Kelly Clarkson-style material, she would go far, and sell a tonne of records.
What better way to stake her claim for greatness than with Clarkson's quintessential pop/rock anthem, Since U Been Gone, which she absolutely nailed. As soon as it kicked in, I knew we were onto something special, and that Kelly had finally got it right in letting Ms Lily sing this track. It is still a phenomenal song, and she absolutely slayed it. A huge chorus, and a massive vocal performance, which saw Amelia take the honors as the best on the night, and book her place in the semi-final in the process.
Inevitably, she was the first to make it through to the semi-final on the following evenings’ results show. Janet and Misha fought it out in the sing off, and with Janet messing up twice now on her lyrics, she had to go. As she faded out to Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars, you could almost sense the inevitability. Misha opted for Out Here On My Own from the Fame soundtrack, but was never in any danger of leaving tonight.
Elsewhere, Olly Murs stole the show with a Muppet inclusive version of latest single Dance With Me Tonight, which was one of the best guest slots of the entire series. Jessie J also wowed with her voice on the anthemic Who You Are. The group performance saw the finalists (not including Frankie) sing their charity single, Wishing On A Star, backed up (admittedly on one line only) by JLS and One Direction.
It's a hideous song, but it's for a very good cause, so everyone should go out and buy it. However, why did the song have to be so terrible? The JLS/1D ("JLS, ID, wooo") part is proper cringe too, and the less said about it as a track the better. Surely next year we can have a decent song for the cause? There is no excuse for this dirge.
It’s semi-final week next time out, and the stakes don't get much higher.
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