Grace Under Fire

Nov 11, 2017 by Rob

It won’t now be a double elimination on each night of X Factor this weekend under the spurious Cowell claim he wants them all to have more time to establish who they are as artists.

With the Groups against the Overs tonight and Girls vs Boys tomorrow night, the 2 who look most vulnerable pre-show are Jack & Joel and Sam, both of whom have Wham cheese-fests to negotiate. The fact they are uptempo tunes is their one glimmer of hope given the plethora of slower tracks being showcased over the two nights.

All four Girls have slower George Michael tracks. Grace’s looks well suited to her in the sense Adele has covered it and she is being pointed in that direction as an artist.

However, Grace has received some negative press this
week and the comments following this Daily Mail story do not make good reading for her backers. It didn’t look promising they styled her like Rod Hull and Emu last week.

Tomorrow night might tell us more about her long-term prospects and it will be interesting to see if the show starts to get more behind one of the other girls, with Holly or Rai-Elle looking the more likely candidates to step up to the plate.

You can make a case for Grace’s track being a potential dirge and that also applies to Holly’s track. It will be interesting to see Rai-Elle tackle the gospel-sounding ‘They Won’t Go When I Go’. With the right sort of arrangement – a gospel choir behind her lending a hand perhaps? – this could be a stand out.

Alisah’s comfort zone is belting out power ballads. ‘Praying For Time’ is much slower than she has encountered so far and it is doubtful whether she can produce the nuanced performance this ideally requires.

‘A Different Corner’ requires subtlety as well and Lloyd’s falsetto could be too over-powering for this. The Irish lads will apparently be incorporating rap again in their version of ‘Freedom 90’ which doesn’t sound especially promising.

They could be in line for a pimp slot tonight and big fanfare but it will likely be a short-term ramp purely to try and get them to the top of the pv tonight and change things up in terms of the top 2 over the weekend.

The first two live weekends have made depressing viewing for Cutkelvins backers. Week 1 of live shows gave a hint they were not favoured with ‘What About Us’ not showing them in the best light, and the brothers buried away at the back of the stage.

Last week looked and sounded an even bigger Syco stitch up, the arrangement exposing Shereen’s vocals. Again, her brothers were hidden away for the most part, and if that wasn’t bad enough they were immediately followed by Rak-Su who again received enormous fanfare.

At judges’ houses only 2 weeks previously you could form an argument they and Rak-Su had been quite evenly treated. But the first 2 live shows have unanimously told us Rak-Su are Syco’s main project among the Groups this year and TPTB are likely to continue to fanfare them while putting away The Cutkelvins.

For Cutkelvins backers seeking a tiny ray of light ‘Killer/Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone’, on paper at least, looks more suitable than the tracks they have been given in the previous two weeks. Added to which we have seen Rak-Su’s glass jaw exposed in this series, with them now losing two head-to-head votes with first Grace and then Kevin landing the knock-out punch last week. Cowell was clearly far from happy to see them turned over again.

It looks like Kevin will be given the chance to play the authentic musician card again tonight, this time sat at the piano (based on the pic in the Daily Mail story), and we can probably expect an arrangement for ‘Fastlove Pt1’ not dissimilar to Adele’s performance of the track at this year’s Grammys.

Matt, on the other hand, may struggle to put a worthwhile stamp on ‘Careless Whisper’. Rak-Su should be fine with ‘Faith’ and even if they are not you would have to expect it is in the script for the judges to rave about them once more.

Looking ahead, one wonders if plans will be afoot to ensure this year’s final does not offer the window of a final head-to-head vote if Cowell is hell-bent on Rak-Su winning. With 10 acts remaining after this weekend and only two shows to get it down to this year’s finalists, a change from the established order could well be on the cards.

This week’s song choices:

Kevin Davy White – Fastlove Pt 1
Matt Linnen – Careless Whisper

Lloyd – A Different Corner
Sam – I’m Your Man

Sean and Conor – Freedom ’90
Rak-Su – Faith
Jack & Joel – The Edge Of Heaven
Cutkelvins – Killer/Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone

Grace – I Can’t Make You Love Me
Holly – One More Try
Rai-Elle – They Won’t Go When I Go
Alisah – Praying For Time