‘The X Factor’ UK rankings: Are Matt Terry, Emily Middlemas, Saara Aalto really safe?
We’re starting to get into a situation where “The X Factor” is slowly turning into “The Twilight Zone,” given that there are eight contestants left, and we never imagined that this eight would be without the presence of one Gifty Louise. We’re a little less shocked about Relley C, but ideally we would be including both of these women and throwing out the door Honey G and Ryan Lawrie. Yet, this is what the British public / the judges have decided. We still don’t buy into conspiracy theories for the most part, but it’s still hard to understand precisely why Gifty was eliminated by the judges over Four of Diamonds. If this was a deadlock vote, we’d probably be a little less confused.
Could we continue to pound the table over our confusion for the next three paragraphs? Certainly, but there are rankings to get to, and we want to get these out into the universe early enough for them to hopefully fester and get the UK voters on our side moving into what is a pivotal week in the season. We’re getting close to the top 7, which is when some of the riffraff starts to be filtered out.
8. Four of Diamonds (last week: 8) – We don’t want to include them this low on the list, given that we didn’t think they were terrible either week they were in the bottom. That’s the problem: They’ve been in danger despite performing last in shows and doing an okay job. What’s it going to take to have them be safe?
7. Ryan Lawrie (9) – In a perfect world, Ryan would go home before Four of Diamonds since we simply don’t think he has the vocal talent needed to succeed on this show. He’s better suited to take his guitar off somewhere and write songs that he can release on his own. He’d probably be a good artist if he can control the narrative, and he simply cannot do that here.
6. Honey G (7) – We hate ourselves for Honey being ranked this high, but what else are we supposed to do given that she’s never been in danger? We do think that some of the negative press plus increasingly-stale performances will catch up to her, but it hasn’t happened yet. (For the record, we don’t think Honey G rapping in itself is per se offensive as some has suggested; what we find much more so is how she seems to dress and act almost as imitation more so than anything individual.)
5. 5 After Midnight (3) – Yes, here we are ironically ranking 5 After Midnight at #5 again. The biggest worry that we’ve got about the band actually has to do with the band itself, with all of the reports out there about friction and even seeing some discord in the rehearsal packages. As good as they can be, the perception of friction may not do them well when it comes to some of the votes.
4. Saara Aalto (6) – The past two weeks for Saara have been tremendous. It feels like she’s finally allowed herself to be the weird / wonderful sort of talent that she is. The recent results still make us fear somewhat for her safety, but we think voters are starting to figure out who she is and how much talent that she really has.
3. Sam Lavery (2) – We’ve seen some people online stating that they don’t love some of Sam’s performances, and we do agree that there are times that she shouts more than she sings during some of her numbers. Still, we do think that she’s got great potential, and going to more of a rock edge differentiates her from some of her pure-pop / soul we seen from some other contestants.
2. Emily Middlemas (5) – We’ve had frustrations with Simon Cowell in the live shows for steering Emily away from the sort of artist that she can be, but with “Creep,” it felt like we finally had a perfect marriage of what we personally want from Emily as a quirky folk performer and something that suits the show’s arena mentality. This is the sort of performance that could keep her in the game until the final.
1. Matt Terry (1) – If there’s one word that defines most of the contestants this season, it’s inconsistency. What makes Matt in return special is that, by our money, he’s one of the few consistent performers the show has this season, and that goes a long way in terms of his ability to actually win at the end.
Now, let’s turn this over to you: Vote for your favorite performer in the poll below! We’ll be back before the show with some song spoilers over at this link. (Photo: ITV.)