‘The X Factor’ UK rankings: Matt Terry, Emily Middlemas, 5 After Midnight stay strong entering top 6
At this point last week, we said in our “X Factor” rankings piece that we firmly felt that Sam Lavery’s placement in the bottom three was an aberration … and that didn’t turn out so well. This has been a fairly difficult season to rank! We’ve got two singers remaining in Ryan Lawrie and Saara Aalto who have survived on multiple occasions despite being in danger numerous times, and then an extremely controversial contestant who somehow has yet to feel that sort of danger at all.
Moving forward, it feels very clear that there are two clear tiers of acts who will be making it to the final episodes, and then three who are going to likely be gone sooner rather than later. Could we be wrong? We shall see!
As per usual, we are rankings based on a number of things, including performance quality, voting history, and the performance of similar acts in past seasons of the show. We are watching for voting patterns here!
6. Ryan Lawrie (last week: 7) – We’re shocked, honestly, that Ryan’s still here. If it wasn’t for Sharon Osbourne changing her mind, he wouldn’t be. We’ve defended him much of the past few weeks, and we’ll continue to do so: He’s probably a very good singer-songwriter who, outside of the show, could accumulate a great following and put out records. We don’t think his style translates well to a show this bold and bombastic.
5. Honey G (6) – We really WANT to put her last, but how can we given that she’s never been in danger? Maybe we’re setting ourselves up for failure here by thinking that she is someone who absolutely could never win this show under any circumstance, but we just don’t see it. We personally think she’ll perform first on the night, get criticism from the judges, and be sent home this week. We’re calling our shot now.
4. Saara Aalto (5) – We’ll always worry about Saara given that she’s been in danger several times since the start of the live rounds, but who ever thought she’d make it to sixth with some of her past performances in mind? It’s hard to imagine her making it to the final, but we really enjoy the majority of her performances and we’d love to see her there — we just don’t see that support coming from the viewers.
3. Emily Middlemas (2) – After a couple of weeks looking like a potential winner threat, we’re in slightly uncertain times with Emily now after we saw her diverge from Simon Cowell when it comes to song-choice strategy. Who’s right and who’s wrong? It doesn’t really matter, but Emily does need to find a way to give a performance that stands out and shows a different side.
2. 5 After Midnight (3) – We’re still waiting on these guys to deliver that one performance that drops everyone’s jaw to the ground, but we do for the most part think that they’re consistently great and bring something very different to the show. On this particular season, that may be enough to get you close to winning.
1. Matt Terry (1) – We’re not sure it’s being talked about, but we feel like Matt’s lead over everyone else is so vast it’s hard to imagine how anyone will catch him. Our advice to him now is to start focusing more on really showing yourself as an artist. Choose creative songs, and come up with cool rearrangements. If you’ve got a little bit of leeway, why not try to make yourself one of the best contestants on the show to date?
Who is your favorite? Share now in the poll below, and head over here for more “X Factor” news! (Photo: ITV.)