‘The X Factor’ UK rankings: James Arthur, Ella Henderson finally swap places
For the first time all season long with our “X Factor” rankings, we finally have a new #1 of the most welcome kind. What do we mean by this? Rather than it being a case of someone doing something extremely wrong, we are looking instead at somebody doing something that was just spectacular. The bad news? There is at least one act left in the competition that really should not be there anymore.
10. Rylan Clark (last week: 11) – Sooner or later, we have to be right with putting Rylan at the bottom. He does seem like a nice enough guy, and his performances are campy and sometimes entertaining. However, this is still a talent competition, and there is literally no way in which we see this guy winning. At best, he will stay a couple more weeks like Frankie Cocozza did last year, but will hopefully leave in a much more positive manner.
9. Christopher Maloney (9) – We know that Christopher has yet to be in the bottom two, but the truth is here that we don’t really see there being any way that he could end up winning this competition. This is not the sort of music that Simon Cowell wants this show known for, and we don’t think it’s a coincidence that he has gone early in the show almost every week … a time in which fewer people remember to vote.
8. Jade Ellis (8) – Jade had a particularly rough week courtesy of her vocal problems, and there’s still no guarantee that this is going to change this week. While it’s beyond easy to be sympathetic, you also have to be realistic here and say that if this continues, eventually the sympathy from the voters will wane.
7. Kye Sones (5) – Coming off a week in the bottom two, the voters will likely give Gary Barlow’s best contestant a temporary lift. With that being said, the guy needs to start having more fun! We love his voice, and his original auditions is one of our personal favorites; the biggest problem that he has at the moment is that he’s not making himself someone who is easy to vote for. Do something upbeat!
6. District 3 (10) – While in our head Union J is still the superior boy band at the moment, these guys really did step it up this past week and felt more like some young dudes having fun rather than just someone who was onstage impersonating 98 Degrees. We’re not completely sold yet, but they should have another week or two in them.
5. Lucy Spraggan (8) – Lucy managed to get through “hotel-gate” without too many blemishes, and even reminded people that she was really just acting like she mentioned in her audition song “Last Night.” She almost reminds us of the female version of the Barenaked Ladies, and this is great. However, she may need more range to make it all the way to the finale.
4. Jahmene Douglas (4) – There’s very little difference between the top four signers, as we could see any of them really winning at the end of the day. The thing about Jahmene is that everything else aside, his voice is something brilliant. There’s nothing else like it, and he could sell records even without having a swagger.
3. Union J (3) – After the first live show, we were ready to write these guys off, but since then they have worked hard, picked themselves up by their bootstraps, and really shown that they are capable of far more than most people ever gave them credit for. They also have the vote of many young women across Britain.
2. Ella Henderson (1) – This spot change for Ella is actually not due to anything that she did last week, and we really didn’t have a problem with some of her dance moves like Gary did. Instead, this is all thanks to what our #1 did to completely raise his game for the third straight week and do something new.
1. James Arthur (2) – We don’t even care that some people have done acoustic versions of “Sexy and I Know It” before; his take on the song was still a breath of fresh air, and he bring such swagger to everything he does that you have to take it pretty seriously. So long as he keeps this up, we really can’t imagine the finale without him there.
Who is currently your favorite singer on the season?