‘The X Factor’ UK preview: Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh fight over Paul Akister

Well, we suppose that this is going to be a recurring theme for however long Paul Akister stays around on “The X Factor” this year: We are going to see Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh spend most of their time arguing over him.

From the standpoint of Louis, he ws right to cut him at the judges’ houses last year, feeling like he would have an opportunity here to come back better than he was before. Meanwhile, Simon Cowell seems more interested in pandering to the guy, and saying that Paul should have advanced last time.

After hearing his audition and seeing his new look, it’s clear to us that Louis made the right choice. Paul has a great voice, but he’s clearly worked on building confidence to go along with that. He needed to do something more than just be another “boy who sings ballads” on the show. We already know that the trajectory of these artists is to come on here, get a ton of praise, and then struggle when they actually make it into the actual music business itself.

The arena auditions are going to be a fun chance to see some of the rest of the auditions who went through, and judging from what we have seen already, there’s already some evidence that the judges made some absolutely loony decisions the first time around. This is a great chance for them to learn from some of their past mistakes, or at least the joke acts they allowed to advance.

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