‘The X Factor’ UK review: Sam Lavery, Relley C, and Matt Terry take on Divas Week
Despite the new “X Factor” theme twist that the show has now officially busted out, we cannot exactly say with full confidence that we’re the biggest fan in the world of what they’re throwing out there for us to see. Divas Week seems like the same sort of theme we’d see any other season, and it leads to getting songs we’re already familiar with and then some.
Still … let’s not complain about it for the entirety of this review piece. Let’s just go ahead and get to reviewing how all of the individual contestants are going to fare! We’re going to be updating this LIVE as the show goes on, so be sure to refresh the page often to get more of our take on some of the singers. One quite note: Apparently they’ve included “legends” in here to go along with “divas,” just to have it a little more sense as to why Michael Jackson and Vanilla Ice are involved. Also, we’re getting another legend in John Legend helping out before everyone hits the stage to perform.
Ryan Lawrie, “Rolling in the Deep” – To be fair to Ryan, this was much better than we thought it was going to be. He hit the majority of the notes, but his big issue is just that he doesn’t have that big, booming voice you really need for Adele. He did the best he could with it.
Gifty Louise, “Lay Me Down” – Probably her best performance this season. She’s got the voice to pull off Sam Smith, and as we saw in the pre-taped package, she had a deep emotional connection to the song thanks to her mother. She had all of the tools to give a great performance here, and she delivered with that and then some.
5 After Midnight, “Valerie” – We can’t say that this was perfect vocally, but at the same time their energy is infectious. In terms of dancing and working the stage, they may be better than any group in the history of the show. We certainly don’t think this was “terrible” as Simon Cowell put it.
Sam Lavery, “Earth Song” – She did a great job with these vocals, and gave about as good of performance of “Earth Song” as you’re going to see on a singing show. Full disclosure: We hate this song. She almost made us like it.
Matt Terry, “I’ll Be There” – It was a journey from one Michael Jackson song to another here, with Matt taking on a much-covered song with a ton of emotion. He’s got a really good shot of winning the whole thing — he’s a great singer, he works the stage, and he’s the sort of artist who tends to win this show. The one thing that he may need to be wary of is that he went a little sharp at the end.
Honey G, “Ice Ice Baby” – A little bit of behind-the-scenes info: Apparently Honey G was forced to perform a straight version of the Vanilla Ice hit by David Bowie’s estate with a little bit of “Under Pressure” dance break in there. We got bored after about a minute of it — Honey G’s biggest problem here was that she seemed to tire out during the dance break and was fairly lifeless the rest of the way.
Relley C, “Natural Woman” – She’s had a rough week, but she was still able to make it up on stage and perform like nobody’s business! While we’re really used to covers of this song, we do think it’s worthy of advancing to the next round.
Emily Middlemas, “How Will I Know” – Clearly our comments to give Emily back her guitar are falling on deaf ears, but at least this was more her speed in terms of being smaller, more intimate, and a chance to let her voice really shine. Hopefully that package with Ryan doesn’t get her attacked on Twitter by all of his fans.
Four of Diamonds, mash-up – The harmonies and the vocals in here were very good, and we feel like they are starting to mesh really well. Nicole Scherzinger may be ridiculous at times, but she was right on her money in her critique for the girls here. The one thing that they are really missing is a little bit of fire and an edge. They’re not too different right now from every other group out there.
Saara Aalto, “It’s Oh So Quiet” – This was odd, but at the same time Saara can really perform! While it’s definitely not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, at the same time we are very grateful she’s here just to give us something different. We need creativity in this competition!
If you want to get some other news right now when it comes to “The X Factor,” including some of our singer rankings from before the show, just be sure to head over to this link right now! (Photo: ITV.)