‘The X Factor’ UK review: Did James Arthur, Union J, or District 3 rule club week?

It was club week on “The X Factor” this week, and there were some interesting surprises that came with that. The acts who actually have more of a club energy were not necessarily the best, and the best performance of the night may have been from a man in James Arthur who we’re not sure has ever entered a club in his life. We’re not going to waste much time leading up to our performance reviews, so let’s just get right into it and remind you that you can also read the latest rankings over here.

Christopher Maloney – Someone page Rick Astley! This song for whatever reason reminded us so much of that cheesy 1980s singer, but actually not in a bad way. This really was our favorite performance of Christopher all season long, mostly because it was fun. It felt like the closing song of a classic teen comedy, where the football star and the reformed geek girl were seen riding off into the sunset together.

MK1 – After a pretty terrible cover of “I Want You Back” that was completely against what they are meant to do, MK1 came roaring back this week with their own finest performance to date. Their was not only the swagger and the energy, but you really feel that they really had plenty of fun on stage. We weren’t so familiar with the Tinie Tempah song, so we didn’t really mind the rap not being changed from it.

Jahmene Douglas – Here’s what we found funny about the latest chapter of Gary Barlow vs. Louis Walsh: Gary gave him an honest critique about his dancing, and Louis then attacked him without even really addressing what he actually said. We didn’t love the song choice that much, but you can’t deny that this guy has the voice of a recording artist.

Jade Ellis – We know that Jade was suffering from a ridiculously sore throat, and that in many ways kept her from giving the strong performance that she otherwise would have. Our problem is that we’ve always found Jade to be a little dull, and this was duller than most everything else she has done over the course of the season.

James Arthur – We love James, but we have to play devil’s advocate here on one aspect of this “Sexy and I Know It” performance: watch the video below from CeCe Frey from the American version of the show a week and a half ago. We’re not trying to take away from what was one of the best performances of the season, but it has to be said that this was not necessarily the revelation of a cover  that it was made out to be.

Union J – We do really think this group is getting better and better; and now, we are starting to think that they could legitimately be the guys to end up making it into finale night. They clearly have the female fans behind them, and they are also starting to get together some of the vocals to back it up.

Rylan Clark – If Rylan was a good singer, we’d given him license to go up there, act silly, and throw himself as many crazy costume parties as he wanted. The issue is that he’s not a good singer, and we really just can’t bear him staying much longer than some of the other deserving vocalists.

Lucy Spraggan – People are making too big of a deal out of Lucy getting thrown out of her hotel, mostly because this is the same woman who performed a song that was basically about a hangover. She did do a nice job with an interpretation of the Sia and David Guetta hit “Titanium.” We don’t know if this was really appealing to a club crowd, even if it was still nice to listen to.

Kye Sones – Congratulations to Kye? We like the song, but we also really liked it when he heard it the first time on the show. Repeat performances are tricky ones, but really what made this work more than anything else is that we genuinely felt it. With that being said, Kye desperately needs to speed things up for a performance.

District 3 – It’s really quite easy to love what Distrct 3 did this week. They came in underdogs, but rather than giving up, they worked hard and bounced back. You have to love that these three actually looked more like themselves than just some self-parody of a boy band. This is the reason that One Direction has been so succeessful: they loosen up. District 3 needs to do this from here on out.

Ella Henderson – Finally, we close things off with a young woman in Ella who can truly, genuinely sing better than anyone on this season. To be honest, we were hoping for a song choice that you would actually hear in a club more so than this one, and the dancing didn’t do much to us. Then again, Ella is one of those singers that we would still listen to even if she was singing while doing a crossword puzzle in the paper.

After watching this episode, there’s really nothing else we can say outside of the fact that Rylan needs to go home. The only person we could maybe see leaving before him is Christopher, and at this point, it doesn’t seem fair that Gary Barlow would only have an act left after trying to give so much to them.

Who was your favorite this week?