‘The X Factor’ USA rankings: Carlito Olivero, Josh Levi lead Paulina Rubio’s guys

With Tuesday marking the beginning of the “X Factor” USA live shows, we’re back with what is an annual CarterMatt tradition: Contestant rankings. This week, we are looking at one category daily, mostly because that is the way that they will be dealt with this week as we narrow the field down to the top 12 before the competition really starts to heat up in November.

So for our second article ranking contestants (you can see the girls here), we are talking about Paulina Rubio and the boys. We’re not sure that these guys are the most dominant category that we’ve ever seen on the show, but there is at least one potential star in the group along with an act that could make it pretty far if they are consistent enough. We’re basing this mostly on both performance quality and also screentime and edit.

4. Carlos Guevara – Out of the four guys in the live shows, he is clearly the one with the best story, but the problem we have with him is that vocally, he’s almost a little bit of Tim mixed in with a little bit of Carlito. There’s not enough for him to stand out on his own deep into the competition.

3. Tim Olstad – A great singer, but also a nervous wreck most of the time that we have seen him onscreen. He needs to develop more of a public personality if he wants to make it far. He’s probably the guy that we’d most want to hang out with, but we learned a good six or seven years ago that we do not have the same opinions as most of the voting public.

2. Josh Levi – Probably the kid with the most potential. He’s super-young, but has a great stage presence and charisma that goes for days. He also has been around the business a little while and isn’t going to be shaken by much of anything. The problem is that his vocals are still a little raw, and we’ve seen both great and weak performances from him. He needs to lean more towards the former if he has a real shot.

1. Carlito Olivero – Unique look, great vocals, and a likable guy. Basically, Carlito is the total package for a young guy taking part in the show. There is also a huge hole in the market for a Latin pop singer right now, given that Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias are not the sort of people that are being talked about these days.

Who is your pick for the top contestant from the guys? Be sure to vote in the poll below!

Photo: Fox