‘The X Factor’ UK review: Sam Bailey, Luke Friend, and Rough Copy bring life to Disco Week
What better way to get the young people watching “The X Factor” UK than Disco Week? We don’t get the logic behind getting people to sing really dated songs, especially some that have no business singing disco at all, but at least the show tried to make this into a spectacle by getting Nile Rodgers to perform at the start of the show. Disco has made a slight comeback as of late thanks to Daft Punk, and he performs in a number of their songs including “Get Lucky.”
The one caveat to this week’s theme is that there is no real time stamp as to when disco actually “died.” Therefore, some of these artists could have went a little more modern than just the late seventies with their song choices.
Luke Friend, “Play That Funky Music” – By far, this was our biggest surprise of the night … and it happened right at the beginning. We went from thinking that Luke was a middle-of-the-pack guy to someone who could make the final. It wasn’t just that he sang this funky song well, but he performed it. He rocked the stage and really came alive.
Kingsland Road, “Blame It on the Boogie” – Who knew that disco would inspire some great things from the acts? The biggest problem that these boys had was coming on after Luke. Otherwise, this probably would have felt almost out-of-this-world entertaining. It was still pretty entertaining as it was, but it just didn’t have that same level of pop or shock value to it.
Tamera Foster, “Wishing on a Star” – This was barely a disco performance, but in addition to that there was another problem: It was pretty boring to watch. Coming off a ballad and doing another ballad is never a great idea, and with her early performance we do think it is possible that this could be one of those shock votes tonight that places her in danger.
Sam Callahan, “Relight My Fire” – What in the world was this? It was part boxing ring, part awkward carnival, and bad singing. There wasn’t anything good about it at all, and with producers constantly putting Sam early on in the show, it’s almost like they know that he is cannon fodder. He’s not a bad guy by any means, but he’s the weakest link in the competition.
Rough Copy, “September” – This may not have been perfect, but it was just a ton of fun. What these guys have figured out is that they are not a performance that you can just put on and go do laundry during. You need to be there to see it, and not just hear it. They are the perfect contestants for the show, and this is their best performance since the beginning of the live shows.
Abi Alton, “I Will Survive” – This was the perfect song choice for Abi to have a comeback to, since we knew that she was suffering some sort of blow to her confidence and these lyrics could be extremely impactful. We did not completely buy this performance, though; we would have preferred to see a little less falsetto, and some more power in the chorus. It wasn’t a trainwreck by any means, but this could have been classic.
Nicholas McDonald, “Rock With You” – Did anyone else feel like Nicholas just wasn’t that confident in this performance? He started with some shaky vocals, and things did not get much better for him as he moved forward from there. The biggest problem was that he was kept on that little platform for way too long,
Hannah Barrett, “Somebody Else’s Guy” – Hannah’s biggest problem so far this season has not been her vocals; it’s instead had more to do with her looking almost consistently like she was about to go cry in the corner. She looks happy! She performs great every week, but this is the first time that we have really felt like she was enjoying herself in the process.
Sam Bailey, “No More Tears” – Sam’s got a little more of a connection to disco in that she is at least the only contestant born during this part of music history … and she totally killed this song. Fantastic. It was her first up-tempo track, and she looked like a woman ready to prove herself as more than just a ballad singer.
So overall, a surprising show that we thought was actually going to be awful. There were some stinkers, but they were some hits and surprising contenders. There’s almost no way for the public vote to deliver a predictable result with this one. Grade: B+.
What was your favorite on “The X Factor” UK tonight? Be sure to share below, and click here if you want to check out our full contestant rankings for the week. We will have the results up tomorrow, since the flash vote now appears to be over.
Photo: ITV