The X Factor UK: Shan Ako, Dalton Harris, Misundertood do movie songs

Tonight’s new episode of The X Factor UK is all about the movies … which can at times for us be groan-inducing. It’s so odd to see the judges twist the rules about song choice with their artists, just as it’s also weird to see the same movie songs used every single year.

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Basically, this theme sucks — but the contestants don’t, so hopefully there is going to be some really cool performances as the night goes on. We’ll be updating this article throughout the night with some more information and evaluations, so be sure to check back!

Giovanni Spano, “The Greatest Show” – While the rock vibe was interesting and Gio always knows how to work the stage, does anyone else feel like The Greatest Showman is somewhat overrated musically? The melody here just didn’t work well for a singing show and there’s not all that much memorable when it comes to the arrangement. Starting first is bad news on a singing show, and this performance didn’t help anything, either. Grade: C+.

Dalton Harris, “California Dreaming” – Incredible. This is such a difficult song to do because there’s such power and even tragedy in the way it can be sung. Yet, he really pulled thiss off — it was powerful, it was emotional, and it may be one of the most complete performances of the entire season so far. One of the best contenders for the final we’ve got. Grade: A.

Scarlett Lee, “I’ll Never Love Again” – Hey, a super-modern show from a movie that is actually in theaters at the moment. Scarlett’s voice is soft when it needs to be and big and powerful at others. She hit the right notes, but it still felt like there was something when it comes to connectivity that was missing. She was close to nailing it, but not entirely there. Grade: B.

Brendan Murray, “Everybody Hurts” – Is tonight Louis Tomlinson’s boys’ night to shine? It feels that way. While we wouldn’t say that Brendan completely captured the power that we saw with Dalton, he did perfectly encapsulate the vulnerability in his voice. Perfect song choice, perfect delivery, and a nice example of how you don’t need to change the arrangement all that much in order to deliver.

Acacia & Aaliyah, “Survivor” – We’ve been a defender of these two for a little while, mostly because we’ve dug their energy and originality out on stage. Yet, this didn’t quite work beyond the choreography of it. It wasn’t in their typical hip-hop style and it didn’t fit exactly what we know from them. While it wasn’t a total disaster, it also had many vocal hiccups along the way. Grade: B-.

Bella Penfold, “A Million Dreams” – Bella’s an interesting singer and this was fine, but it does feel like we’re losing a lot of the person who we really enjoyed earlier on this season. Where’s some of the edge and modernity here! This felt like it could’ve been done by virtually anyone else in the competition. Grade: C+.

Misunderstood, “She’s a Maniac” – We don’t necessarily think that this had the energy that we expected it to going in, but we certainly do feel like the energy was there and the vocals, while not outstanding, were largely on point for the amount of choreography that they were challenged to do in here … which was a LOT. Grade: B.

Danny Tetley, “My Heart Will Go On” – Danny loses part of a letter grade for singing the Titanic song that we’ve heard a thousand or so times already on this show. It was a fine take on the ballad, but we inevitably have to compare him to Saara Aalto and of course also Celine Dion … who sings this the best of all. Grade: B.

Anthony Russell, “Eye of the Tiger” – By no means should we have enjoyed this as much as we did, given that this was straight karaoke insofar as the arrangement and the choreography went. Yet, Anthony committed enough to this to make us feel reasonably entertained by it. It’s not going down as a classic, but one of the better ones of the night. Grade: B+.

Shan Ako, “Never Enough” – What is this, Greatest Showman night? We’re slightly perplexed about the amount of hero worship that is going on for this movie tonight — yet, Shan did the best of the people doing songs from this movie. She did hit most of the power notes and, beyond that, she stood at the mic and compelled the audience to come into her world. Grade: A-.

Who was your favorite on tonight’s X Factor episode? Share right now in the attached comments! (Photo: ITV.)