Week 16

TRUE BRIT

Dannii returns to her Welsh roots to sing the praises of this week's Best of British performances.

Coooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! For the first time… no voting from the judges and tough, tough competition.

You can feel that we are nearly at the final and close to Christmas, I mean, if the panel’s comments are anything to go by, the X Factor is not just a DVD game now, it’s also a weekly pantomime! It got so heated that I think it best I bring some mistletoe to work with me so we can all kiss and make up.

Song choices this week were in the theme ‘Best of British’ – so the net was wide open to catch all the greatest!

Rhydian opened the show with the classic by Queen, Somebody To Love. He was riding high on a grand piano with the sharpest Ozwald Boateng suit and the coolest dancers. He really was in his element and deserved all the amazing comments.
Louis: “I’m sure you’ll be in the final. Freddie Mercury would have loved that performance – it was passionate”.
Sharon: “Freddie was a good friend of mine, and I know he’s watching this performance and he’s saying bravo”.
Simon: “Tonight, for me, it is all about proving that you could survive in the real world outside of this competition, as a star. Based on that performance you could”.

Leon is Scotland’s very own Braveheart. There is no one that has come so far in such a short space of time. Louis is constantly making acerbic remarks about him being a Michael Bublé impersonator but Leon has had exactly seven performances to his name and is wowing the audience. Michael Bublé has had seven years of performing professionally; I really hope Leon gets that opportunity too. We do not currently have a star like this in the UK and it would be great to see ‘The Leon King’ fill that role. He owned the stage with his performance of Crazy Little Thing Called Love.
Louis: “I absolutely loved that performance. Since you got your confidence, you are fantastic”.
Sharon: “You are so damn cute, you know I love you”.
Simon: “What I saw tonight was that you have presence”.

In this section, we all thought that Hope let us down with their performance of 2 Become 1 – the vocals were just not on it (even Simon agreed!) Niki, however, packed a punch with Total Eclipse of the Heart – she was really in the zone.

I was not ready to like Same Difference singing Any Dream Will Do from Joseph (‘cos it’s not a song I like) but you know what?… they pulled it off so well and made me smile and smile – well done. I would love to see them in the final.

Leon’s second song choice was The Beatles’ classic, The Long and Winding Road. This song personifies classic Brit pop and I feel Leon is now delivering powerful performances – we are loving it!
Louis: “An absolutely brilliant performance. You absolutely nailed it”.
Sharon: “You’ve got heart in your eyes and you tell the story of the song”.
Simon: “I’ll see you in the semi-final”.

Rhydian chose, I Vow To Thee My Country/World in Union. This is the rugby national theme and, as Rugby was Rhydian’s first passion, he sang this for all his family and friends at home (I hear it was also Princess Diana’s favourite song and was played at her wedding).
Louis: “I think everyone in Wales is voting now”.
Sharon: “I didn’t know the song ‘cos it’s not really my sort of thingy, but you sang it very well”.
Simon: “I don’t think it matters whether you are English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, British, whatever… that was outstanding!”

Rhydian does not have any sob story to tell and the country’s press have gone from hating him (or who they thought he was) to agreeing with the bookies that he is the favourite to win. He was genuinely nervous this week – he knows the competition is tough and would never let you down – he wants it 100%!!

Same Difference sang one of my all time favourite pop songs, Wake Me Up Before You Go Go. It was a pyjama party on stage with the cutest routine and a pillow fight! Poor Sarah got some feathers from the pillow fight stuck in the back of her throat just as the judges were giving their comments – bless you for keeping it together!

Niki pulled in a great performance of Fields of Gold and Hope did their best performance of the night with We Will Rock You.

So, the votes came in and everyone on stage was shaking in their shoes. Hope received the lowest amount of votes but vowed to stay together and hopefully release a great single and album.

The heat is on… and we are all ready to cook up a storm next week. The old saying is “too many cooks spoil the broth” so one more act will be leaving next week…

See you then for the judges’ choice of song for their act… and the acts’ favourite song too.
Ciao

Dannii x
P.S. I loved hearing that Gabrielle was a huge fan of Leon’s last week and, just to let you know, Rhydian received a letter from the writer of You Raise Me Up to say it was the best rendition of that song he had heard – Go Team Minogue!