Ben's Talk3G Blog

F.Y.D. I don't get it? Some funny dancing but no identity. Sounded average once they all kicked in together.*

Matt Cardle. He can't keep up with the fast tempo, and his voice isn't strong enough. Great song, but it didn't do his vocal range justice.*

John Adeleye. Scrubs up well! But what's he singing? He's singing it well. A solid vocal but a bit dull.*

Rebecca Ferguson. It's a great tone in her voice to be sure. But she was unable to take the song to the next level. Lacking confidence or just strength in her voice?

Storm. Vocally this sounds pretty good. It'd be a better performance with no video. 110% effort, as indicated by the split down the front of his trousers. Not enough credit was given to the vocal because everything else was so horrific.*

Belle Amie. Rough start. Got worse. Bad choice of lead singer, didn't play to the vocal strengths, no cohesion, poor choice of song on the basis that they couldn't sing it. Simon, bad choice, should've picked Hussle.*

Cher. Everyone was expecting something from Cher, good or bad. I think "the rap bit was good", but it's clear she's going to have issues vocally down the road. This one could still go anywhere. A weak performance, which the judges tried to cover with their pre-determined comments.*

Diva Fever. For me it always should have been TWEM. It was going ok until the clothes started coming off. I'm not sure what the performance was supposed to be. It's clear that only one of them can sing. And neither of them belong on X-Factor. Maybe next week will be better. Nauseating.*

Paije Richardson. Clearly this guy has a great voice but after a good start the song just didn't go anywhere. There's something there, and I definitely thought he should have been in the final three, but that wasn't the performance I was expecting.*

Katie Waissel. Big point to prove. Lady GaGa set. Better opening vocal than expected... she obviously wants this. Badly. She certainly couldn't forget the words to that song choice. Carving out her own unique space is going to be harder than she thought.*

Mary Byrne. A classy song choice, I suppose it had to be. Unfortunately it was just a tirade of shouting. Didn't do anything for me, but it was a capable rendition of the song. The studio reaction doesn't correlate with what I experienced. A bit of a Susan Boyle moment.*

Nicolo Festa. Oh no he didn't. No. Can't do a GaGa song. He things he is Lady GaGa. A bad karaoke and nothing more.*

One Direction. Correct, and that direction is home. Yet more proof that it takes more than cobbling together a few singers to make a group. No identity, average vocals, plus they all look about 12. They've got potential but that performance was a let-down.*

Wagner. The man who needs no surname (because he won't be around that long). Intense. I did laugh. Then Love Shack came on, which is a hateful song and made me remember that I'm thoroughly unimpressed! Moving on...

Aiden Grimshaw. Winner, but then I think a lot of us knew that already. There are some issues, but the performance was in a different league to the extent that I may have flicked over to a different show. No idea what his outfit was about though.*

Treyc Cohen. I was a little distracted by her rather pronounced behind, which was somewhat bigger than her voice. Most of the performance hit me as noise rather than song, so I'm not sure this is going very far. The judges seem to have a lot more TV faith in her than I do, perhaps because they have to give their comments directly to the contestants faces.*

It was a good, but long X-Factor tonight. There's plenty of talent, certainly more than there has been in the last couple of years, but there also seems to be even more dross. I think it has all the ingredients of a great season, now it all comes down to the judges and, shudder, the public.*

(Written on my iPhone)