11 acts started the night on ‘The X Factor,’ but come the end of Thursday’s show, only 10 would remain. Would it be the act I predicted it would be? Quite possibly. But you’ll have to wait until the end of the blog for that.
First off was a group performance of the Swedish House Mafia song, “Save The World.” I am not sure whether the song was lip synced or not. It was really hard to tell. I am thinking it wasn’t because there were a lot of out of tune notes going on. And why would you record a song with that many people singing out of tune? It’s mind boggling to think about. Whatever the case, the group performance was much better as a whole than last week, even though I was not a huge fan of the song. Next week, maybe they will all sing “The One That Got Away,” Katy Perry’s latest hit. Why would they do that? Because the song is awesome. That’s why.
After the group performance, LA Reid apologized for being mean to Melanie Amaro. Then there was a recap of all 11 acts from Wednesday night. I won’t go into detail about that because I went into it in detail in Thursday morning’s blog, and it’s not worth rehashing again.
Following all of that was the latest single from Willow Smith called “Fireball.” To me, it sounded almost exactly like Willow’s biggest hit, “Whip My Hair,” only it featured a lot less hair whipping. Back and forth. Back and forth. I was troubled by several things about Willow’s performance. For one, she just kind of ran around and didn’t sing much. Second, I don’t know who her stylist is, but that person should be fired immediately. Also, why did Willow have hair like Anya from ‘Project Runway?’ It’s a look that barely works on Anya and really shouldn’t have any place on a preteen’s head. Overall, I think it’s a good thing Willow wasn’t competing on ‘The X Factor’ because I would have voted her off after her song.
There was a commercial break between Willow and the next celebrity performance. Jessie J, now off her crutches, came on stage dressed like a clown from Cirque du Soleil to sing her latest song, “Domino.” Despite Jessie J being the poor man’s Katy Perry, she can sing really well. And I do really love “Domino” right now. It’s a pretty good song. I’m adding it to the list of songs I want to download right now. After Jessie J’s song, the cameras cut to the judges. All of them were standing and clapping for her except for LA. I thought that made him look extremely bad. I already think he’s catty and slightly unprofessional, but not clapping for someone who is already in the music industry is just tacky.
Then it was time to reveal who was safe. In random order, Stacy Francis, Astro, Melanie, Marcus Canty, LeRoy Bell, Rachel Crow, Josh Krajcik, Drew Ryniewicz and Chris Rene were all saved. Which left Lakoda Rayne and The Stereo Hogzz in the bottom two. What? Lakoda Rayne? Really? Yes. I was shocked. And so was Paula Abdul. For the second week in a row, two of her acts landed in the bottom two of the viewers’ votes. I couldn’t tell if Paula was about to lose it or if someone was going to lose an eye during the break, but either way, Paula looked like she was about to have a major moment. Then the show cut to commercial, so we will never know what happened during the break.
When we came back, Lakoda Rayne was the first act to sing for survival. They trotted out on stage to sing a countrified version of Chris Brown and Jordin Sparks’ duet, “No Air.” I don’t know why people keep supporting things Chris Brown has done. I just can’t forgive him for the whole Rihanna issue. But that is neither here nor there. We’re talking about Lakoda Rayne. I thought they were fantastic. Their harmonies were nearly spot on, and they had passion infused in the song. They shouldn’t have been in the bottom two anyway, but the girls definitely fought to stay.
Second to sing were The Stereo Hogzz. They sang “You Are Not Alone” by Michael Jackson. I kept hoping Lisa Marie Presley would pop up on stage. She was in the music video, right? Back when she and Michael had a relationship, which still creeps me out. A lot. I didn’t find the arrangement of the song to be vocally challenging for the group, and I am still out off by the fact that only one member of The Stereo Hogzz really sings. I will admit, though, that their redemption song this week was far better than any other performance I’ve seen them put on, so that was a definite plus. However, they weren’t as good as Lakoda Rayne. But would the judges agree?
LA decided to kick off The Stereo Hogzz. As did Nicole Scherzinger. Then we came to Paula who was extremely upset and refused to vote at first. Then she decided to kick off Lakoda Rayne, just so Simon would either have to vote off The Stereo Hogzz or send it to a deadlock, which means the audience vote would have determined who was eliminated. However, Simon did the right thing and voted off The Stereo Hogzz. That means Lakoda Rayne is safe to sing another week.
After the decision was made, Paula was a hot mess and was crying all over the place. I felt kind of bad for her, so I cranked up “The Promise Of A New Day” on my computer in her honor. It is sad that we are only two weeks into eliminations and Paula has already lost two acts. Hopefully Lakoda Rayne can last a little longer, or Paula may go insane. And I don’t mean the Ke$ha type where she’ll throw some glitter and make it rain.
