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Another week has passed. It's getting colder. Christmas looms ahead. But, of course, the X Factor carries on. Last week we lost Monica and Max, and now only seven acts remain. Tonight we have Love and Heartbreak Week. Given that 99% of all songs are essentially about Love and/or Heartbreak, we think this might be a little bit of a cop-out. It would have been more interesting to have "Songs That Are Emphatically Not About Love" Week. Louisa could have done 'Bills' by Lunchmoney Lewis. Anyway, if you fancy having a quick look, all of the song choices are here, and you'll be pleased to know that some of them are slightly less overwhelmingly obvious than others.
Join us live from 8pm and we'll be bringing you all of the action - and, of course, all of our thoughtful and sensitive commentary - live as it happens. Just keep refreshing for updates!
21:36 So that's it! The votes have been reopened, and someone else will go home. Our prediction is an Anton/Lauren bottom 2 with Anton going home, but we'll have to wait and see, won't we? We've also got performances from Nathan Sykes from the Wanted and Olly Murs. Let's hope it goes better than last Sunday did for him, eh?
So it's a goodbye from us - as always, thanks for sticking with us, it's been GREAT fun. Stick with Digital Spy tomorrow for all the coverage you need of tomorrow's elimination, and we'll be back next Saturday with another live blog!
21:34 Well, we can't say we're surprised, but we're disappointed. Mason was a good act, and didn't deserve to win, but deserved to do better than this. We guess he never quite shook his "being an arsehole" backstory. Nick says he is not worried for the future of Mason at all. We are, a bit, but we do think he could be a great popstar, so we wish him the best.
21:31 The first act safe is... Lauren! (There goes our 'this could be her week' theory).
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The second act safe is....Che! (He'll win. Just watch).
The third act safe is.... Louisa! (What a surprise. Did you know? SHE'S ONLY SEVENTEEN.)
The fourth act safe is....Reggie n Bollie! (Thank God for that.)
And so the act with the fewest votes out of 4th Impact, Anton and Mason is....Mason Noise.
21:30 HERE WE GO GANG. One person will be going home!
21:19 So now we have Rudimental ft. Ed Sheeran. It's nice to see Ed on X Factor, because in a way it almost feels as if he's too big for it. He's dressed in normal Ed Sheeran clothes, which annoys us. We really wish he'd make more of an effort sometimes. It's probably a good thing we did accidentally swipe left to him back in early 2014, as if we'd ended up together with him we'd bet we'd have a go at him about that ALL THE TIME.
We hadn't heard this song before, but it's just about alright. We don't hate it, but we don't love it. There's a lot of tickertape. More tickertape than we have EVER SEEN. We would not want to be a cleaner at Fountain Studios this evening.
Olly literally asks Ed if he's looking forward to Christmas, like they're two colleagues who have accidentally synced their commutes and have already locked eyes for just a SECOND too long to pretend they hadn't seen each other.
21:17 We're glad Adele's got a TV ad, because we've heard she's really been struggling to shift that album.
21:11 So the votes are open! It's time for the recap, so it's also time for our categorisation:
Amazing
Reggie n Bollie
Louisa
Good, but not like amazing
4th Impact
Good, but like, snooze
Che
Anton
Lauren
DANGER ZONE
Mason
We're pretty sure Mason will go in this flash vote, but we think it also could be Anton and we've also been wondering for a while how Lauren has been coasting through so easily.
21:03 Next up we have Reggie n Bollie. Reggie n Bollie really want to make Cheryl proud, which is nice. They're singing 'Shut Up And Dance' and mention that they think it's appropriate as the lyrics are 'this woman is my destiny' and they feel that way about their wives. Our hearts melt a bit.
The performance is as joyful and good as ever. It's obviously not the best performance vocally of the evening but it is so happy and makes us want to get up and dance. (Obviously we won't because it's November and we are typing this under four blankets and extremely grumpy, but this song kind of made us forget that). About 200 dancers come onto the stage but in the ULTIMATE BEST WAY! We LOVED it. We already want to watch it again.
There's a standing ovation at the end from all four judges. Simon says that he felt the vocals were iffy at times but he thinks they'll make the final. Nick feels that this makes everyone feel happy and it's pure escapism. Rita agrees with Nick. Nick gets up to dance and twerks against Rita. It's embarrassing. Cheryl feels the nation have really taken Reggie n Bollie to heart.
The post-comments interview is also lovely. We love Reggie n Bollie!
20:55 Next up we have Louisa Johnson. She's off to see her dad at his building site and she gets a West Ham hard hat and has a go at bricklaying. He's very proud of her. She's singing 'Let It Go' by James Bay. Nice to have a recent song, but we could have had something more EXCITING. There's a tease in the VT where she practises singing 'She Will Be Loved' by Maroon 5 which would have been amazing.
Well first things first, Louisa looks absolutely incredible. Her vocals are good. It takes us a few minutes to realise that for some reason she's singing her song on a platform at the top of the studio audience rather than on the stage. Why?! Her choir are stood along the stairs up to the top of the studio, which to us, looks like a fire hazard. Anyway, back to the song: She sings incredibly, and it's definitely the best Ballad performance of the week. Louisa slays it every week.
Cheryl mentions that Louisa is ONLY SEVENTEEN (tick it off your X Factor cliché bingo card) and is surprised that she is able to connect to the song so well when she's probably never experienced heartbreak. Condescending, much?! Juliet Capulet, arguably THE MOST FAMOUS HEARTBROKEN PERSON OF ALL TIME, was only fourteen.
Anyway, obviously, all the judges love it. You're only seventeen! You're really sweet! You're incredible! We would love to watch this back and count how many times "seventeen" is said, but we do note that Nick says it three times in his critique alone.
20:55 We really enjoyed that House of Fraser Christmas advert.
20:52 Very interesting!
20:44 Mason up next. We're too busy still feeling awkward about Olly and Caroline to listen properly to the first minute of it but he is swanning around in a fabulous leopard print coat.
He sings 'Jealous', one of the best songs of 2015, and a GREAT song choice for him. (The most recent song sung tonight until this point came out nine years ago). It's nice to see another uptempo song choice, his vocals are good, but the choreography isn't quite Mason-standard. The slightly cringey dance routine with him dancing provocatively with four different dancers in turn is distracting.
Rita thinks that he could have had a moment there, and he didn't. She feels the song "might" have saved him this week.
Cheryl thinks that this song is completely the song Mason fits. She felt there were nerves, but it was a great performance.
Simon asks Mason how he think he did, and Mason says he had fun. Simon thinks there's a wall between Mason and the audience, and the performance was a little cold. It wasn't him at his best.
Nick disagrees and thought it was not cold.
What do we think? We could see where Simon is coming from. We really fear for Mason this week, but we don't think he deserves to go tonight. Let's all keep our fingers crossed.
20:43 Oh my god there's some banter about Caroline telling Olly "it's never going to happen" and Simon asks Caroline if they've ever even kissed and she says no and OH GOD IT'S THE MOST AWKWARD EXCHANGE EVER HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE ALL PAID SO MUCH MONEY TO DO THIS
20:32 This week Lauren is singing 'We Belong Together' by Mariah Carey for all the girls who have had their heart broken. The SECOND Mariah song of the evening, but at least it's Mariah's best song this time.
Lauren meets Fleur. Fleur tells her that this time next year, Lauren could be in her position. Yes, Lauren! You too could be on an Asda advert! (Fleur is an amazing popstar).
Lauren's vocals are extremely good, but she has this habit that does our head in of wearing a giant smile across her face regardless of how depressing the song is. The performance just doesn't connect for us.
Cheryl describes Lauren as "reliable" which we don't necessarily think is that exciting a compliment, but does say her vocal was fantastic.
Simon thought the first half of the song didn't work. The second half was better, but he felt her words. He comments on the production and notes the dancers behind her were distracting.
Nick thought it was good, yada yada yada. He bought her version of 'One Last Time' on iTunes. (We loved Lauren's version of 'One Last Time', but why would you BUY IT on iTunes, when it sounded THE SAME as Ariana's version?! Although who are we to judge as we once bought Aiden Grimshaw doing 'Diamonds are Forever' on iTunes).
20:25 Next up are 4th Impact. 4th Impact are crying because they miss their family and now we are tearful :( Before anyone gets all CYNICAL, 4th Impact are a very long way away from home and we bet you would find all that hard too. They're performing 'Ain't No Other Man' and have been told to visualise Harry Styles as they're singing it.
The performance starts backstage. At first the vocals are a little dodgy (Christina Aguilera is a tough one to match) but it picks up hugely by the time of the first chorus. The choreography is good and it's so nice to have something a bit uptempo after the previous sadnessfest. We don't think it's the best performance they've done in the contest, but it's certainly far and away the best so far tonight.
Simon thinks that is brilliant, professional and sassy, but thinks that their individual personalities need to be brought out more in the performances. He comments "you've got to be known as A, B, C and D" not even bothering to PRETEND anymore that he knows any of their names. Cheryl argues that she hasn't been given the right theme to do that yet. Simon tells her it's a poor excuse. We agree.
Rita and Nick both like it. Rita acknowledges the fact that she is wearing the same outfit as all of 4th Impact. Cheryl starts her speech by saying "it wasn't rehearsed" and Simon says "what, they just walked out on stage and did it?" Good point.
20:24 "All you need on this show is love... and of course the X Factor app." Our patience is wearing thin.
20:12 Next we have Anton, who was apparently gutted to lose Monica. (So were we). He's missed his 'special someone' a lot... which turns out to be his dog. HILARIOUS. 'I Will Always Love You' is used for the third time in the thirteen minutes this episode has been on.
Anton says his song reminds him of the feeling that "even though a relationship is over, it might not be SO over for you" which is actually quite a worrying viewpoint. Someone needs to remind Anton that when a relationship is over for one person, it is OVER.
He sings 'One Sweet Day' by Mariah Carey ft. Boys II Men, another exciting, current and relevant song choice.
This is just like Che's. It's FINE. It's just FINE. We can't sit here and type there's anything wrong with it, because there obviously isn't. Anton can surely SANGGG and the fireworks are a nice touch. But, are we touched? Do we feel tearful? No. And we get tearful at ANYTHING. We've cried twice today simply because it's too cold outside.
Nick thinks Anton has a really solid, great voice, but he doesn't know if he's the kind of artist who he would want to listen to on the radio. (DID YOU KNOW?? NICK WORKS ON THE RADIO!!) This is interesting to hear given that Nick saved Anton in the sing-off, isn't it?
Anton gets angry and says "there is NOTHING FAKE ABOUT ME!!" in an extremely dramatic fashion.
Rita feels the song has been done.
Cheryl felt she was missing the emotion during the performance.
Anton's so upset and tearful about the judge's comments. He comments at the end that he CAN see himself on the radio. We love Anton and think he's so lovely and undoubtedly talented, but we can't help but feel a little uncomfortable after all those judge critiques.
20:05 So first, we've got Che, who's an interesting choice by X Factor for the Strictly death slot, as he's still our favourite to win it. It's revealed that Che has a girlfriend, which has been kept quiet up until this point. We wonder if she was watching last week when Simon announced that after the show Che would essentially be batting them off with a stick. Sensitive. Che is going to be singing 'Yesterday' by the Beatles, oh we don't know they're quite a niche act you might have heard of them, and he's nervous about it. He just connects to SO MANY LYRICS, man.
The performance is exactly as you'd expect. We know we're just FULL of the bonus pop facts this evening, but 'Yesterday' is the most covered song of all time, and Che's not adding anything new to any of those covers. (We know loads of pop facts. This is why people should want us on their pub quiz teams). We mean, there's nothing WRONG with the performance, but it's just FINE, you know?
Rita doesn't agree with us and describes the performance as "stunning" and that it was "almost like it was his record".
Cheryl apparently had to bite her tongue and suck her cheeks to keep tears in. Really?! Everyone seems to think 'Yesterday', LITERALLY the most covered song of all time, could be Che's debut single. Seriously.
Simon found the performance emotional. He apologises for implying last week that Che would be drowning in ladies.
Maybe we're just cold but we just...didn't get it? We mean, he doesn't deserve to GO or anything, but he's had so many better performances!
20:04 The judges walk out to 'I Will Always Love You'. Did you know Dolly Parton wrote 'I Will Always Love You' and 'Jolene' on the same day? That's the third time we've told someone that fact this week.
20:03 Olly and Caroline walk out to 'Marry You', the least romantic song of all time. We'd rather be proposed to by a performance of 'Who Let The Dogs Out'. Olly addresses his GAFFE in quite a cheeky way which is nice, so it won't be a cloud hanging over the whole proceedings.
20:00 Here we go. Montage of last weekend's events. 9 became 7. Max and Monica went home. Olly's gaffe not addressed. Tonight it's Love and Heartbreak Week. The montage uses 'I Will Always Love You' and 'I Will Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)' to illustrate the Love bit, which annoys us because both of those are obviously heartbreak songs. We feel tonight is unlikely to be a cheerfest. Apparently Rudimental and Ed Sheeran are going to be on. Apt for Love and Heartbreak week as we once swiped left to Ed Sheeran on Tinder by accident. (TRUE STORY!)
19:58 Have we all been loving I'm a Celebrity, by the way? We cannot get ENOUGH of Lady C.
19:50 Ten minute warning. Get a drink in.
19:43 We'll be watching Olly very closely this week after last Sunday's huge 'gaffe'. (Side note: isn't 'gaffe' an amazing euphemism?) We felt so bad for him when he made the error. We all make mistakes and we felt he handled it quite well. It will be interesting to see if this week it shall be addressed. Or perhaps, as being proven unable to carry out basic arithmetic, he will remain silent throughout.
19:31 Good evening all and welcome to tonight's Digital Spy X Factor live blog. We have some exciting (read: terrible) news, straight from Cheryl's Twitter...
Yes, that's right - it looks like there's going to be a flash vote at the end of tonight's episode and we'll lose one contestant.
There are two ways of looking at this.
1. It's quite nice to see X Factor embracing the idea of 'Getting On With It' because one of the major flaws with the format is the endless procrastination of every part of the show - endless recaps, advert breaks, pointless presenter chat. Ongoing, if X Factor wants to survive, it might be an idea to ditch the Sunday show altogether and Get On With It in this fashion.
2. However, a huge part of X Factor's audience tend to be out on Saturday nights and watch on catch up. This means they won't be voting. This means the contestants that appeal to the nans - Anton, Che - are probably in a good position this evening. But what about Louisa and 4th Impact, this series' undoubted best Proper Popstars? We're also not keen on the idea of another double elimination this week, as we assume someone will still be going home on Sunday as usual. All these double eliminations are a risky strategy for losing key characters in the series. Seann and Monica have already been casualties of this. This also just feels like another way of Creating Drama and making the episode last a little bit longer just for the sake of it.
Anyway, maybe it will turn out to be a good decision and we'll be proved wrong. With only seven contestants' performances to get through, we won't have too long to wait to find out.
