Wednesday 19 March 2014

The Top 11 Perform and it's beginning to get tough to choose.


Here is a run through of all the Top 11 performances without interruptions. I do quite miss the 'interruptions' in a way but at least this has enabled us to see who did what quite quickly and catch up with the States which I believe we have done - at last! Hurray!


OK. Who's first on what sounds like Movie Songs night? That, as we know, means they can sing anything as I am sure they'll locate some movie it;s been featured in! Tom is looking increasingly confident and happy on stage, with his eyes very much on the prize, and maybe the girl fans who really don't have much choice in the looks department.

I thought they would have kept someone whose name escapes me but who was around until the very last stage before this. He was ridiculously good looking but I guess this is a singing competition. Tom also has a striking resemblance to Prince William. That won't do him any harm over there either. He sings The Beatles' Come Together and makes a pretty good job of it. Nothing exceptional but solid enough and that ought to see him through to the Top 10.

Jessica is someone else who is looking really good now and the makeover team didn't have to do much to transform her into someone we'd be happy to pay money to watch. She is a superb singer and has an intriguing tone and very believable intonation to lyrics such as these. Her track is Paul Simon's Sound Of Silence. What a great track. Lovely. Something odd seemed to happen about two thirds the way through when a drum tick starts up but which seems totally out of sync with her rhythm. The camera turns to Harry who looks as if he's wondering about that too. It doesn't put Jessica off, though, and eventually settles in to her rhythm OK. A very good performance and a long gaze at the camera as she finishes. She had better not go.

Can't You See is CJ Harris's track. It's not one I know but that doesn't matter as he makes sure we all get the feeling behind this bluesy, dusty Country number. He is a strong, totally natural singer and this is the third excellent performance tonight. I can see CJ recording some old tracks that need to come around again and doing well in that as well as seeing that this sort of music is what he is all about. Good choice and he really should be safe with that. I don't see how he could have improved that at all.

Dexter does Sweet Home Alabama competently enough but this is a pretty tedious track and does nothing for me at all. To be fair he hits all the right notes and it seems to go down well. maybe there are lots of Alabama people there - and there is always quite a heavy Country bias in this programme that few can get over. He is not someone I would predict getting far and the strange turn-up on his hair at the front is a makeover fail but... he's not made any mistakes and smiles at people.

Ben Briley has B-b-b-Benny And The Jets which suits him. he looks quite old after the makeover, with a sort of maturity that sets him apart from the others so far. He knows this song well and luckily they managed to find a film it was featured in so he could perform it. His family knew all the words too so it looked like something he was used to performing. No problem with that, though, and shows some intelligence. I don't know whether he has the American Idol presence. But then Phillip Phillips didn't. A good, well-paced performance and if he goes it will be for nothing that he's done wrong there.

Majesty sings Let It Go. This seems to be something from a musical rather than a film. I didn't catch where it did come from and it's new to me. A brilliant performance again from this girl. She has to be favourite to win this thing. Her personality just shines out from the stage and every time she has performed since getting to the live shows she has just been in her element, thoroughly enjoying herself and giving it her all. For me, there were some bum notes and tuning issues and the track seemed to lose itself from time to time so it wasn't one that we'll all be rushing to replay later. However, I reckon she has built up a good following now and that will see her safely through a few less than spectacular performances.

Caleb has an amazingly powerful and accurate voice and uses it to great effect on Skyfall. Indeed, I would rather hear his version than Adele's which always used to annoy me. He has almost perfect pitch and manages difficult notes and transitions really well. This guy has to compete for votes with Dexter, Alex and Ben I suppose. That has to mean they all suffer a bit as few will vote for ll of them. He looks like a rock star from the 80s and if it's that genre's time then he's the one to deliver it. I just don't think it is. He is excellent and may outlast one or two of his competitors in this competition but go sooner or later he will.

Make You Feel My Love is something that MK Nobilette very much wants people to get and this is her track for the evening. She is excellent, and seems to be finding some extra reserves of confidence that had been missing before. A good, quite distinct voice and a style all of her own. She reminds me a little of Alex Park who won our Fame Academy many years ago mixed with some Annie Lennox, perhaps. Nice performance and one which I get the feeling had quite an impact on the panel, Harry in particular. I hope she gets the votes that she deserves.

Alex does Falling Slowly a nice ballad which is not an east track by any stretch of the imagination and needs a lot of emotion to get it across effectively. He manages that and may be the best singer of all his crowd when it comes to individuality rather than just sheer power or whatever. Alex just doesn't look like a star. I want to hear more from this chap and he really should be around a while longer. I just don't know who is going to make an effort to vote for him over Caleb, Ben or Dexter. Of the four, though, he's the one I would back.

Jena Irene has survived so far and meeds to pull something special out of the bag to stay in this competition. My goodness, she certainly has here. Decode is a phenomenally good track for her and is the stand-out of the night in my view, so far. A very, very emotional and powerful performance that cannot fail to have had an impact on lots of people watching. Will they vote for her, though? Has she made that big leap from showing that she is one classy singer to being someone they want to support and be a fan of? I thought she might have gone before but she didn't. I do hope that on a night she deserves so much to get through she isn't let down.

So Malaya made it through and the lovely Emily is the one that seems to have disappeared. That is quite a surprise and, once again, Malaya does a big number with an annoying voice that, whilst hanging onto notes much better than before, is still not something I want to listen to much at all. She seems to wobble around notes and never quite get it right. She is almost over-confident now and determined to belt things out in an attempt to prove that a girl with glasses and braces can do well. We know that, dear. Just get on with singing.

So she'd be my prediction to go tonight but if she has survived on much poorer performances I have to wonder who else she may beat after all. It could be Tom, Ben or Dexter. Tom might just get by. The other vulnerable one may be Jessica after Jena's extraordinarily good show. Now that would be so wrong if Malaya stays and Jessica goes. We'll have to wait and see. Unless I can find a results show!







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