The X Factor Power Rankings: Top 10 And “Rock” Night
Posted by on 11/17/2011 at 1:00 PM News
The Popdust Files: the x factor, x-factor
The standard complaint about the British X Factor‘s rock night is that it doesn’t rock, favoring the sort of soft, post-Adele singles that end up charting No. 1 on Christmas all over Europe, while the Internet rages against the Simon Cowell machine to get the likes of Nirvana or “Surfin’ Bird” or two Irish rappers who wear shopping bags over their heads. Meanwhile, the standard complaint about American Idol‘s rock night is that everyone’s going to sing “Satisfaction” or “Piece of My Heart.” You might think the U.S. X Factor combining these two would cancel everything out; you’d think wrong.
That said, Rock Night wasn’t a total disaster; the top-tier contestants are too good for that. We’d have killed to hear Tiah Tolliver or Tora Woloshin or, hell, even Dexter Heygood’s song choices, but since that’s not an option, this was fine. The theme, however… well, read our ROCKED-OUT power rankings (they’ve got “power” in the title–what more do you want?), and you’ll see.
| X FACTOR POWER RANKING: Top 10 | ||||
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25.The Night’s Theme, In Theory: “Rock Songs or Songs Done in a Rock Style.” So…basically…any song? Right? | |||
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24.The Night’s Theme, In Practice: Wrong. Roughly half of the night consisted of the judges pointlessly debating whether or not a song choice fit the rock theme. Reggae is not rock. Hip-hop is not rock. Stripped-down ballads are not rock. Great. Can we move on? No. | |||
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23.Stacy Francis: “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” is probably rock (“glam,” as Nicole rocksplained), and Meat Loaf is apparently less of a risk now than any other song choice. In Stacy’s favor: Celine Dion sang it, and she’s a diva. Not in Stacy’s favor: Celine Dion sang it, and she’s Celine Dion; mushmouthed high notes; throttling the mic. | |||
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22.Steve Jones: Exposition and commercial breaks are not rock. A dramatic re-enactment and summary of his hosting: (to Astro) “You had universally positive comments!” Pause. Astro shuns the pun. | |||
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21.L.A. Reid: The former Def Jam CEO appointing himself gatekeeper of the genre of rock is fine, except L.A.’s the guy who a) mentors one real rapper and one dilettante, b) said just a few days ago that the canon blew the genre wide open, and c) called canonical band REM not-rock–just after they broke up, even. None of this is rock. /td> | |||
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20.Choreographer Brian Friedman: We don’t know what Brian did to piss off the editors, but he was only featured in Melanie’s segment (Melanie performed her entire song seated) shouting the cardinal choreographer cliche: “OK! From the top!” That said, wearing a bulky knit sweater with a deer on it was his own damn fault. And not rock. | |||
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19.Background Dancers: On the bright side, Paula sort of applauded them for not stealing focus from the contestants (To Rachel: “It doesn’t matter if you have dancers; I only see you.”) On the dark side, some lady dancers in short skirts nearly led Marcus Canty into temptation. | |||
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18.Rachel Crow: Bouncing up and down behind Steve Jones signing “#2! Vote for me, #2!” is not only not-rock but might in fact its spiritual opposite. So was the Rock Band rendition of the Stones’ “Satisfaction,” in which Rachel went pitchy but, more damningly, sounded pretty chirpy and content. You can’t sell no “Satisfaction” with no craving, and yes, it’s probably because she’s 13. (Also, it must be said: Tora sang this already and was quite good.) | |||
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17.Key Changes: Last week, we jeered the musical direction (No. 19) for its overindulgent use of the epic key change. We will henceforth be careful what we wish for, as there was only ONE key change. The corresponding overused epic element in this episode was… | |||
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16.Fog: Nearly every song doused the contestants, the judges, and eventually the audience in a cloud. How can the contestants be expected to make love to America with their eyes when smoke gets in them? | |||
For stern teachers, giddy aunts and other things that may or may not be rock, click NEXT.
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