Member Since: 6/24/2012
Posts: 1,061
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"The Voice" and "The X Factor" continued apace last week...and more than ever, it was abundantly obvious just how different the two singing shows truly are. Over on "The Voice," it was all happyfuntimes, group hugs, and unflagging team spirit, while on "The X Factor," it was all about that series' usual stock in trade: "shocking" eliminations, icky judge infighting, manufactured drama, and just plain old bad vibes. Oh, Simon Cowell, will you ever change?
So last week was Diva Week on "The X Factor," but ironically, the two biggest divas of the entire show were voted off on Thursday. No, Jason Brock was not among them--he went home the previous week, sadly. This time, it was the awesomely eyepatched Lyric Da Queen and her trio Lyric 145--potential superstars who basically defined "X factor"--and Jennel Garcia, possibly THE best female singer in the top 12, who went home. And since it was a double-elimination week, we didn't even get to see Lyric 145, who'd placed dead last, perform for their lives--an opportunity that at least Jason got the week before. This was a shame, because win, lose, or deadlock, I know my fair Queen would have brought it.
Conspiracy theorists (myself among them) can now speculate if Lyric 145 were set up for failure. They'd been forced to change their song at the last minute for mysterious reasons, and the mashup they were still trying to rehearse in the wings only minutes before their Wednesday performance, of Katy Perry's "E.T." and Queen's "We Will Rock You," was more of a mess-up. At the time, Britney Spears, in a rare moment of insight, told Lyric 145's mentor, Simon: "I think they're a hip-hop group, and they should be doing hip-hop tracks." Interestingly, when saying goodbye on the show last Thursday, Lyric stated: "I feel like we didn't get the opportunity to show what we had. We had a hip-hop song--that got snatched from us." Hmmmm...
But you know, maybe "X Factor" viewers just don't like hip-hop. While this show has never strictly defined itself as just a singing competition, many fans in the past have complained that rappers have no business competing against "legitimate" vocalists--Season 1's Astro got the same flak. And despite Simon's insistence that "The X Factor" is somehow the youngest, freshest, and edgiest of all talent shows, the fact that cute, grandma-approved kids like Carly Rose Sonenclar and older contestants like Tate Stevens and Vino Alan continue to top Season 2's leaderboard indicates otherwise. (Tate, Carly, and Vino respectively held onto their leaderboard rankings in spots 1, 2, and 3 last week.) Hip-hop fans simply don't seem to be watching--or at least voting for--"The X Factor" in droves.
As for the other two contestants in the bottom, who did get to participate in a sing-off, they were Demi Lovato's Jennel Garcia and Paige Thomas--not her other team member, the ever-polarizing CeCe Frey, who I'd totally assumed was a goner. (Judging from the look of utter shock on CeCe's face when she found out she was safe, she'd assumed she was a goner too.) †For their sing-off, Jennel belted out a weepy but lovely cover of Hoobastank's "The Reason," and although Paige's cover of Coldplay's "Paradise" was her best performance since her first audition, it was still quite clear that Jennel was the superior vocalist of the two. But bizarrely, L.A. Reid, Britney Spears, and Simon Cowell all voted to send home...Jennel.
Um, WHAT? This is how Britney earns her $15 million paycheck? This is how L.A. and Simon became two of the biggest moguls in the music business? At least Demi had some sense to try and send Paige home; she was just outvoted. Eek. That's going to make Demi's rehearsals with Paige mighty awkward this week...
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/ne...ending-nov-16-
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rolling stone dragging someone i see 
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don't want to be the person that pisses her off again
