You're never going to hear this from me again in any other context whatsoever, so savor it while it lasts: Thank God for I Hate My Teenage Daughter. The debut of Fox's newest unwatchable sitcom last week signaled the end of the two-hour X Factor era (for now, at least – I'm sure the powers that be will find a way to turn the finale into a three-hour megaspectacular) and even if I have to finish up my notes over a bunch of limp, dated Facebook jokes, I can still look up at the clock and feel my heart warm as I realize it's only 9:30. If you own a Nielsen box, please do us X Factor chroniclers a huge solid and watch the shit out of I Hate My Teenage Daughter. I don't know what I'll do if it gets canceled before the finale and the network execs find themselves with an empty half hour to fill.
Speaking of the finale: we've got only two more weeks until what I'm assuming will be the Final Three battle it out for the title of Supreme X Factorer. And I know we've said it before, guys, but this week – this week – it's finally getting serious! “If they want a war, they're going to get a war,” Simon says ominously over shots of blog headlines detailing last week's elimination meltdown, when, in case you forgot, The X Factor sent home two of its acts that actually might've made good 5 million dollar investments. The gloves are off! The war is on! It's not just Fox-generated hype anymore, guys! Blogs said!
Each of the Top Five sang two songs tonight. The first was ostensibly a dance track, and the second was supposed to be the “Pepsi Challenge” track chosen by fans on LinkedIn or something, but Pepsi decided to keep with its track record of screwing things up royally for The X Factor (I'm still trying to wipe the image of Josh Krajcik in circus pants from my memory) and bungle their latest tie-in with some sort of “communication error” in the voting. At this rate that much-hyped Pepsi ad will probably just be a bus ad outside Century City mall. So the contestants had to throw together a number 24 hours before the show, which is a lot like on Project Runway when Tim Gunn comes in at midnight and tells everyone they have to make a hat or a bracelet or something, except somehow less thrilling. See, the song they end up having to do is the Save Me song that they already had prepared in the event they wound up in the bottom this week, and the Save Me song is a very specific genre: namely, whiny and overblown. I honestly would've preferred a 24 Hour Ke$ha Cover Challenge.
The top half of the show mercifully compiled all the intro packages into one, giving us a solid block of performances and critiques for the first 45 minutes. It felt pretty cushy, like the show was doing us the courtesy of skipping ahead on the DVR. Melanie is up first, with Adele's club banger “Someone Like You.” Yep, throw a house beat and a pack of robot dancers on that melancholy love ballad and you've got yourself a track that wouldn't sound out of place on Dance Dance Revolution circa 2001. And also, according to Simon, a “hit record” that was “not at all karaoke.” I feel like the judges only break out the “not karaoke” praise anymore when they are secretly panicking because the song sounded exactly like karaoke. To me, the song choice seemed like a massively missed opportunity – c'mon, Melanie, this was a night when both Josh and Chris embraced the challenge and took on friggin' Rihanna songs. You've got the voice for it, now just get the guts to sing something actually aggressive and rhythmic. Her second song did nothing to dissuade my disappointment: another Whitney Houston ballad that I could remember nothing about even seconds after it ended. "When I close my eyes I can hear Whitney and, I can hear Mariah, and I can hear the greats," says Paula, somewhat alarmingly. If Melanie is indeed on the fast track to win this thing, Simon better scramble to dissociate his mentee from those names if he wants to maintain The X Factor's purported mission to find new, edgy talent.
Marcus is another example of an artist who is clearly more comfortable with 80's and 90's chart-toppers, but who would excel at more current fare if he was pushed toward it a little more aggressively. I didn't need to hear Marcus do a Chaka Khan cover tonight for his dance track. I needed an Usher or a Ne-Yo (both of whom he was cosmetically channeling for the number, if not sonically.) For some reason, LA Reid is trying to hasten Marcus' demise with a noticeable lack of actual praise in the critiques (listen closely and you'll realize that all he actually does each week is confirm that Marcus sang the song, and then remind everybody that he has to get votes in order to stay in the competition,) and either choosing or letting Marcus choose all these old fashioned tracks. It's easy to miss since the judges, being of an older generation than the target demo, fall head over heels for the retro stuff, but both of Marcus' choices (his Save Me Song was Leon Russell's “A Song For You”) undoubtedly went over all the thirteen-year-old girls' heads. If he's not out tomorrow night, I will be genuinely shocked.
Next up, “With her own choice of song, no chair,” is Rachel. That goddamn chair is going to haunt Simon for the rest of his life, isn't it? Rachel is the first artist to actually do a song that's both upbeat and contemporary, and it's easily the brightest of the bunch in the first half. I commented last week that Rachel is best on midtempo tracks, when she has enough space to actually show off how refined her vocal skills are, and tonight's choice, Bruno Mars' “Nothing On You,” was perfect in that regard. I wouldn't go as far as Simon did and say that this performance was necessarily teenage material, but it was a big step out of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade territory. (Side note: Doesn't Rachel Crow seem almost scientifically engineered for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?) Her save me song, Michael Jackson's “The Music and Me,” was a bit more of a snoozer, but not an unforgiveable one. Paula can't stop heaping on the praise, and the two actually get into a “You're fantastic and magical.” “No you're fantastic and magical” exchange. As mature as Rachel's performances were tonight, all the positive praise seemed to turn her back into the giggling, cutesy child that I initially loathed at the start of this competition. Whether or not that cloying stage presence affects her fate tomorrow (or whether audiences actually found it cloying in the first place – it could very well be that I am a bitter, hateful cynic who hates to watch happy kids sing songs on television) remains to be seen.
