Seriously, does my television have horrible sound or was there barely a single impressive performance on the fifth night of X Factor auditions? Now I’m not talking about Whitney/Mariah good. I’m not even talking Rihanna/Bruno Mars good. No, I mean “hey, turn up the TV I wanna listen to him/her sing” good. In the two hours wasted on tonight’s auditions, there was probably a collective 4 minutes of actual honest-to-goodness vocal skill. Let’s put that in comparison with this week’s two-hour Voice premiere which featured two hours of very, very talented people. Even worse was that, in the slew of drek parade across the stage, the judges fawned over the untalented, mostly-good looking bunch like their ears were stuffed with cotton.
As always, let’s go through them one by one and relive the agony that was the fifth and penultimate X Factor auditions.
You know it’s going to be a bad, long night when they decide to lead with someone like Melanie Wright, a happy-go-lucky 48-year-old paralegal. Her take on “Titanium” was horribly off-key, weirdly operatic and sounded a bit like she had a frog in her throat the whole time. A frog named Kermit. This performance even left Simon speechless; let’s just leave it at that.
After that display, we’re treated to a Montage of Nos, my absolute worst audition episode feature. During this one, we see the likes of Oskana Mamchur, a man in a leopard hoodie named Ruben and Maya Lehmann, a contestant with possibly the worst, weirdest voice I have ever heard in my 23 years on this planet. Seriously, Maya’s singing is the soundtrack to Dante’s 7th level.
Following that, I was hoping we’d get treated to a great vocal performance, but the underwhelming X Factor gave us Emery Kelly instead. Like a few other auditions so far this year, Emery is a wannabe tween idol in the One Direction/Bieber vane, complete with the old-is-new-again crooner hat. The 15-year-old sang fellow fedora enthusiast Jason Mraz’s “I Won’t Give Up,” a fine song that is an odd choice for a vocal competition as its steady and small-ranged melody doesn’t really show off the pipes. Not that Emery has much in the way of pipes. The judges called him “cute” and a “little unpolished diamond.” I call him terribly average and forgettable. He got four yesses and they played him out to, you guess it, a 1D song. “That’s what we’ve been waiting for,” one of the judges said as he walked off. What, a nap?
15-year-old Khaya Cohen was next who started with “Love You I Do” from Dreamgirls. Singing a song originally by the uber-talented Jennifer Hudson didn’t suit Khaya well, so Simon allowed her to try another. The judges really liked her second attempt – “I Put A Spell On You” – claiming, blasphemously, that she reminded them of Amy Winehouse. While I didn’t agree on that, I do find Khaya to be a bit of a diamond in the rough. She needs training, her voice is shaky and unpolished, but with some coaching Khaya could be a dark horse. She’s a contestant with a name that sounds like a Game of Thrones character and picked two songs best known for being sung by incredible singers who are a different age and race than her. She has guts.
Now wasn’t this uncomfortable. Contestant Joseph Tolve took the stage and introduced himself in a high, helium-esque speaking voice. Simon made some awkward joke, Joseph sang (still in the falsetto) “Skyscraper,” and then was told “no” but to go into voice-overs. But what was Joseph’s deal? Does he have some medical condition? If so, I don’t want to laugh at the guy. If it’s shtick, then everything’s fair game and I can say it was a bizarre audition that reminded me of a Miranda Sings video.
On to something less ambiguous. James Kenny was very likable and actually had some singing ability (supposedly he was on Season 1, too, but I have no idea how far he made it). This 35-year-old apartment manager’s souped-up version of “Summertime” was far-reaching and muddled for sure, but it came scarily close to real talent, so I’ll give him a free pass. With a good look, a strong soulful voice and a nice personality, James was the whole package and got four yesses. (Has anyone noticed, by the way, that I don’t think we’ve seen a single split vote all season? What’s up with that?)
It’s Montage of Yes time! As far as I can tell Isaac Tauaefa was shaky but got through as did Allison Davis who looked a little like Ke$ha making a walk of shame in her oversized white shirt. At least 15-year-old Isaiah Alston sounded fantastic in the five whole second they showed of him singing. Sigh.
Up next was a couple, David Gray and Lauren “Wags” Waguespack, who used the X Factor stage to propose marriage. Sure, they both sang separately but their voices were very, very average and got another unanimous negative votes from the judges. On behalf of CelebrityCafe.com, I wish the new couple a hearty Mazel Tov. May they have a happy life far away from the microphone.
I really liked Tim Olstad. He seemed sweet and only a hairs breath away from a panic attack before he sang but after he seemed to blossom. Tim’s song choice was a little off (once again a contestant picked a very vocally undemanding song that underplays the singers’ actual ability) but, vocally, he was very solid. Except for his choice to breath between the two syllables of “thou-sand” (a trait which made the singer in my cringe big time) his voice was, as Kelly put it, “a blanket of love.”
After Tim was played off with “Fix You” (seriously, can reality show producers put the kibosh on using that overly dramatic song after so-so auditions?! After its use last year in The Newsroom it’s time for that song to join “Hallelujah” in retirement), Kelly Rowland super-fan Wesley Mountain took the stage. His flirtation with, and obvious lust for, her was awkward as all get-up, but the judges liked his version of a Hunter Hayes song and I don’t totally disagree. Wesley has charm to spare and a very decent voice. Plus, I personally thank him for not expanding on the sentence “I’ve watched [Kelly’s music video] a million times…”
Another Montage of Yes, this time chock-full of contestants who looked good, had pretty outfits and sounded totally unremarkable but very marketable. Total style over substance.
We’re almost there, I promise.
“I’ve got the moves like Usher, I’ve got the mo-o-o-o-o-o-ves like Usher.” 19-year-old Rickey Clark, Jr sure tried to emulate the former Voice judge both in his look and the way he sang “Superstition.” Simon’s ears finally became unclogged during Rickey’s performance and, in the first real bit of criticism I’ve seen in what feels like whole episodes, says that he “doesn’t like [Rickey’s] voice.” I agree, his singing is under baked and not ready for the big leagues, but he seemed like a nice-enough guy so I felt fairly bad that he left the stage in a puddle of tears. At least he got Kelly to comfort him. It’s not the recording contract, but that’s not a bad consolation prize.
Wait, does my hearing deceive me? No, no, I think I hear actual talent! It’s Lori Moore a professional female football player who wants to duplicate her sports success on the stage. Now I talk a lot about poor song choice, so you’d think I’d hate that Lori sang the over-sung Whitney classic “I Have Nothing.” But, you know what, when you have a voice like Lori, you can sing whatever song you want. Forget too big, too small, too whatever. If you can sing, you can sing. And Lori, as Kelly put it, can “S-A-N-G!”
Second Hand High was a group consisting of an ex-engaged couple who performed an original song. While the duo didn’t make it on X Factor, their song “Ask Me To Dance” would be a big hit on Americans Got Talent. It was even better than that AGT hit “B-Double-O-T-Y.”
The night ended with a music video where Kelly, a self-confessed fan of “Ask Me To Dance,” performed the song alongside her fellow judges. The video taught me two things: “Ask Me To Dance” is a pretty decent song (or at least not any worse than most of the synthesized stuff you hear on the pop charts), reminiscent of Karmin and Nicki Minaj; I also learned and that Simon is perhaps the worst rapper in the history of histories.
That’s about it. Leave a comment below with your favorite, or least favorite, audition of the night.