X-Factor Top 7 Rankings

Drew- She’s hardly the first one to slow down Billie Jean and strip it down. However, it worked for her voice. She’s becoming an American Teen version of Adele. I’m still concerned that she can’t sing uptempo at all. Or even a moderate tempo song. Paula was right. Avril Lavigne would be great for Drew. The thing that Simon has done with Drew is make sure you know exactly what kind of record she’ll cut. She’s the most well branded contestant on the show.

Melanie Amaro- I spent a while thinking about who was better, Drew or Melanie, and I ended up with Drew, because I feel like that cut could be on her album, whereas I felt that Melanie’s song choice wouldn’t make the cut. It was a great vocal, for sure, but is it really the kind of music she should be making? Simon has the two frontrunners in his category. One, he’s made extremely relevant, and allowed to be an artist. The other is simply a tremendous vocalist, but has yet to demand that she’s relevant in the current music scene. You know, Kimberly Locke was a good vocalist too, and how did that work out for her? But, seriously, tremendous vocals.

Astro- Considering that he had to take a song that had no rap in it, and put a spin on it, he did a solid job. It wasn’t my favorite of his (Lose Yourself), but I thought he did a really solid job. I think he deserves a top 5 slot.

Marcus Canty- It was much better than last week, but this week is sort of his week… you know? Short of a “Bobby Brown” night, this is the best theme he could have gotten. He worked his ass off on stage, and I think he deserves to stay. For the long haul though, I have no idea what kind of album he’ll make, and that’s going to keep him out of the finale, no matter how hard he works. I disagree that his vocals were poor. He might have just not sounded great live.

Rachel Crow- I think the look on Blanket’s face during her performance summed it all up. “Really?” Rachel has been hit-and-miss every week of the competition. This was a miss week for her. She had a silly echo coming from her mic. The song was too low for her in parts, which cause it to be not a great vocal overall. For a super uptempo song that asked us persistently “Can You Feel It?”, I did not. Rachel has escaped the bottom before, but I’m not 100% sure she will again this week.

Josh Krajick- This was not his week. I don’t think he’ll get the boot because of it, but he might dip into the bottom 3. I just think the judges will save him. He was swallowed up by the arrangement. It was almost like he was a background singer to the dancers and the track he was matched to. It was a very odd performance for me. It is by far his weakest performance to date.

Chris Rene- I think people are voting for Chris because they’re afraid he’ll relapse. But the time has come to let him go. He’s by far the weakest singer in the competition, and if I have to sit through another week of him trying to sing something, and then just giving up and rapping through the song… someone will be hurt. Seriously though, you do realize that the music swells loud enough during Chris’s singing to mask the fact that he sounds terrible, right? You realize that they’re hiding his vocals from you. Even the producers know he can’t sing.

 

Who SHOULD go home: Chris Rene, Rachel Crow

Who WILL go home: Chris Rene and…. Rachel Crow or Marcus Canty.

Possible Shocking 7th Place Elimination: Astro (I fully believe that if Astro faced off against any of the three people I’ve already listed, he would move forward. As I also believe Josh would.)