Well, I don’t think this was the best week really; nobody truly and utterly stunned me, except Olly who could stun me just by reading out his laundry list.

That said, Danyl did do a fabulous job of Careless Whisper, even if the start was a bit uncertain, he soon picked up the singing ball and ran with it.

I did think it was a bit of a downer that George Michael wasn’t there and didn’t mentor anyone, however, that’s not really anything to do with our chart. So, moving swiftly on, here’s our run down of this week’s performances….

1. Danyl Johnson – He really did give it some welly once he got into his stride and he is an awesome singer. No matter how vile the press about him is, nobody can take that away from him.

2. Olly Murs – It was a close call whether he should be one or two, and if my ovaries had a say, he’d have been at number one, but – as are all women – I’m being rational and thinking logically.

3. Stacey Solomon – She always does a beautiful job of anything she sings, but, as I pointed out in the liveblog, I don’t like If I Can’t Make You Love Me, but that said, I’d buy her version before I bought George’s

4. Joe McElderry – He always does do a good job of the songs to be fair, but he’s lacking personality for me. However, there’s no denying he’s got a great singing voice, so he’s our number 4 choice this week.

5. Lloyd Daniels – His rendition of Faith started off more wobbly than a one legged window cleaner on a bike with ladders over his shoulder. And I didn’t think it improved terribly much as it went on. It wasn’t horrific but it wasn’t especially noteworthy either.

6. John and Edward Grimes – Well no shock that Jedward are last and most definitely least this week. They are most weeks. As I said in the liveblog, they’re nice lads but they need to be in Butlins or something, not X Factor.

So do you agree with our chart this week? If not, let us know who you’d place where, and any comments about Jedward and someone’s orifice will be laughed about deleted. I jest of course

Well, that could have gone worse, couldn’t it? Queen week was always going to be a difficult one – Freddie Mercury is a hard act to follow. We’ve actually had a hard time deciding placement this week.

1. Joe McElderry – As I said in the liveblog post, Joe gave a George Michael style performance which suited his own personality and we really enjoyed his stage presence tonight.
2. Stacey Solomon – A classic diva version of Queen’s atmospheric Who Wants To Live Forever. Stacey shone with an impressive vocal that showed a power in her voice I hadn’t heard before.
3. Danyl Johnson – After his butchering of Purple Rain in a previous week, Danyl won back a lot of respect tonight with the most authentic rock vocal of the night. And the judges held back their acid tongues this week. A great production number that may have brought a few fans back to Johnson!
4. Jamie Archer - Jamie underwhelmed slightly, as he always does on rock tracks. We always have this expectation that he’ll be amazing, but he was wobbly on the vocals while he didn’t go far enough with the performing part.
5. John and Edward – Yeah, I’m going to say it: an entertaining performance this week. The boys – to their credit – really raised their game on both the performance and the vocal levels.
6. Lloyd Daniels – A marked improvement for Lloyd this week, but the feeling remains that Lloyd is completely out of his class. I liked him a little better tonight, but he’s still not my candidate for a record deal.
7. Olly Murs – Sorry, but I’m rating Olly lower this week. For my money he’s veering into more light entertainer territory than recording artist. I don’t dislike him – for the record – I just can’t see him selling records. I feel like he’s being railroaded into an impossible position.

Like I said above, a difficult week, especially among our top three – I keep changing my mind. If you fancy dropping a comment, tell us who was you top and bottom act tonight…

Hello again, lovely blog readers! It’s that time of the night where we sit back and reflect on the performances that we saw. And yes, we sit in judgement, because we don’t trust everything that Louis Walsh says, and we know that Simon will give his own acts the highest praise.

But really, who were the best and the worst of X Factor’s Movie Week? Well, let’s review (and you can give your own opinions in the comments, as always!)

1. Jamie Archer – Jamie sang a version of Crying from a little-known movie, but excelled by giving an emotional and powerful performance. He showed yet again that his strength might actually be outside of the rock style the show has lumbered him with.
2. Lucie Jones – A relatively unknown song choice for Lucie tonight, which might cost her in the phone votes when people don’t identify with it. However, she managed a great, fun and confident stage presence tonight, which definitely bested her category-mate Stacey’s performance.
3. Stacey Solomon – Stacey isn’t too far behind though. She looked sexy tonight and definitely put more effort into her routine, which deserves praise. A good vocal, but certainly not the best of her X Factor career.
4. Joe McElderry – A safe performance from Joe tonight, but didn’t work for me. I got a terrible Gareth Gates vibe from him tonight which made me question whether he can cut it as a recording artist. Gates isn’t relevant today, so would Joe be any different?
5. Olly Murs – Another fun performance from Olly, slightly on the cheesy side, but enjoyable. I almost placed him alongside Joe because he raises similar concerns: good performer, but can he sell records?
6. Danyl Johnson – Ah, Danyl. I was totally prepared to give him a second chance tonight. But although his performance was confident enough, his rendition of Purple Rain was overwrought and horrible to listen to. It was almost an emotionless, 3rd rate boyband version of the song and a huge disappointment.
   
7. Jedward – Enjoyable, but utterly pointless. Louis Walsh is going to have to face facts soon – if these two win the competition, The X Factor will have to change the prize (a record deal, in case you didn’t know).
8. Lloyd Daniels – Lloyd’s doe eyes are keeping him in the competition, which is a constant reminder that the voting audience don’t much care for talent (or in Lloyd’s case, lack of). I always feel bad criticising this guy, but ultimately he’s drifted out of his depth in the competition and it would be better for him to leave.

Can you predict the bottom two?

For my money, Lloyd should be bottom two this week, and hopefully go home. Jedward could do with a reality check as well. Although if I’m honest, I can see Joe or Olly ending up in the bottom two, depending on the fickle public.

Over to you, tell us what you thought of tonight’s performances!

Yes, as we sit here in judgement of the contestants tonight, we must also lament their inability to rock convincingly. Seriously, we’re not gonna discover the next Axl Rose or Caleb Followill on this year’s X Factor.

So Rock Week was a bit of a bust. We witnessed the toppling of Danyl Johnson with a very stilted performance of an Aerosmith song, and guys like Joe McElderry and Olly Murs came out strong with good, albeit safe performances of rock songs.

So who were the pick of tonight’s acts and who were the dregs? Here’s the Unreality TV chart – and a note to the flamers, these are our opinions. You’re entitled to your own opinions. You’ll be wrong, but you’re entitled to them anyway. Tell us your favourites in the comments section!

1. Rachel Adedeji – Rachel continued her winning streak by giving an almost flawless rendition of U2’s One. Performing the Mary J Blige version gave her a modern edge while allowing her to show a brilliant vocal. Not sure about that dress though.
2. Lucie Jones – Lucie stopped singing more mature songs and tackled a GNR song in the style of Avril Lavigne. The judges praised her for becoming relevant and contemporary. Not only did she look great tonight, she gave a lively and confident performance.
3. Jamie Afro – Despite Jamie being the contestant with the rock chops, Louis criticised him for lacking authenticity, saying he was a cheap Lenny Kravitz impersonator. In fairness, Jamie gave a strong performance but didn’t do much to distance himself from the label of ‘pub singer’.
4. Olly Murs / Joe McElderry – It’s not often we do joint positioning, but Olly and Joe pulled off the same trick tonight. Neither were going to be much cop as rock singers, but they took their respective songs, sang them well and remained safe. Their performances were passable, more an effort by both of them to stay safe and get through to next week!
5. Stacey Solomon – Stacey is starting to come across as the poor man’s Leona Lewis. Her vocals tonight were weaker than usual and the choice of a dull Keane song did nothing to excite us. She has a great voice under normal conditions, but despite what the judges said, her performance was still lacking. She walked? Is that enough to win the competition?
6. Lloyd Daniels – To be fair to Lloyd, he did improve his performance this week. The singing was a dodgy as ever, and Lloyd was completely out of control. Uncomfortable to watch, but then I’m not the one who keeps voting him back each week!
7. Danyl Johnson – I don’t know if Danyl really was that nervous tonight or if it was a bit of a sympathy play. Either way, his out of tune singing and stilted performance were a massive disappointment. Is he really that affected by criticism? I don’t know.
8. Jedward – These tuneless buffoons are clearly there to pull in the votes and make Simon a fortune. As Sinitta said on Xtra Factor, no-one will buy their records, and that’s a fact. They didn’t know the lyrics, their performances are shambolic to say the least, a smokescreen for their lack of singing ability.

Phew, that’s our tuppence worth folks. It was a hard chart to make tonight, and we had some issues over placement. We’d really like your input – who were your favourites tonight?

Well, at the end of the third live show, the notoriously difficult Big Band Week! Who were your favourites and who disappointed you the most? Like we do every week, here’s our chart of who we thought were the best and worst of tonight’s X Factor!

Louis Walsh has just said on Xtra Factor that his three favourite performances were Danyl Johnson, Miss Frank and Lucie Jones. We’re going to beg to differ slightly…here’s our top ten.

1. Danyl Johnson – They say he’s cocky and overconfident, but tonight Danyl Johnson proved that he’s got the performance chops and the vocal ability to go all the way to the finals. Danyl carries himself like a fully developed artist already.
2. Joe McElderry – Joe impressed us tonight with his version of Sway, even though he looked a little uncomfortable at the start. We think he’s got great potential and he’s definitely the Under 25 males’ answer to Danyl.
3. Olly Murs – Big Band showed Olly playing to his strengths, playing the jack the lad character and generally vibing it up on stage. The cheeky chappie persona was a great fit to the theme of tonight’s show and we hope he can manage to adapt to the other theme weeks just as well.
4. Lucie Jones – Lucie put in her best performance of the entire series tonight, so we rank her higher than her category-mates, Rachel and Stacey. She still needs to work on the performance skills, but she gave us a glimpse of a very capable voice tonight. Nice one Lucie!
5. Jamie Archer – What to say about the Archer? Well, despite a cheating the theme by singing a U2 song, Jamie proved himself as quite the showman and cemented his ‘rock voice’. We’re still undecided about his long-term prospects in the competition though.
6. Rachel Adedeji – Rachel managed a brilliant transformation, looking far more feminine than in previous weeks, and gave a storming rendition of Proud Mary, another not-really-swing song. Hopefully this’ll propel her through to the next week and another impressive performance.
7. Stacey Solomon – We kind of felt that Stacey phoned in her performance this week. It was to her usual standard, but like Lucie, Stacey needs to give something more in her performances or she’s going to be a very one-dimensional ballad singer. We need to see something more.
8. Miss Frank – It may have sounded better in the studio, but Miss Frank were a disappointment for us for the second week running. The sound quality was poor, and sometimes their singing sounds like a lot of unappealing noise. I think they need a lot more work.
9. Lloyd Daniels – For our money, Lloyd’s a goner. He might be able to hold a tune, but overall he’s underwhelming. We have nothing else to say. Sorry kid, but you’re not making the grade.
10. John and Edward – What can we say – a total balls-up. We know there are numpties out there who’ll vote for these two, but really, they’re a novelty act. Vote them out, they’ll release a novelty record anyway and everybody’s happy.

Right, over to you lot – give us your top ten contestants tonight!

Diva Week. A tough week, as Cheryl repeatedly lamented, but only because boys aren’t great at diva material and she’s mentoring…the boys. But now that the performances are over, how well did the X Factor contestants do?

Well, here’s the return of the Unreality TV X Factor chart for our opinions on the best and the worst of the crop tonight. You can fight it out with us in the comments!

1. Jamie Archer – A surprise top position for Jamie Archer, but well deserved. Jamie showed soul and delivered a fantastic, sensitive performance. Certainly a depth we honestly didn’t think he had! Well done Jamie!
2. Joe McElderry – In contrast to Jamie’s experience, young Joe still manages to impress with a beautiful singing voice and more stage presence than the peers in his age group.
3. Olly Murs – Formerly couldn’t stand Olly (on a charge of smarminess – he’s been caught red-handed), but his performance tonight was the most ambitious from a choreography point of view. The vocal wasn’t too shabby either and showed that Murs is taking the competition seriously.
4. Stacey Solomon – A beautiful performance from Dagenham Stace, who looked gorgeous onstage. What’s holding her back from a higher position is an obscure song choice and a general lack of movement on stage.
5. Danyl Johnson – The highly anticipated possible winner of the competition took on a previously unheard Whitney song with many strings pulled by mentor Simon Cowell. Shame that the song was so dull. He worked well with what he was given though, but it wasn’t up to his usual standard (although it wanted to be).
6. Lucie Jones – Lovely Lucie made a valiant attempt at a Whitney song, but ultimately it was too big for her and kind of brought out some of her weaknesses as a performer. Though she looked great onstage, she showed that she might still have a lot of work to do on her act.
7. John and Edward – It says a lot when the worst singers of the night weren’t the worst act. John and Edward succeed at entertaining an audience. They’re the Chico, the Same Difference of the competition. A bit of a joke, but at least they can engage with the audience – something the lower acts have a problem with.
8. Rikki Loney – Even ditching his ridiculous hat collection couldn’t make Rikki shine in this competition. Notably, Simon said to him that “you went from a pub singer to a wedding singer in one week”, perhaps showing him exactly what he thinks of him.
9. Lloyd Daniels – Otherwise known as “poor poor Lloyd”, this kid is utterly lacking in stage presence. We almost feel sorry for him with the ‘rabbit-in-headlights’ look in his face. The girlie vote will probably keep him in longer than necessary though.
10. Rachel Adedeji – Oh Rachel! Terrible. I had such high hopes, but she started singing on her back on the stage and it sounded awful. Song choice hit her hard as well, and it looks like Dannii is struggling where to place Rachel as an artist.
11. Miss Frank – I know a lot of people thought this was a good performance. It wasn’t. I just thought it was a noisy mess and I wouldn’t be surprised if they lose votes tonight. Another of Louis’ acts on the chopping block this week?

Well, readers, what do you think? Are we on the money or do you have a different chart?

Well, tonight’s X Factor was an epic battle, was it not? As some contestants’ fortunes improved, some lost ground. Severely.

I’m about to tell you who I thought were the best and the worst performers of the night were, and I want you to tell me what you thought of tonight’s show.

1. Alexandra Burke – Now the frontrunner in the show, Alex has proven she’s a versatile performer, confident, sexy and most importantly a powerful singer. In fact, she’s such a brilliant performer, Cowell must be rubbing his hands together in glee at the number of records this girl can sell. Watch as he starts bigging her up at every opportunity.
2. JLS – Yes, I know I should have Ruth in here, but her slurring bothers me. JLS on the other hand were relatively slick tonight and Cookie/Aston is showing his prowess as an excellent lead vocalist. They’re still a bit too bland for my tastes – but I didn’t have as big a problem with their first song as Simon and Cheryl did.
3. Ruth Lorenzo – There’s no doubt about it, Ruth is hot stuff, and she can rise to the occasion when the song demands it. But on the bad side, she mumbles when she sings low, and that’s not acceptable in a pop star. Also, she’s made no effort to improve her diction as the weeks went on. She’s a good performer, but her singing leaves me underwhelmed.
4. Eoghan Quigg – The Quiggmeister was rubbish tonight, even attracting a mediocre comment from Simon. In both performances, he looked shifty and nervous and his vocals were weak both times. In fact, the second song was a complete whitewash, because he was drowned out by the chorus, and surrounded by dancers taking care of the performing part for him.
5. Diana Vickers – I can’t work out if I’ve crossed the line between loving and hating Diana. In the first four weeks, she was my favourite contestant until the laryngitis thing. She’s been back three weeks now, and not a single performance has impressed me. I’ve been optimistic until now, hoping there’s be a return to form, but Diana’s struggling now, and I’ve just about given up hope.

So, basically what I’m saying is Alexandra wiped the floor with everyone tonight. Who impressed you tonight? Share your own chart here.

Can you believe that we’re more than halfway to the X Factor final for this year? Wow!

As you already know, tonight’s X Factor was themed around songs by Take That, so there was a range of classic British pop to choose from.  Now, if we can forget the phenomenal bickering between judges this evening, let’s try and work out who was the best act on tonight’s show:

1. Alexandra Burke – Alexandra has established herself as a frontrunner in this year’s competition. She’s leapfrogged Diana in terms of performance, confidence and singing ability. Tonight’s performance (and show opener) has proved that she’s going to be a really slight pop star after this show.
2. Ruth Lorenzo – Ruth normally reserves her best performances for when she’s in the sing-off, but tonight she gave a passionate rendition of Love Ain’t Here Anymore that got some good feedback from the judges. She still needs to deal with the poor diction when she’s singing softly, but otherwise a powerhouse performance.
3. Eoghan Quigg – Eoghan’s confidence is growing week after week. We thought he’d stumble with the Take That song, but he put on a strong show on Never Forget.
4. JLS – As we said earlier, Louis dresses these guys up in Westlife’s hand-me-downs. He’s trying to package quite a funky act as a traditional boyband, like a square peg in a round hole. While their performance wasn’t bad, they were outclassed by the three above this week.
5. Diana Vickers and Rachel Hylton – Now, this one will be controversial. The former darling of the competition, Diana is joint bottom with Rachel who has been almost universally bad throughout the competition. For the second week in a row, Diana has tried to sing a song which doesn’t suit her distinctive vocal style. Rachel’s performance was a huge improvement, but was marred by her seeming to shout more than sing.

Well, that’s our verdict on tonight’s show – over to you for your opinions: are we right, or are we wrong? And who’s going to end up in the bottom two tonight?

If I can offer one more comment on Diana – she has a voice that people either love or hate. Unfortunately, when she tries to sing songs that don’t suit that singing style, it isn’t just bad, it’s horrible. I think this mostly comes down to song choice, but it’s very late in the competition, and I think Diana and Cheryl need to play it safe.

Rachel has suffered from exactly the same thing throughout this competition, which leads me to ask more questions about the format. Rachel has shown that she’s got ability, but the song choices (largely as a result of the themes each week) have limited how much she can show off her individuality. What a shame. And while they seem to be slowly starting to get it right, it may just be a case of too little too late.

So, this week was the Best Of British on X Factor, and with a ginormous catalogue of songs to choose from, did the contestants capture the vibe?

Some of our favourite acts were not so strong this week, Diana due to illness, Alexandra suffering because I prefer to see her dance. On the other hand, Rachel Hylton made a good comeback singing one of her songs from audition. Eoghan’s getting better each week too. Here’s how we ranked the contestants tonight:

1. Eoghan Quigg – Massive improvement from the boy this week. He’s getting stronger!
2. Alexandra Burke – I’d have preferred to see Alex do an upbeat pop number, but you can fault the vocals – great performance.
3. Rachel Hylton – Proving the haters wrong, Rachel resurrected her audition song and wowed the audience, but can she do the same next week?
4. JLS – Oh, a boyband doing a Beatles medley? How original. I agree with Simon and Dannii, that song choice flies in the face of their urban image.
5. Diana Vickers – A devastated Diana gave her weakest performance of the season so far, due to a combination of low self-confidence and still being unwell.
6. Ruth Lorenzo – Ruth gave a poor performance this week. I don’t care what the judges say. Her vocals were virtually mumbled. Do not mistake poor diction for emotion!
7. Daniel Evans – Universally the weakest act in this competition, but protected by a fierce cabal of older ladies voting to save him each week. Come on Daniel, time to bow out.

Anyway, that’s just our opinion. Share your own X Factor chart in the comments section!

Wow, tonight’s live show was amazing wasn’t it? We missed Diana Vickers, and hope she gets better for next week.

Laura shocked us by coming on and playing piano, and Rachel continued on her losing streak with an horrific version of Against All Odds. Incidentally, that was the song Steve Brookstein released after winning the first season of X Factor. Will the curse of Brookstein strike tonight?

Anyway, we’re here to rate tonight’s acts, so without further ado, here’s tonight’s X Factor chart.

1. Alexandra Burke – Being a massive Mariah fan, Alex was destined to give a great performance tonight. She excelled with a powerhouse rendition of Without You. Maybe not quite to Leona Lewis standards, but she has the …cough, cough… pop factor.
2. Laura White – Laura sacrificed her vocals slightly in order to play piano onstage tonight. But at the same time, when she abandoned the piano for the climax of the song, she showed the full power of her voice. First time she came across as a solid contender for me tonight.
3. Eoghan Quigg – I think Eoghan surprised everybody tonight with his singing and the strength of his voice. And the absence of Diana tonight allows him to slip into the top three.
4. JLS – JLS have improved over the last two weeks. A commenter on the blog tells us it’s because they’re using a backing track that is masking their voices, which might go some way toward explaining how smooth their vocals have suddenly become. We’re not sure how much truth there is in the rumours – what do you think?
5. Daniel Evans – Daniel the dark horse has his first week NOT in our bottom two. How the voters see it remains to be seen!
6. Ruth Lorenzo – Spain’s greatest hope let her performance slip tonight and suffers for it in our chart. While it was technically a good vocal performance, we actually agree with Louis that she didn’t connect with the audience tonight. Maybe the song was too big for her?
7. Rachel Hylton – I’ve been saying for the last fortnight that Rachel needs to deliver on the promise she showed at auditions. I don’t understand why the judges are so keen to keep her in the competition – she even got outsung by Daniel Evans tonight.

As I write this, the results show is just about to roll, so share your thoughts on who should leave the competition tonight in our comments section.