Here are my highlights and lowlights of the X Factor final 2007:
Highlights
1. SAME DIFFERENCE!!!! Of course.
2. Same Difference flying
3. Same Difference on elves’ shoulders
4. A small child calling Louis quite accurately “a grumpy old man”
5. Leon’s seat looking appropriately like a toilet
6. His mayor hiding in embarrassment behind a sign
7. The return of High School Musical!
8. Simon deciding his best tactic was to make the contest a war of nations, since he represented the largest one, although sadly he didn’t factor in that only minority groups vote for someone just because they’re ‘one of their own’
9. Kylie’s new single performance and overall fabulousness
10. Same Difference’s super-jolly journey montage
11. Leon being suddenly good on When You Believe… well, some of it (he looked as surprised as me at the high note)
12. Dermot – cute and funny -> a great host this year
13. Rhydian… well, I prefer him to Leon at least
14. “I know it’s expensive…”
15. Sharon’s original opinion of Rhydian: “He’s revolting!!”
Lowlights
1. Same Difference having to sing that awful Joseph song again and getting Jason when Leon had Kylie – I’m so disappointed in Simon, it was embarrassing
2. Kylie’s outfit for the duet, and having to sing with Leon
3. Katherine Jenkins’ WEIRD voice!
4. Simon converting to Scottish for Leon – traitor!
5. Jeff Brazier’s presenting skills, not that they exist
6. Same Difference not winning 🙁
7. Smug Louis when SD went out
8. Rhydian not being mad anymore, only serious
9. WHAT?? LEON???? Seriously undeserved – TRAVESTY.
10. When You Believe sounded much worse when he was the winner
I can’t say I’m genuinely upset about the result because I stopped getting annoyed about singing contests a long time ago – it’s just a treat if it goes well, as it did for us to get a group who sing Steps and S Club in the final. I have to complain about Leon, though. I don’t have a problem with someone who isn’t actually the best singer winning if they have other assets, such as a good personality or an interesting musical style, but Leon was negative on both of those scales. He is a childish wimp whose idea of originality is to transform every song into an imitation of Michael Bublé, already famous for his imitation of a very old style! Really it is a travesty for the music business that he would win, but at least we can put him away in the album chart and not have to put up with him in the singles chart after the first one or two singles that follow his first unavoidably big one. It’s such a shame there isn’t any other great song in contention for the no.1, so Leon could be the first X Factor winner to miss Xmas no.1 – that would be excellent.