It’s that time again, folks: The X Factor live shows – aka a reminder that it’s OK to hate all people.

Saturday night saw “the lives” kick off with a series of singy hopefuls wetting themselves at getting a makeover they can’t afford for a chance to sing karaoke in front of a diminishing audience of Saturday night telly viewers. The format is EXACTLY THE SAME as it has always been. Apart from Louis Walsh has been replaced with Robbie Williams’ wife, Ayda Field. I call her this to not play down her own achievements, but because – as far as we know – being Robbie Williams’ wife is her only connection to music of any kind. Does she even like music? Has she heard any music before? Your guess is as good as ours.

Everyone was shit. Like, so impossibly bad. And yet, Mr Tell-It-Like-It-Is, straight-talking, music mogul Cowell, seems to have developed a chronic buildup of earwax; praise fell from his lips like it was 5am and he was licking the insides of three empty baggies. The panel boinged up and down between every song, giving standing ovations to almost every caterwauling idiot that shimmied and shook their way across the stage. To put this in context: that’s an accolade once saved for only the Leona Lewises of the world.


That is, of course, apart from for the only decent performance of the night. 14- and 15-year-old mini-legends Acacia and Aaliyah performed a note-perfect and super-cool rendition of Cardi B and Bruno Mars’ ‘Finesse’ – surely one of the biggest bangers of the year. They danced around the stage with as much sass as Cardi herself. They rapped. They sang. They manoeuvred around a load of dancers. It was cool! It made X Factor cool! Yet, somehow, the panel, led by Simon, decided that these were the two – the only two! – they were going to give shit feedback all night.

“I didn’t like the song” moaned Cowell about a track that has been streamed over 335 million times on Spotify.

“There was too much going on” agreed puppet Louis Tomlinson

“I’d like to see more from you” echoed Ayda.

Sorry, what? They’re actual children. And in week one, they just gave the most exciting and relevant performance X Factor has possibly ever seen. We smell a rat.


Has Mr Cowell figured out that his insurance goes through the roof if he has children on set? Can he not fork out for a tutor to keep their GCSE syllabus ticking over? Or, perhaps, the truth is that he is now officially so obsolete, he wouldn’t know talent if it spunked on his face.

Either way, if we are to be subjected to another series of this trite telly, then please God – or, sure, the awful British public – please let Acacia and Aaliyah stay.