Jessie J sang Who Are You on X-Factor last week, and was a bit of a mess. Misha B has sung it twice on the show, and blown Jessie J's rendition out of the water.

The song has been surging up i-tunes since Misha B performed it after she was eliminated from the show. I think MIsha B's performances have done more to convince people it's a good song, than any performance Jessie J has done.

Must be a bit embarrassing for Jessie to be so thoroughly outdone by an X-Factor contestant. Jessie J can sing, but Misha B owning her is telling. Misha is very good, but she's isn't as good vocally as the two female winners of X-Factor (Leona and Alexandra). If Misha is better than Jessie J (which she is), then how is Jessie ranked so highly among British female vocalists? Industry hype? A bit of Emperors new clothes?

I know Jessie is Judging The Voice next year, but she's hardly the UK's equivalent to Christina Aguilera. She can sing and hit some high notes, but in terms of vocal ability, there seem to be several UK females more capable than her.

I'm a big fan of Jessie J but I agree, Misha B's version of the song was so much better! Was such an emotional performance.

I am glad the song is getting the recognition it deserves though

I disagree, it was a great song but the emotion of Jessie's performance is better. People can cover songs and some people sing the song like they wrote it themselves or that it was song truly meant for them. I never got that from Misha. I am a Misha fan by the way.

Jessie J was actually annoyed that Misha B had sang it for her "sing-off" song when she was in the bottom 2 earlier in the season. You could tell Jessie knew that she'd been basically taken to school on her own song. Maybe that's why she tried to overcompensate with the vocal acrobatics on X-Factor when she sang it, but she mostly sounded off-key and desperate.

I think a lot of Jessie J's self-esteem as an artist comes with constantly being told she's a great singer (Justin Timberlake called her the best singer in the world, which was clearly a load of horseshit that the marketing department at the big record companies could use for hype purposes), and being made to look like a rank amatuer by Misha B should be an eye opener that she's nowhere as good as she thinks she is, and nowhere as good as some have told her she is.

Even Jessie J all but admitted on X-Tra factor that Misha B was doing things with the song that she couldn't imagine.

Jessie knows Misha pretty much owns her song (at least compared to her) and I think she was a bit humbled from it. I do think Who Are You would have been pretty quick to drop from the charts (like Jessie's last few singles) without Misha's version really bringing out the emotion of the song.

yes. love your posts. she was so xtina with that vocal. she should watch alex singing the silence to see how to emote and blow people away. (and she was ill at the time too!)

with jessie, and same for adele (in all respects)...its this white girl sings like a black girl crap. with the black girl its all, oh another one. but with the white girl the world stops dead. jessie can sing but overdoes it!!! and she can be quite screechy too. she did seem desperate and misha stuck to the sentiment of the song. first time she sung it, i thought she'd been crying. i'd never heard her sing like that before. (and she should stick to it, show her detractors that she can't sing with emotion - its not really a requirement in today's industry).

If true then the original must have been dreadful beyond belief and I'm grateful to be unfamiliar with it.


She did things with every song that I found hard to imagine, none of it good.

LOL!

Controversial, but defintely a valid point. Imagine if a white girl sang like MIsha B. She'd probably be bigger than Adele.

Wheras I think if a black girl sang like Jessie J, she'd be easily written off as generic or average.

controversial, but a well known fact. cher lloyd tried and failed to be like misha (even though she came before her). misha showed cher how its done. its a statement "black soulful female" = generic. it really annoys me. its also part of adele's success. jennifer hudson slays adele vocally, belting wise and on ballads whilst singing quietly but never got her sales (partly down to material i know). but an example, beyonce. glasto was flawless, millions watched her set. and then 88k first week. adele not much promo 208k.

silly old world, but image is everything. and thats often the first way you'll be judged. also part of the reason misha got such an awful backlash, even though cher lloyd was worse (and misha wasn't even nasty on the show). forgiveness is only allowed for some

Oh god know, MIsha wannabe hate her vocals and voice aretha or even jeniffer she is not.

Well, when I first listened to 'Who You Are' by Jessie, I was blown away, it gave me goosebumps.And then, she started performing it once a week in ALL kinds of venues and not only did it completely lose its magic due to this overkill, but she tended to oversing more each time to the point that she completely butchered the emotion of the song.Her performance on XF was painful for me, because I loved this song from the first time I heard it and she killed it for me.Oversinging does not equal power

I am not watching XF, so I don't know who Misha B is and how she performed this song, but even a 10-year old child could make a better rendition than that of Jessie's on X Factor

This was Misha B's last performance. http://xfactor.tellymix.co.uk/contes...nce-again.html She's performed that twice I think, that one and in a sing-off which saved her. Misha has a brillant voice, but it belongs to a person that people [rightly or wrongly] assumed was a nasty person. Tulisa didn't help matters so every good comment that came from her didn't mean much. Misha puts a lot of passion into that song that Jessie J on some levels fails to do, maybe they could duet.

Hardly suprising, since I think Jessie J is overrated as a vocalist.

I think she's a really good vocalist, but not as good as she thinks she is. Which is why IMO she totally 'over sings' everything to the point of being hard to listen to.

I have to disagree, and I amn't even a Jessie J fan.
Jessie sings that song with meaning and dedication, whereas Misha simply sang the song in a way that wasn't particularly warming, but seemed like fairly good karaoke.
There's more to singing than technical ability. If you cannot connect with the song's message or lyrics then any vocal power is mute.

Last edited by ItsTimmyTime : 06-12-2011 at 13:03

While I agree that Mischa Bryan has impressive range and power, I find the tone of her voice harsh with little warmth in it. Having said that I feel the same about Jessie J when she's showboating.

The whole point is that Misha B (according to the majority of people who like her rendition), was the one that sang the song with a true emotional connection.

Jessie J used the song as an excuse to show off her technical ability (singing 3 notes when 1 would do etc), and didn't really connect emotionally half as well with her own song as Misha B did.

But that's been a constant (and probably accurate) critique of Jessie J. She's a show-off, and constantly has to prove she's a good singer by over-singing.

If I watched Misha B and Jessie J singing that song back to back, I'd assume Misha B was the original artist, and Jessie J was the contestant doing some sort of "Stars In Their Eyes" Kareoke version.

Each to their own, but personally it's the opposite for me: Jessie J > Misha B.

I find it very hard to see a personal connection with Misha's singing so far, it's pretty much the same technique (The growl, shouting/powerhouse, saying "huh!") regardless of song style.

Granted, Jessie is not great live, (She messed up the delivery of the best lines "Seeing is decieving...") but ultimately she wrote that song and understand the meaning better than anyone, and her X Factor performance showed that to me. Also, only a mild point because there isn't a whole load of strength to it, the song peaked in the charts the week after Jessie performed it on the X Factor which could indicate that more people enjoyed her performance!

I think Jessie J is a better popstar than Misha B. Vocally and in-general. She's also a brilliant songwriter too.

But Misha B has kinda ruined Who You Are for Jessie J. Misha B made the original sound like a cover.

To be honest, the song is an unstructured mess in my opinion, so the only selling point for me is how well the singer connects with the song and lyrics, and Misha B managed to do that. Twice. That last performance however... Man, that was AWESOME.

Agree with all of that. Misha's last performance on the show was one of the highlights of the series.

its hardly like the time whitney covered `i will always love you` and pretty much owned the song from then on. misha`s version was very good, but its still very much jessie`s song. that`s why the song is charting well at the moment. i doubt people are buying it expecting to her misha`s version.

losinmymineonatinyerror... etc.

WTF.

No, but right after Misha B performed it, it rocketed up the charts into Top 3.

(After Jessie J's performance a few weeks ago, it only managed a peak of #6.)

It doesn't matter if Jesse wrote the song..she can't sing it. Diane Warren has written songs for Aretha, Beyonce and Brandy among others. Does that mean she can sing the song better than them??

Misha singing that song has taken it to the Top 3 on Itunes which Jesse could not do when she was on X factor singing the same song. The song has also now overtaken the X factor charity single.Obviously Jesse should stick to songwriting and write Misha B a hit!

Jessie j didn't have to go on the x factor though in the first place to become a success did she in my mind it goes to show who's the better artist