Just been watching X-Factor USA and have seen 3 contestants who could easily be worldwide stars right from the start. The young black guy singing Country and Western, the girl breaking with her band and the rock star guy (not good on names). Real serious talent who absolutely killed their audition, and not simply because, like the scouse lobster, they were simply better than they looked or what the judges thought they'd be.

Really shows the piss-poor standard in the UK version this year.

Is the pool of talent in the UK exhausted?

This is virtually what I said to my husband. Do you know what happened to the results show tonight?

I think everything about X Factor USA is better. The judges. The singing. The drama. It's so great.

im liking it so far

Was there meant to be one tonight? I don't know, there are so many re-showings on the ITV channels I don't know what the actual sequence of the shows are, if they are the current one or repeats or what.

Will be following it from now on though as I'd really like to see those I mentioned progress. No interest in the UK version though.

No one has star quality at all from what I've seen, and the mentors will have to pull out every trick in their book to manufacture one I think.

It was supposed to have been on ITV2 at 9 tonight

I did watch it at that time on ITV2 but it wasn't a results show, just the stage auditions in Louisana somewhere. Don't know if they just put a repeat in that slot.

Has the show progressed already to the results stage?

Outstanding talent. I've been watching it at U.S pace and have just seen the two bootcamp episodes...some amazing performances!! The girls especially are fantastic. I've seen a spoiler of the people who make it to the live shows. There's so many great people that it was impossible to have all of the good ones in the live shows, however if the spoiler is correct then I'm very impressed. On the UK version, if they have two amazing singers but they sing in a similar way and have a similar style, then they would only put one of them through...for example, if there were two black girls with big diva voices then they wouldn't put both through. Whereas with the U.S version it seems they're putting them through based on the talent and the voice, and not based whether they are similar to another act. The UK version has really annoyed me this year...they picked Lucy Spraggan over someone like Leanna Robinson, just because Lucy was something the XF had never seen before, when it was obvious Leanne was a far better singer. Obviously the U.S is a bigger country so will have more talent, but overall it's a much, much better series.

No it was me getting in a pickle, tonight's was a repeat of yesterday's and it was supposed to have been a new episode

To be fair the American one will always have more talent due to the size of the country. Even though singers over there have loads of shows to choose from (xf, idol, the voice, duets etc) , they're still gonna have a much wider talent pool to choose from.

Having said that, Im still a bit underwhelmed by xf us this year. I agree that there are some good voices but very few have stood out from what we have seen on other singing shows before. That girl who sang 'nobody knows' the other night was good, but nowhere near as good as the judges made out. And the judges had a bit of a cheek calling that black country singer's audition 'completely original, when Scotty did pretty much the same arrangement if the song on idol 2years ago.

Yeah seems better than the last series, the standards of some of them are absolutely amazing, by far better than what we have, hats of to the Americans, bigger country I know by far but they have some great original singers turning up for auditions.

American Idol as well is far better than what we have ever done, I was well impressed with the standards of that show last series. Makes it better to watch when they can sing, some of out finalists would not stand a chance in America.

really liking it too its so refreshing to see that the us puts more emphasis on real talent going through rather than the joke factor over here shame it doesnt go back to how it used to be here when shayne won and leona won as well

The way I look it how many from the UK top 12 would get into the US live Finals, not many if any.

Of course theirs has better talent, for the same reason the UK has overall better talent than, say, Australia.. a bigger pool of people means a higher number of better contestants.

Great singer... blew it at boot camp o

Cece Frey FTW!

It's not about numbers but quality. Just the talent walking onto the stage and being obvious star quality and genuine talent there and then is not present in the UK like the US.

I haven't ever seen UK acts do that. And the difference i starkly obvious.

The process doesn't start with them walking on the stage though, there are lots of auditions before they see the judges. In a country with a higher number of people there will be more people auditioning, it is likely that they are going to find more contestants with the qualities you mention if they have high numbers of applicants..

It's not a case of Americans being better singers and performers, it's that their population has five times more people than ours. If you were an employer and twenty people submitted their CV for a vacancy, don't you think it's more likely that you will find a good candidate than you would if there were just four applicants?

We could all download XF-USA following the American schedule, but we choose not to. So, it is not big or clever to annoy everybody with spoilers, just inconsiderate and rude.

I sort of agree with the OP on this, but not the choice of contestants. The singers that have leapt out for me have all been Overs. In the style of the OP: Flamboyant Gay tech-guy from Frisco, Big Cowboy Guy, The Illustrated Man, Skinny Dad-Dude and Panda! Especially Panda, she was awesome; as the Americans say. Some of the girls have been good, but only quite good. The Overs are rocking it this year - a bit like XF-UK.

I think there's a more of a stigma around being on a talent show here, than there is in the US, if you want to be taken seriously. That probably has an effect. Don't watch X Factor US or Idol but I heard an American mention in an X Factor UK vlog a few years ago that Idol is viewed by many as a genuine platform for undiscovered there, hence the Idol Gives Back thing, which even a lot of the acts on the show don't really believe here.

So the producers screen all contestants before they go to the auditions, still letting those with no talent through?

Even so, in Britain there should still be raw talent that you can tell is cut out to be a star as soon as you see them perform and don't need all the show-biz manufacturing, image upgrades, stylists, pr stunts and appearances.


It is a case of that. I'm not talking numbers, although there obviously is a greater quantity of talent.

But they are better performers and singers with star quality on US X-Factor for some reason who, even at a young age, go on X-Factor and look like they're already accomplished, truly talented stars.

Even if the ratio was 6-1 to account for the difference in size, for every talented performer, those 6 would still be better than the one top class UK contestant going on comparisons I've seen.

It's probably to do with the culture and like others have pointed out, the different views of talent shows.

There's also that British reservedness and cynicism that isn't present in the States but is in the UK.

Whatever it is, the best of the US crop far outshine even the best British X-Factor contestants for natural star quality.

Well if the population of the UK was the same as that of America then maybe we'd be able to compare the pools more fairly.

The Brit overs seem so exceptionally ordinary, just with a very specific type of talent at singing a certain way. A la Micheal Bolton or Janis Joplin. And would struggle to shift artistically beyond that. I haven't seen any of the US crop apart from Skinny Dad-Dude who would rival any version of Halleluya. But from your entertaining descriptions they sound more interesting than the UK contingent.

Thinking about it, the Brits do love the subtext of the underdog, the socially awkward shelf-stacker going on to super stardom angle, and I think most Brits are savvy to that and try to fit that mold and self-deprecate and show false humility and modesty, meaning walking onto a stage like they were born to it would appear arrogant and get the audiences backs up.

The point is Britain hasn't even produced one who immediately looks like they have been a star for years and have probably exhausted the talent pool looking for one.

There is a long, arduous, manufactured nurturing of the stars the UK has produced from their first performance to when they have released their first single and beyond, and they have their mentor's stamp of song choice and image written all over them.

Leona Lewis. She's barely got any star quality now even though she is a good singer and has been staged managed for years.

By star quality I mean some who could go onto the talk shows and they wouldn't seem out of place or like they only got there because of the helping hand they got from reality TV and would seem like they deserve to be there. They'd be ready to go. Be interesting, hold the audience, make good viewing, wouldn't need a script or media training. Have personality. and could then do slot at the end that would demonstrate real talent.