when she was voted off was like watching an artist being ruined. In all her auditions, she was quirky with a guitar and sounded great singing songs in a different style or singing songs that suited that style of artist. Since Simon got hold of her, he has totally ruined her as an artist. He took away any versatility with her and just gave her the same staged style song every week - how did he think that was going to do her any justice. Her version of Creep was excellent and a couple of other weeks were ok, but why didn't he do one week, slowed down version of a song sitting on the floor, next week upbeat with her guitar. He didn't need to make her a popstar dancing around the room to cheesy club music, but he could of allowed her a few weeks with the guitar and retained something of the original artist.

Years ago all the acts used to love getting Simon as their mentor, but now I think he really ruins acts.

They did the same with Ryan as well. I don't believe Nicole picked those kind of songs for him as she is usually pretty good with her artists.

I totally agree, I forgot what a quirky performer she was!
They turned her into a bland, generic singer - I wasn't a fan, but I might have been, had she kept her original 'originality!

She already was generic! A generic innocent looking little girl with a delicate voice and a guitar. Cowell just stuck her barefoot and did the same old routine every week. Louis got sick of it and so did the public.

Nevertheless, she was likeable and her sing off was really good. But she'd never become a recording artist, more the pub circuit type.

I also forgot how good she was when she could let go with her guitar

I just don't know the logic behind doing the same thing every week with her. I can understand honey g cos she couldn't do anything else but Emily could so why would you jeopardise your act.

This goes back to a thread I started a while back, what the hell is Simon doing this year. It's like he's going all out to damage the X Factor brand. Old fashioned judges, Sharon has no idea what is going on, random wild cards, terrible choices at JH, terrible song choices, two stupid joke acts, 3 totally average finalists. I could go on, surely you would think he would up his game with the Voice coming to the channel, but it's the complete opposite, I don't understand.

I agree because all her liveshow performances felt like "god are these her best bits?!" but at the beginning, her performance of master blaster, I remembered I was rooting for her at the time, it was very good

Simon's been terrible the past 2 years. Awful mentoring.

I think Emily was a victim of her success with Creep. Almost certainly topped the vote that week and Cowell just stubbornly tried to recreate it every single week.

He doesn't have a clue what to do with anyone who isn't mainstream pop, so kept making her do mainstream pop. I don't get why she couldn't have done even just one acoustic performance in a fun, folky style. Not everything needs to have huge production and complicated backing track.

I thought the same thing watching her best bits although it's not the mentors who decide on songs etc... it's the producers! so It wouldn't have made any difference which mentor she had had! Very little to no mentoring by the judges really happens

I'd be surprised if she doesn't get signed. She has tremendous spirit, and she's already a competent songwriter.

Even Creep was the wrong direction for her imo.

Emily needed Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers, Birdy, Of Monsters And Men, And maybe singers like Cam, The Mavericks, and The Handsome Family with Far From Any Road could've been an epic performance for her.

It says it all about the standard of mentoring/production that an act can start out with a fairly defined style that suits them and then have that taken away From them week on week to the point that nearly all their best performances are pre live shows.

I think Simon Cowell just doesn't understand that acts that play instruments as well are generally more confident and comfortable whilst singing and playing their guitar/piano etc.

You could tell that Emily was not happy at the direction she was being pushed in but was too timid or nice to put her foot down.

It's cute that people think the judges have anything remotely to do with what their acts perform and how.....

It is a TV show. They, the producers and makers of the show, force stereotypes onto the acts to make them have identity and story in terms of the TV show.

They generally take instruments away from people, because they know that having an act with an instrument takes the ridiculousness of the whole concept a stage too far. Having someone play and perform something even mildly original compared to the two joke acts sandwiched either side of them.

It is a essentially a very expensive karaoke contest, overproduced to the nth degree.

Sad really - She showed so much promise during her auditions.

Agreed, the problem though was they are artists the producers either don't have a clue about or don't have the rights to get those songs covered.

The show should've at least tried with some of the more known artists like Mumford & Sons and Birdy imo.

Yeah, but we know what Simon and the Producers are like, they don't even bother to try.

Simon Cowell hasn't got a clue when it comes to musicians who can sing. He would rather they ditched their musical instruments because he doesn't "get" singer with guitar/piano types. He just knows Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and Christina Aguilera.

Plus, we've already established how out of touch the Cowell is based on last year's winner's single. Not so much the song, but the arrangement of the song. How Cowell thought that funeral song would be an instant #1 is laughable. One of the reasons why the charts last Christmas benefitted from streaming.

I suspect Emily topped the voting when she sang Creep. Simon saw the public votes and thought "oh, the public liked it so I will just do the same style every week".

All this mounts to a man who clearly doesn't love music, or have any passion for music. He's just predictable and ran out of fresh ideas in 2009.

FFS. He rocks up on a Saturday and Sunday, sits there, makes a few quips, pretends he has a modicum of interest, then goes home or to whatever else he does and doesn't give it a second thought.

None of the judges are anything other than interesting TV personalities. They aren't there to mentor or make decisions or anything. It is essentially a scripted soap at the judges are just highly paid actors, with Cowell the owner of the idea and the richest of the bunch.

Whether he has any idea or not is irrelevant. He doesn't concern himself with it. It isn't his role in the process.

People need to forget any pretense than this is anything other than a scripted 2 hour karaoke show designed to fleece people of their money. It has become increasingly obvious down the years. It isn't a competition or a contest or a battle of judges. It is just some karaoke singers who the producers try to stylise and stereotype to create an entertainment show for a Saturday evening.

Whether it is Simon or the producers, Simon does the show in order to find an act he can make money from like One Direction. So it is in his interests to take an interest in developing an act to the stage that they can go off and make money for him like One Direction, Little Mix or Leona Lewis. If he just wanted to be a judge and not get involved at all, he would have stayed a judge on American Idol as it was still popular when he left, but he wanted to launch his own show and that is how he signed Fifth Harmony, who are quite big in the US. So the producers that work on the show that chose the songs, in effect work for Simon or his record company.

So going back to Emily, I don't understand why he would have ruined her as an artist as Simon understands the guitar artist, he resigned James Arthur - although he has an amazing voice and Emily was average.

I don't think Simon signs anybody nowadays, but leaves it up to the Asian guy at Syco (the one who uses an anglicised name instead of his real one). Emily's journey was Drew from the first series of X-Factor USA all over again. Innocent young girl doing slowed down versions of songs who was one of the favourites to win, but who the judges eventually got sick of and labelled dull.

Syco is Simon! Ultimately he is trying to create an artist for Syco to sign and make money from, doesn't matter who the particular employee of Syco is, that is still Simon in effect. Most CEO's of a company don't get their hands dirty and have staff deal with the day to day stuff.

I just don't why he would have picked two slowed down songs in the week when they had two songs when the judges who would have their say if she got to the sing off, had already said it was the same old same old, the week before.

It almost seems to me like he has tried to damage the show this year as everything about it is wrong apart from Dermot!

Watching Emily's Best Bits - took about 30 seconds

And they all involved her sitting cross legged on the floor or on top of a perspex box

Simon/SYCO make plenty of money from the show and the tour and promoting his other artists via the show.
I think the days of using the show to look for an artist that can make him big bucks are long gone and i think it's pretty clear this is way down his list of priorities nowadays.

The show is no longer seen as "cool" which means most artists who start their career on the show struggle to be seen as credible in the industry and to achieve decent sales.

I think generally Simon knows this and therefore his priorities are not to even try to develop a star from the show hence the million pound recording deal being quietly dropped!