The eigth week of X Factor 2008 live shows aired tonight here in the UK. Check out my 2 Pence on the Britney Spears / America Hits themed week below: {For those unfamiliar with the show; The X Factor is the UK’s version of American Idol – with a twist in that groups and over 25’s are eligible to enter. The show also birthed the career of a certain Leona Lewis}
This week saw the return of Britney Spears to the performance scene – with all eyes being on her live (LOL) rendition of #1 smash ‘Womanizer’ on tonight’s show. Britney aside, tonight’s show IMO (and that of the judges) was all about That Grape Juice favourite Alexandra Burke, who performed Britney’s ‘Toxic’ as well as a stellar rendition of Beyonce’s ‘Listen’ (Oprah version…for the stans LMAO). Check out the performances below:
Britney – Womanizer
Alexandra – Toxic
Alexandra – Listen
Britney…what can I say? She seemed to have more spunk than that Bambi Awards performance, but she still has a way to go. Baby steps, I guess. It’s great to see her seeming like ‘old Britney’ again.
Speaking of great, Alexandra! She absolutely nailed it – especially on Listen. Amazing. She really established herself as THE front-runner in this year’s show. This girl must win.
Your thoughts?
![Latto & Christina Aguilera Drop SIZZLING Music Video for Just Eat UK's 'Did Somebody Say' Campaign [Full]](https://thatgrapejuice.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/xtina-christina-aguilera-latto-2023-just-eat-commercial-ad-464x260.jpg "Latto & Christina Aguilera Drop SIZZLING Music Video for Just Eat UK's 'Did Somebody Say' Campaign [Full].")
Alexandra’s Toxic performance wasn’t actually that great in my opinion. Her vocals were terrible and she didn’t show that much charisma. And her Listen performance was good but not amazing. The judges are forming to much hype around her because she’s not as good as they think. And she’s not the UK Beyonce…that’s what they said about Jamelia and look what happened.
Ruth outshone everyone tonight and didn’t deserve to go. Her performance of Always was better than both of Alexandra’s performance. And that’s being honest.
britney did great, a lot better than star academy and bambi performances. cant wait til monday for gma
why that grapjuice hate britney spears
britney i love youuuuuu
good job
Okay I am from the U.S. and I must say that Alexandra deserves all the hype she has been receiving, for one she sang TOXIC live unlike an of Britney’s performances (that is my favorite song by Brit and Alexandra upstaged her). I do agree Alexandra’s version of Listen was good but was not all that! Anyway as popular as American Idol is I cannot believe how hi-tech X-Factor is, I mean the costumes and dancers just fabulous! SCREW American Idol! OMG this show is great!
I agree Rashaan, Brit was better than we have seen her in a long long time but after Alexandra’s performance of Toxic, she needs to step her game up a bit!
OMG britney spears, loved her man. i’ve been looking forward to her performance all week, she didn’t sing live, her dancing wasn’t ‘amazing’ but SO WHAT. she is a legend and i love her, i had goosebumps whilst waiting and watching her singing. alexandra, well what can i say. FAVOURITE TOO WIN, and the best singer by far on the xfactor, all of the others am complete CRAP. she deservees to win, she can sing, she can dance GO ALEXANDRA, listen was amazing. britney is back and alexandra is about to become a star. bets x factor show ever
BRITNEY SPEARS IS TIRED MATE!!!! & CURTAINS FOR INTERVIEW…
Britney was incredible. AlexMANdra sucks s***!
This was Britney’s thirdd performance in 3 days. It didn’t help that her first performance was in front of a dead audience. As a performer, that makes you wanna say “f*** it” and do whatever.
But it was her best performance so far, even without all the theatrics of the first 2 performances.
She had a good stage presence, especially during the bridge and the “I got your crazy! I got your crazy!” part.
She’s still shitting on all performances by Rihanna, Mariah… even Janet’s “Feedback” performances were weak sauce!
i m french boy and i say britneyyyyyyyyyyy britneyyyyyyy i love you everything you do;
stop dancing i love you walkkk in the stage i love you
haaaaaaaaaaaaaa
i think britney’s performance was an incredible improvement i guess she can move way better with out that damn hat. Oh and I just have to say one thing Sam why do you always have to put emphasis on the fact that she didn’t sing live, it’s obvious she wsn’t singing live we can all see that and we all know that as long as someone can entertain us them i’m good.
Diana Vickers!!!
why is this Sam person so crazy about britney…. let is go Sam… i know its tough to let go, but let it go my friend
britney is gone-with-the-wind…. this woman is the same-ol boring and completely talent-less
its time to move on and pay attention to other artists who are definitely more talented and entertaining than britney….. get over it ppl, britney is old boring same s***
Not a fan of Alexandra’s voice. She sounds like a man. She may be successful in UK not the states.
Alexandra sounds nothing like a man! she has a deeper tone to her voice but that isn’t a bad thing, Toni Braxton and Anita Baker both have a deeper tone and both have been very successful recording artists. Alexandra is also nothing like Jamelia, i think a better vocalist. I think that the Beyonce – Jamelia comparisons was said because she was the only uk black successful female artist to do uptempo music (Beverly Knight had changed her style by then) so stupid comparison were made but there styles are very different. I think Alex to win but this country is so crap when it comes to music so it’ll probably be Eoghan
I like Alexandra! She doesn’t get enough praise and always give her all! I thought ALL of her performances have been great! I like the fact that Alexandra has singing voice slightly different to what’s out at the moment (although they seem to have her singing deeper then in her audition and the hero single) love her or hate her but you cant deny the girl can sing! I hope she goes all the way
Alexandra is FIREEEE her tone on Listen was hot for her vocals and the ending was the GREAT bit about it.(I prefer original key but like Sam said Bee did that song on Oprah in that key used with Alex)
Husky raspy s*** and powerful voice is what Alexandra has and its great and different.
Loved her Toxic performance because she did LIVE vocals to mix with the performance(has Britney ever sung that live?)
The most versatile performer and the most consistant is WHY ALEXANDRA must win the title..
Britney did good. She’s still on the road back and this is a step forward from the last performance. Her miming needs to be a little less exaggerated to be more convincing but that aside she done well…
Props to Ruth she was samey performance wise but sung/shouted her heart out and was the next best thing that night.
JLS need to do alot more vocally with the songs given and they are capable but gotta step up the confidence.
Diana needs to enjoy herself now and “JUST DO IT” because being an emotional wreck each week now is NOT the way forward.
Eoghan was cool with his high school musical stuff. The Britney song!!!! NO COMMENT!!!
EVERYTIME I TYPE A COMMENT IT NEVER GETS PUBLISHED 1ST TIME! Annoying… anywayz,
Britney did good!!! Defo felt like she had 'it' back, ok not 'I'm a s**** 4 u' VMA'S with the snake but still very enjoyable. Loved the bridge with the dance break – & the crowd was pumping. Onwards & upwards I say!
Yesssss Alexandra to win!!!
the crowd was going mad, really good show, couldn’t wait all week for her to sing. alexandra to win, best singer by a MILE, a clear mile! diana really annoyed me, her last song was too screechy for me, i’ve liked her but i don’t anymore, she’ll probably win because this country seems to pick really crap winners, except for leona and shayne ward of course. just look at leon jackson LMAO, single went in top 20 then disapeared, that is why alexandra must win, because she will be a star like leona, watch this space..
LMFAO at the person who said Alexandra doesn’t get enough praise…you’re obviously not watching the same show as me because the show is just one big Alexandra ass lick fest.
Sam, shut up, Britney NEVER performs live, she’s a f****** dancer not a live singer. Hush… she did amazing, much better than Bambi and Star…
You are credited for breaking Rihanna out into the media. Can you please go into detail about that?
Jonathan Hay: Yes. I met Vada Nobles [the producer of Rihanna’s first single, “Pon De Replay”] at a Starbucks in Orlando, Florida. I’ll never forget that day. Vada told me about this young artist named Rihanna who looked similar to Beyonce and he’d just finished her first single, called “Pon De Replay.” We went back to his home studio where he was working on finishing up the remix for it with Elephant Man. Honestly, the first time I heard the song I didn’t think it was going to work at all because Will Smith had a song out [“Switch”] at that time with almost that exact same beat. But I was intrigued by the project, nevertheless. At first, nobody seemed to really feel the song, so I started a publicity campaign, single-handedly. The whole idea behind the campaign was to get Vada Nobles out there as a producer so that ultimately people would forget about his past lawsuit and conflict with Lauryn Hill on her album The Miseducation Of Lauyrn Hill.
Jonathan Hay: Anyway, I sent the song to Jennifer Vineyard, my contact at MTV. She did me a favor and broke the story on Rihanna, “Pon De Replay” and Vada Nobles. Along with one of my partners, I then began to fabricate stories of Rihanna and Jay-Z, leaking false rumors to tabloids, working internet message boards, etc. We started to get an insane amount of media coverage very fast. There are so many things we did that people don’t even know about, not even Rihanna herself. She was completely unknown and I was paid by Vada Nobles to generate publicity. The mega Island Def Jam deal rumor, we fluffed and fabricated. Rihanna and Vada had no idea what I was doing behind the scenes, but my whole agenda was to get media for the song.
Jonathan Hay: If you check out Rihanna’s Wikipedia Page for “Pon De Replay.” you’ll see that it was on March 17, 2005 [through MTV News] that I helped break Rihanna out into the world. There was a lot more involved but I want to save that detailed interesting chapter for the book.
What do you mean by starting Rihanna rumors?
Jonathan Hay: I mean leaking out sensational stories and spreading them around in the news — to tabloids such as the National Enquirer, music and gossip sites and whatnot. Like when the rumor surfaced that Jay-Z had a new love life and was cheating on Beyonce…that was just to get attention. Rihanna had nothing to do with ANY of that, nor did she know what we were doing. I was just trying to break the single and stay employed by Vada Nobles. Even Vada didn’t know half the stuff I was doing. I kept my strategy a secret at the time because, honestly, everyone would have been against it, the tactics that I used. But I was only thinking about the end result – and look what happened…gossip sells.
Jonathan Hay: I feel awful but, yes, I leaked some of those stories. Looking back, I am ashamed of that; there was zero integrity in that maneuver. But this is entertainment and I wanted to obtain publicity – so I came up with some crazy stories and it worked. Rihanna is one of the biggest stars in the world now, and look at how she stormed into the business! Not to take anything from her – she is a great artist – but every artist needs a launching pad and there is nothing better than a good scandal to get the public’s attention. (Laughing)
How has the show been one Alexandra ass lickfest?! are you forgetting that it was all about Laura and Diana at the beginning, and then Diana until she had her weeks holiday! You need to look back.
Wow, Alexandra SUCKED ASS. Her range is pathetic. She couldn’t hit any of the falsetto notes in Toxic. Her “dancing” was laughable. Really a joke IMO and the judges still complimented her (obv. the producers made them).
OMG i can’t get over wat some1 just said bout alex hmmmmm lets c she danced great(she’s neva been a trained dancer like britney n she sang live better than brit ever did) n to another comment bout alex not bein big in d states maybe it’s because she’s in a talent show in d uk u big dumbass n d only american idol person to ever b slightly successful over here was kelly……………..ALEX ROCKS brit talent totally trumps american talent, amy winehouse,adele,leona,duffy,estelle and d soon to b winner f d x-factor alex………………..
Britney’s performance was better than the last one . . . which means she is improving . . . and the audience loved her . . .
Alexandria’s Toxic performance was fun and she seemed to be into it . . . it was refreshong to hear her sing live because I’m not sure I ever heard Britney sing the song live and that is one of my favorite songs by Britney . . .
Alexandria’s Listen performance was good considering her falsetto is not made for that song . . . one must always keep in mind song choices . . . maybe she didn’t pick it herself . . . anyway, I thought she did a good job . . .
X Factor vs American Idol . . . X Factor outshines A.I. the performances are actually performances . . . dancing and entertaining is amazing . . . as for A.I. where you barely get to sing for 60 seconds and this past year . . . the song choices were absolutely horrible . . .