It's because till 7 is not working:(.

Those saying she is a one trick pony are talking complete BS and lapping up what Simon + co say. Almost all of them have sung the same style week in week out and Mary's Could It Be Magic was one of the better performances on that particular live show

People are forgetting the bottom line here, she can actually sing. Vocally shes one of the best people ever on the show, but for other people who are apparently better its their whole manner and performance that makes them good, not their voice. It was Ruth's fight that made her quite popular, as a vocalist she wasn't that good.

No chance, Ruth is the best over 25 to ever be on the show!

Erm, no...

I'm not lapping anything up - Mary herself showed no interest in changing up her style, and her performances have been stale for the past three weeks. She's not "one of the best people ever on the show" - her voice isn't particularly strong as shown by the difficulties she had in performing There You'll Be. Obviously everyone has their own opinion, and my opinion is that Mary was the worst in week 4 (with Could It Be Magic). She is my definition of a one trick pony, and I say this as someone who loved her first audition and genuinely likes her as a person.

As for your comments about Ruth - I thought she was fantastic because of her voice, and I'm pretty sure everyone else in this thread is giving names based on their voice too... Anyway, it comes down to opinion of course, but I thought your post was a bit OTT and untrue.

What I see here is your sort of 'cultural bias' or 'ageism' in the sense you can easily discern between a Lady-Gaga song, a Madonna song or whatever modern pop songs are.
When you hear Mary.. to you that is all 'that style'. You don't appreciate any difference between an Aretha or a Tom Jones or a ... to 'your mind' those are 'all those style'.
The same thing.
In the same way you see Thai tourists, Japanese businessmen and 'to your eyes' they are 'all those people'.
They are 'All the same to me'.

Now... Mary did not 'gain' anything doing a repeat song. Not a 'loss' so much as not gaining anything I agree with that.
Yes she is one of the best people ever on the show. She has captured the imagination of a nation and everyone loves her.

Yes, her voice is VERY STRONG. By far the strongest this season if you want power and substance (actually Treyc was good there too),
and,
I think what happened here is that she has been SO GOOD that when you saw her struggle (and no more than about 4 others) you saw it as some 'relatively' dramatic failure.
Even at her worst Mary was still better than half the contestants.


Sure but your opinion is wrong :p

Agree with all of that! Mary has the strongest voice in the compettition. FACT. Not exactly the best but close but she is still ****ing immense.

100% categorically correct.

What does 'change up her style' even mean?:conf: Can you imagine anyone telling Barbra Streisand or Bette Midler to 'change up your style' :joker:
Or would it be what Cher's been doing.......a karaoke version of Jay-z and a children's choir one week was 'changed up' to a karaoke version of Jay-z and Alicia Keyes the next.

She's a hairs up on the back of your neck power ballad singer belter. That just is what she is. She's had a few bad weeks and she's not my favourite act, but the suggestion that she should change what's she's doing is ludicrous to my ears.

I like Mary but she makes me fall asleep.. she is pretty dull :sleep::sleep:

rowetta, maria, brenda, dionne, kerry, beverly, nikki, rachael, ruth,

failiest thread ever

ummm mary is one of the worst lmao

Olly, Danyl, Ruth, Brenda, Maria, Andy, Beverly and Nikki are the best

Mary is probably in the worst 5

Nope, that title belongs to Danyl Johnson.

No over 25/28 will ever come close to Brenda or Ruth.

I'm offended that you concluded that from my post. My point is that Mary stood on the stage giving three performances that all merge into one in my head. That's not commenting on how good/bad she was; it was just a simple observation that for three weeks in a row, her performances were delivered in the same way. In stark contrast; other over 25s have given a variety of different performances that stood out over the years - whereas with Mary, she, in my mind, has undermined herself by giving three near enough identical performances, then two pretty dire ones afterwards. Had she done week 1, week 4, week 2, week 3, week 5 in that order; then weeks 1, 2 and 3 would have been stand out performances that blew the competition out of the water; but she hasn't, so that's where my point of view comes from. The judges' comments are to a similar effect, so I don't think I'm alone in thinking that.

As for your comments about me not appreciating the difference between a Tom Jones and an Aretha Franklin performance - that's extremely condescending, presumptuous and offensive - as are your comments about Oriental people.

She's hardly captured the imagination of the nation; and not everyone loves her. Personally, I like her, I think she's a very down to earth likable woman, but you only need to look around this section of the website to find that a few people find her grating. Mary's is one of the strongest this year, but that doesn't say much when her competition includes Katie, Cher, One Direction, Wagner... Again, your assumptions about who I am as a person and "my reasons" for whatever you think it is I think are completely unfounded and aren't true: She has been, on the whole, a very good singer; but her performances have been too similar for too long, and she's been exposed as a one trick pony. That isn't a bad thing, because she is really good at what she does - but in relation to the original post about whether she's the best over 25 - to me means she's not the best, there have been better. We've had so many great singers on the X Factor; to distinguish them they need to have something else to stand out, for me, standing on a stage, stationary, wearing a floaty black dress and being unwilling to try something different is a weakness.

Aww. Glad to see you haven't lost your ability to be an out-of-touch douchebag :love:

SuBo is a better singer, weirder and was there before Mary

^ :joker:

To me, it means doing something different. She at least attempted to do it in week 4 by actually moving around the stage, unfortunately it didn't impress me but I appreciate the effort. She needs to be a bit less predictable; the voting public are fickle and anyone perceived to be boring will not gain support as the weeks go by.

So what if she doesn't want to change her style? Rebecca doesn't change hers, Matt doesn't change his, Paije doesn't change his and so on. Why have one rule for most of the contestants and another for Mary? Because the judges don't pull the others up on it.

I loved Ruth, I think she is my fave contestant ever but vocally Mary is streets ahead of her. Ruth shouted a lot and she was awful from weeks 2-5 whilst in week 1 she was average at best. Shes also quite guilty of being a one trick pony but people overlook that too.

Mary's week 3 performance of I Who Have Nothing was absolutely stunning and one of the best performances X Factor has ever seen, yet the judges called her for being a one trick pony when the performance was brilliant. If she got a standing ovation everyone would be raving about it. Go on youtube and watch it back with no pre-concieved ideas, imagine its the first time you've ever seen her and you'll have a very different opinion.

There isn't one rule for most of the contestants and another for Mary - just the thread is discussing Mary, that's why it's being pointed out. Comparing Mary and Ruth from weeks 1-5 (as we've obviously not heard Mary's remaining performances yet) then yes, Mary has been much better, but Ruth's Summertime still stands out as one of the best performances from that series IMO, and that was in week 3; so she wasn't "awful" that whole time - I do agree that Mary's been more consistent in that timeframe though. Ruth generally did ballads, but she did dabble in singing rock songs too.

Just replied to you and then saw you'd added another bit to your post :tongue:. I also think Mary's I Who Have Nothing was fantastic - the reason I'm not mad on it is because she'd done it before in her audition, I want to see them singing something different every week - similarly I wasn't that impressed with Rebecca singing Make You Feel My Love despite it being sung fantastically, for example. My opinion stays the same. Great vocals marred by the repetitive nature of the performance.

Only in Weeks 1 and 2, I would say Mary has been great. 'Could it Be Magic' was weak as ****, last week's song even worse (There You'll Be).

[i missed week 3]

youtube it, youll love it. and Zee, forgot about Summertime but Ruth came into her own after week 6 and her second sing off performance. If she went in week 2 or 5 noone would remember her

Definitely; she took a long time to become memorable but I think once she did, it established her as one of the best over 25s the X Factor has seen because she did it so spectacularly. Her final performance of Always goes down as my favourite ever X Factor performance.