Music News
X Factor finalists feel the heat
Friday 11 December 2009
Stacey Solomon, Joe McElderry and Olly Murs will battle it out this weekend after surviving two months of live performances every week.
Their new-found celebrity status has seen the trio splashed in the press and greeted by crowds of fans and photographers wherever they go.
But it remains to be seen if the brush with fame will last as the singers attempt to emulate the chart-topping success of the likes of former 'X Factor' winner Leona Lewis.
In her quest for glory - and a recording contract with Simon Cowell's label Syco - Solomon, a 20-year-old single mother from Dagenham, will take to the stage for a duet with Michael Buble in tomorrow's show.
The oldest of the finalists, 25-year-old Essex native Murs will be joined by Robbie Williams, while Geordie McElderry, 18, will perform with George Michael.
One act will be voted off at the end of tomorrow night's show, leaving the final two to sing for success on Sunday.
At a press conference yesterday, the finalists said they were coping with the pressure of making it to the end.
"I feel like this is the best week ever for pressure because we're in the final three," said Solomon. "First, second, third. We're going to get a medal."
McElderry said: "I just hyperventilate before I go on and just put all the nerves into the performance."
Murs added: "I'm just going to go out there and enjoy it, have fun, have a really good night."
Cowell, on the panel with fellow judges Dannii Minogue, Cheryl Cole and Louis Walsh, meanwhile branded a campaign to prevent the show's winner from having the Christmas number one single as "stupid" and "cynical".
A group set up on Facebook is calling for people to make rock band Rage Against The Machine's 1992 single 'Killing in the Name' this year's number one.
Cowell said: "If there's a campaign, and I think the campaign's aimed directly at me, it's stupid. Me having a number one record at Christmas is not going to change my life particularly.
"It does however change these guys' lives and we put this opportunity there so that the winner of the X Factor gets the chance of having a big hit record.
"I think it's quite a cynical campaign geared at me which is actually going to spoil the party for these three."
He praised the finalists, saying: "What I like about these three singers is they're the guy and girl who live next door. They haven't come from ghastly stage school backgrounds, they haven't had an awful lot of experience.
"These three people, who under normal circumstances would find it really hard to get a recording contract, suddenly have got a shot."
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