Lopez Blogs

Another Wednesday brought another edition of "Nouvelle Star" (M6) and this week's theme was rock songs. The major shock of the evening was one of my favourites (and a favourite of the French showbiz mags too) - Ilyes. I am still at a loss to understand why, as his rocky take on the awful Lara Fabian's power ballad "Je T'Aime" was a joy. He has such charisma too and will be missed from the show.
Ilyes was in the bottom 2 with Julie, who is trying too hard to look like this season's rock-chick. She shambled her way through Mano Negra's "Mala Vida" which had been done brilliantly by Gael on last year's Star Academy.
Our other favourite Pierre continued with his bad song choices. Doing the Rolling Stones was a bad enough idea, but doing "Angie" was even worse, and he turned it into cabaret hell. Nevertheless we still like him, although he needs to pick the right song soon or he’ll be following Ilyes out the door.
Raphaelle did a spirited "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For" whilst Soma bravely camped his way through Raphael’s "Sur La Route" and is now on very shaky ground in the weeks to come.
Julien aka "ukelele boy" appears to have taken on favourite status, however his hilarious "Heartbreak Hotel" calls to mind X-Factor Chico or indeed the current phenomenon, American Idol-Sanjaya, where the truly duff are kept in as some kind of public empowerment.
Tigane, who had already made a fair attempt at Gnarls Barkley’s "Crazy", did rather well with his soulful version of Paolo Nutini’s "Last Request" and he will go a long way in this contest.
Meanwhile Gaetane has been grabbing some headlines in France thanks to her romance with Julien. She also did well here with her version of Blondie’s "Call Me". She is the latest in a never ending line of pretty French brunettes on talent shows and will again last another few weeks.
Her rival in the pretty-brunette contest here, Canelle, did a fair performance of Telephone’s "Cendrillon" but again was rather old-fashioned and cabaret.
Finally, Alex, who (apart from Ilyes) provided the most original rendition this evening - his James Brown-style version of Dutronc’s "Les Cactus" was quite inspired and very good.
Really not happy that Ilyes is gone - it should either have been Julie or Soma. :-((