So last night in the UK the X Factor final took place, and we saw young Joe McElderry become the latest victor of the hugely successful series, which has just had its most popular season to date. The winning song released last night and widely expected to be next week’s Christmas number one, is a cover of ‘The Climb’ by Miley Cyrus. An odd choice for a song, given that it was only released little over a year ago by Miley. Although we’d probably like it a lot more had Stacey Solomon won!
Meanwhile over in Sweden, their latest series of Idol finished. And young Erik Grönwall was crowned the champion. We hadn’t watched the series live this year, but had caught lots of performances on youtube. And we like Erik a lot. His voice is extraordinarily strong, especially when you consider the tiny frame and angelic face it comes from! And he’s the modest and unassuming sort of person that you would want from an Idol/X Factor contestant. And what of the song ‘Higher’? Is it a cover of the Star Pilots track? No. Is it a cover of the Heidi Montag song? No, but can you imagine?! It’s a typical Idol/X Factor winner’s song, but it’s been given a bit of a rockier tinge to it. And it’s brought the formula a bit up to date by giving it a Ryan Tedder-esque beat during the verses.
You can have a look at him performing the song below. Plus we’ve included the performance that first made us sit up and take notice of Erik – his version of Yohanna’s ‘Is It True’. We hope that a studio version will be included on the album. Incredible!
