After having participated in the Finnish Eurovision national final earlier this year, Saara Aalto is taking part in the X Factor UK. However, in tonight’s episode, things did not go as smoothly as the twenty-nine year old might have hoped…
Saara had a remarkably good start in the British talent show, now in its thirteenth series. Indeed, ‘Saara from Finland’, as the singer came to be known in the UK, managed to impress everyone during her first audition for the show with a rendition of Sia’s Chandelier.
At the time, everyone seemed won over by Saara: ‘That was so good you make me want to twerk right now… You are the bomb dot com… You’re an artist with your voice, you just painted the most gorgeous picture. I feel grateful I got to witness that’, said Nicole Scherzinger, one fourth of a judging panel that is completed by entertainment manager Louis Walsh, media personality and music manager Sharon Osbourne and music industry tycoon and creator of the X Factor concept Simon Cowell, who exclaimed ‘that’s how you do it!‘ after the Finnish singer’s audition.
Yet, luck did not appear to be on Saara’s side during the Six Chairs Challenge stage of the show, aired earlier tonight on British network ITV. The Finnish brunette sang I See Fire by Ed Sheeran but the title of the song might have tempted fate as, even though her rendition got a good reception by the audience to start with, it failed to impress Sharon Osbourne. ‘You do have an amazing range but, when you sing, I do not feel a connection to what you’re singing about. There’s something missing’, was the verdict of Osbourne, who is the mentor of the Overs, the group that Saara falls into.
After Osbourne refused to give Saara one of the six places for the next phase of the show, the singer left the stage before coming back again and trying hard to save the situation by urging the judge for one more chance. Things went seriously wrong however when, trying to persuade of her vocal ability, she burst into singing in French. Whether due to her stubborn insistence to prove herself or due to the choice of language, Saara had lost the audience completely by this stage as its members, who had previously being on her side, now started chanting ‘off, off, off’ for the singer to leave the stage (watch the video below).
Perhaps Saara, being a talent show veteran, should have known better how not to disengage an audience. Indeed, not only has the singer participated in the 2011 and 2016 Finnish national finals for the Eurovision Song Contest but she has also taken part in the first series of The Voice of Finland. Interestingly, Saara placed second in all these three competitions.
On joining the X Factor, Saara herself had exclaimed: ‘I’ve performed a lot, a lot, a lot. I’ve done talent shows in Finland but I have never done anything like this. I need help, which is why I came here.’ Sadly, due to the performance aired tonight, the Finnish Euro-star looked as if she had lost all hope of placing anywhere near the top of the X Factor UK 2016, but, as you can read in the update below, there was a twist in the story.
In the following X Factor UK video, you can watch Saara Aalto performing Sia’s Chandelier during her first audition for the show. The performance got a very warm reception and the video itself went on to have millions of views online since its upload last month.
Update:
And when it looked as if Saara would not progress any further, after the main show tonight, the artist was awarded a wildcard place by judge Nicole Scherzinger during companion show The Xtra Factor on ITV2. We will therefore get the chance to see Saara Aalto again in the upcoming shows of The X Factor UK. Let’s hope that the Finnish singer can keep her spirits high after this emotional rollercoaster.
