Green eyed monster

Authenticity is a rare beast in the world of pop music. Sometimes, it's young pop tarts trying to maintain their virginal image whilst grinding suggestively in a way that would make Elizabeth Berkeley blush. Alternatively, it's kids who've spent a few years in the Brits academy, only to emerge with an R&B swagger straight out of South Central Camberley.

The latest graduate from the school of hard rocks is Jessie J, a one-time West End child prodigy who's now topping the charts singing about the "ka-ching ka-ching, b-bling, b-bling". Having written hits for singers like Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and Miley Cyrus, she's clearly got a decent pop pedigree, but even she finds it hard to figure out what kind of recording artist she wants to be.

With her star firmly in the ascendent, she's been comparing herself to a number of her contemporaries and finding that she's coming up short. Although she's confident in her musical ability, she's concerned that she doesn't have the cover girl image of stars like Cheryl Cole and Rihanna - "I try not to worry about my looks, but they're so beautiful it's hard to compete."

She's also got Lady Gaga in her sights, adding that the star's pret-a-porterhouse stylings have made things difficult for the artists that follow in her footsteps. She told OK! "She's literally made normal artists and music boring, which bothers me. It annoys me when people say Leona Lewis is boring. No, she's not. She's got a sick voice and being normal is cool."

Given how worried she is about her music industry competition, perhaps she should focus on a star who's going to be easier to emulate. Someone like Beth Ditto, who recently told reporters that on a recent night out, she managed to throw up and piss herself. It might not generate as much publicity as when she was rumoured to be a supporter of the Illuminati, but all it takes is a couple of bottles of Merrydown. And that's the kind of accomplishment you just can't put a price tag on.

And finally...

Simon looks pretty pleased about introducing One Direction - there's only one guy that they could sing with apparently. Maybe someone who has previous form for rejoining a boyband perhaps? Let's keep our fingers crossed that he remembers his lines this time - Olly Murs isn't here this time to jog his memory.

Note to One Direction: the high notes are the bits where your voice is supposed to go up and take the tune with it. Robbie Williams, he's a hero to all of us apparently. And by the looks of things, he could be moonlighting as a Mel Gibson impersonator. It sounds as awful as you'd expect, so thank goodness the technical crew remembered to trigger the sparkles backstage, otherwise that would have just looked like a Scout leader trying to rouse his boys in a campfire sing-a-long.

"This is going to be a moment in time" warns Cheryl, portentously. Someone should point out that so is going to the toilet or picking up your dry-cleaning. Cher's doing her best rapping, dressed like the French maid duster from Beauty & the Beast. Will.I.Am is here and he's obviously brought a doctor's note to say he has to use Autotune for medical reasons. Cher's shouting along, and jumping up and down, and although it's a lukewarm mess, it's the only duet where the guest star and contestant seem to have any kind of connection.

So now it's time for a little drama, because there's still another half hour to go and we've had all eight performances. The recap shows just how badly Rebecca came off alongside Christina, holding her hand and gazing lovingly at the massive-lunged star. I almost wish she'd gone for a full-scale Alexandra Burke style meltdown instead, at least people would have a chance of remembering her.

Hurrah, it's guest star filler - so here's Rihanna in a stripy dressing gown and earrings she could hula hoop in. She keeps asking the audience 'What's my name?', surely she could just read Dermot's autocue. The dressing gown's gone and now she's dry humping around the stage in a bra and knickers. Just time for another quick plug of her forthcoming tour and she's gone, hopefully to run another strawberry rinse through that hair of hers.

Now it's Christina's turn - she's got a movie to plug, so here she is whoring it up on a cheap recreation of the Burlesque set. We're pushing the boundaries of wholesome family entertainment here, so let's be thankful that it's not Showgirls that she's promoting. Now she's standing on a chair with one high-heeled foot resting on the back - I just hope someone did a full health and safety audit first. This is live TV, so no sense taking unnecessary risks.

The performance is pretty good, but we're really at the outer limits of what constitutes a 'song'. Cue awkward interview with Dermot - she can't hear a thing, and he's asking questions to which he already knows the answers. So it's all a little pointless, except for the helpful pointer that the film's called 'Burlesque', in case the 300 references in the song didn't tip you off.

OK, now it gets serious. Someone's going home, time to find out who it is. Spoiler warning: don't read on if you haven't been watching. Although you're a sucker for punishment if you've read all this without seeing the show. Anyway, someone who isn't One Direction, Rebecca or Matt is leaving us tonight. If nothing else, at least Cher's time on the X-Factor has taught her how to draw on her eyebrows properly. See - every cloud and all that.

Dermot cheekily thanked her for not crying and being graceful (for a change). Let's see who he can piss off tomorrow night. Thanks for watching with me...

Bring on the celebrities

It's time for the celebrity duets. Here's Matt speaking in very oblique terms about "this person" as though the world and its uncle doesn't already know that Rihanna is going to be joining him onstage. The fact that he's singing a Rihanna song might also be a clue. He's struggling with some of the high notes, and sounds very reedy. So at least they'll be well matched.

To be honest, it's less of a duet and more a case of two people taking it in turns to sing bits of a song. I wonder whether they maybe had all of ten minutes to rehearse that. And Rihanna's dress was split so high you could see the tattoo on her neck.

Let's see if Rebecca and Christina Aguilera can do better. The problem is, Christina is a belter, and Rebecca's a slow burner - it'll be interesting to see if Aggie can reign it in sufficiently to let our Liverpool lass stand out. Rebecca's wearing a beautiful gown, ruined by the fact that she's topped it off with a weird shoulder thing that looks like she snatched it from an Incan drag queen.

Christina's growling like a junkyard dog, albeit one with an enormous pair of new boobs. Rebecca faded into the background there, like she was on hand to hold Christina's coat. And Christina just let the cat out of the bag about how much preparation time was involved in these duets - they only met today. So it's no surprise that they wandered off the stage looking like they hadn't yet learned each other's names.

Hard man goes soft

R&B singer Chris Brown is on a journey of contrition as he tries to make up for the fact that he beat up his girlfriend, Barbadian singer Rihanna, on the eve of this year's Grammy Awards.

In a televised interview with Larry King, he discussed the terms of his probation and insisted that it was a one-off incident that wouldn't happen again, which must come as a big relief to any woman who's ever nursed a bruised face to promises that "It'll never happen again." Bizarrely, the 20-year old also made a point of distancing himself from his stepfather, who he watched regularly beat his own mother, insisting they're nothing like each other.

Suggesting that he may have been a musical prodigy, but never cracked a book in English literature classes, Chris compared his relationship with Rihanna to 'Romeo and Juliet'. And we all know how well that story turned out.

Still, he's been making amends for talking with his fists, and has been busy removing graffiti, picking up rubbish and washing cars as part of his sentencing. In total, he'll do 180 days of community service and will attend a year's worth of domestic violence counselling. He's also done the rounds talking to the media about how sorry he is and saying, hey, give me a break, I'm young. The hope is that, if he puts the effort in now, this won't spell the end of his career.

But he may have fatally misjudged the mood of a nation, if his appearance on Larry King is anything to go by. The domestic abuse is one thing, people will forgive and forget. But I can't see the urban-music loving audience being willing to embrace an R&B artist who turns up to interviews dressed as the Fresh Prince's cousin Carlton. Sporting a pastel blue sweater and a bow-tie, he could have been auditioning for a new Revenge of the Nerds movie.

Someone needs to get Trinny and Susannah on the case - after all, Chris clearly needs some styling tips and they could both do with a good slap.