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"It&amp;#039;s back, baby! The X Factor USA has returned with new judges in what is surely a make-or-break season for Simon Cowell&amp;#039;s little baby. But how did the first episode stack up? Well, it was pretty entertaining, to be honest. In fact, we&amp;#039;ve decided to hold a little awards ceremony to celebrate the best (and worst) of the premiere episode. Read on to find out what was victorious...  The Most Gratuitous Mention of One Direction Award It wouldn&amp;#039;t be The X Factor without a bit of bluster, so the show starts with all the big fat stats - The X Factor has created more global stars than any other singing competition, apparently (sorry, American Idol, apparently Kelly Clarkson and Adam Lambert and Carrie Underwood and Jennifer Hudson and so on just aren&amp;#039;t enough). We hear of 150m worldwide sales. We hear of 350 top ten records. And then of course One Direction gets a mention. I suppose you can&amp;#039;t blame them, though it&amp;#039;s hard not to feel sorry for X Factor USA&amp;#039;s previous contestants who get barely any mentions. Bit awkward. The Best Simon Cowell Prank Award When Demi woke him up and terrified him. Extra points for doing it wrapped in a blanket for no real reason.      The Auditionee Who Turned Us Off The Most In One Sentence Award  &amp;quot;&amp;#039;l&amp;#039;ll be the Latino Chris Brown one day.&amp;quot; Oh Carlito Olivero, that&amp;#039;s not a good thing. And perhaps it&amp;#039;s not the wisest decision to then sing a Rihanna song. The thing is, Carlito, your voice ain&amp;#039;t half bad and we might have liked you a little bit more if you hadn&amp;#039;t compared yourself to Hollywood persona non grata, but we&amp;#039;ll give you a chance (and not just because you can whip up a mean latte). Simon likes &amp;quot;everything&amp;quot; about him which turns out to mean his voice and his charisma; Demi says he&amp;#039;s like a cross between Frankie J and Trey Songz, which just makes us feel old; Paulina adores him; and Kelly says he is a &amp;quot;star&amp;quot;. So that&amp;#039;s four yeses for Carlito, then. He&amp;#039;d better leave the Chris Brown references at the door next time, though.      The Best Description of What The Hell The X Factor Actually Is Award &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s like kissing someone for the first time.&amp;quot; Well that&amp;#039;s cleared that up then. Thanks, Paulina. The Most Awkward Song Intro Award  I would rather we didn&amp;#039;t have any terrible auditions to be quite honest but Simon Cowell seems to find them quite funny, so I suppose we&amp;#039;re stuck with them. Enter Sally Hessnice, who seems like a lovely lady who just wants to sing &amp;#039;Greatest Love of All&amp;#039;. Unfortunately, things get off to a rubbish start when her song intro goes on forever and she&amp;#039;s gazing around dreamily and Simon has to stop and ask if she&amp;#039;s actually going to sing. When she does, it&amp;#039;s not that bad. It&amp;#039;s actually kind of like any normal person singing (it&amp;#039;s a contender for the &amp;#039;Best Worst Audition Award&amp;#039;). But Simon has a giggle and makes jokes about dogs trying to get into the venue and air raid warnings and says he&amp;#039;s never heard anything like it before. Oh well, Sally might not be going through but at least she&amp;#039;s happy: &amp;quot;On a scale of 1-10 I&amp;#039;d still rate myself a 10. Yeah!&amp;quot;      The Worst Spelling Award It has to go to K-Nected &amp;quot;with a K!&amp;quot; who fail to make it through. (&amp;quot;Do you live near an airport? You can&amp;#039;t have ever heard yourself sing.&amp;quot; Simon, so charitable.) Also worth a mention for the use of the phrase &amp;quot;hello guv&amp;#039;nor&amp;quot; to greet Simon. The Best Accent Award Well, it has to be Paulina, doesn&amp;#039;t it? Isn&amp;#039;t it hilarious how she pronounces words? It&amp;#039;s like she&amp;#039;s from another country, the way she says &amp;quot;pitchy&amp;quot; like &amp;quot;peachy&amp;quot;! I&amp;#039;m on the floor! The Best Shocked Face Award  This has to go to Kelly Rowland, who was appalled by Simon Cowell&amp;#039;s cruel take on John Tanner Davis&amp;#039;s version of &amp;#039;My Heart Will Go On&amp;#039;: &amp;quot;I think you did a better job than the iceberg. You just killed that song.&amp;quot; Look at you go, Kelly. Later she says: &amp;quot;That was so wrong&amp;quot;, and I like to think she means SiCo rather than JTD. The Most Half-Hearted Attempt To Make The X Factor Seem Different From Other Singing Shows Award &amp;quot;What makes this competition unique is that the contestants are auditioning in four categories!&amp;quot; Nice try, Mario, but give it a little more effort, eh? The Best What The F**k Moment Award  Lillie McCloud could win a whole bunch of our awards. &amp;#039;Best Hair&amp;#039;. &amp;#039;Best Name&amp;#039;. But we have to go for &amp;#039;Best What The F**K Moment&amp;#039; for when she announced that actually she&amp;#039;s 54 years old and has seven grandchildren. Don&amp;#039;t believe us? Just look at this picture of the audience when she revealed her true age:  Exactly. Also, Paulina could only respond: &amp;quot;In this life?&amp;quot; which I love, though I&amp;#039;m not sure quite what it means. Luckily, things get even better with Lillie, who blows the roof off the place with her powerhouse but subtle performance of &amp;#039;Alabaster Box&amp;#039; (it&amp;#039;s a masterclass, basically). Here come some more awards: &amp;#039;First Judges&amp;#039; Tears&amp;#039; (thanks, Demi and Kelly), and &amp;#039;First Standing Ovation&amp;#039;. Kelly wants to know where she&amp;#039;s been hiding - &amp;quot;every single part of this room you touched with your voice, you blessed us all&amp;quot; - Simon says she nailed it, Demi says she ripped her heart out of her chest (&amp;quot;I feel like I&amp;#039;m listening to Whitney!&amp;quot;) and Lillie unsurprisingly picks up four yeses. We were the first to give her an award, though, okay?      The Biggest Turnaround Award  God, we really wanted to hate Alex and Sierra. They&amp;#039;re the epitome of &amp;#039;smug couple&amp;#039; with their smooches and talk about being each other&amp;#039;s favourite person in the world and: &amp;quot;With you, with me, with us&amp;quot; nonsense. Urgh. Hideous. We started to get worried that we might actually like them when Simon asked if they were a brother and sister and Alex replied: &amp;quot;No, we kiss, so that would be weird.&amp;quot; And then we just gave up in resignation when they performed their version of Britney Spears&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Toxic&amp;#039; and it was all country and layered and harmonious and gorgeous and reminded us of Nashville&amp;#039;s Avery and Scarlett when they weren&amp;#039;t totally annoying yet. The audience get on their feet, Demi has &amp;quot;chills&amp;quot; about how &amp;quot;magic&amp;quot; they are, Kelly says they &amp;quot;ignited&amp;quot; on stage, Simon says he thought it would be &amp;quot;corny&amp;quot; but they were &amp;quot;cool and quirky&amp;quot;. And Paulina gets amazing when she gushes: &amp;quot;I believe in you guys. I believe in love. I&amp;#039;m a believer.&amp;quot; So okay, Alex &amp;amp; Sierra (Aliera? Um, Sex?) We&amp;#039;ll give you this one, but leave the PDA at home please.      The Best Mom Award  Rion Paige is lovely. She&amp;#039;s a 13-year-old with a medical condition we can&amp;#039;t even try to spell, but it&amp;#039;s something to do with her joints, and she&amp;#039;s also almost blind in one eye. Oh, and to top it all off she has wonderful hair, a really winning personality and a superstar voice (to the extent that it&amp;#039;s hard to believe she&amp;#039;s only 13). But we have to admit to being distracted by her mom, who is just great. She&amp;#039;s all very real, trying to be there for Rion but being nervous about her daughter getting hurt, and then bursting into adorable tears of pride when everyone totally loves Rion&amp;#039;s audition (&amp;quot;I am just going to bawl my eyes out!&amp;quot;) This should all be super cheesy, but something about it is quite cute. We&amp;#039;re almost as happy for her as we are for Rion, who gets four yeses (Simon says she&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;literally extraordinary&amp;quot; and reminds him of the day he discovered Carrie Underwood; Kelly praises her &amp;quot;passion&amp;quot;; Paulina says &amp;quot;music heals everything&amp;quot; in a slightly unrealistic manner and Demi says everyone could learn something from Rion).      So that&amp;#039;s that, then. Our first auditions are done, we&amp;#039;ve handed out a whole bunch of awards, and now we&amp;#039;re just waiting for the rest of the season. But what did you think about the X Factor USA premiere? Let us know below! The X Factor airs on Fox. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/the-x-factor-us/news/a514734/the-x-factor-usa-premiere-recap-what-did-you-think/>