Nerves were jangling after the X-Factor semi finalists were put through the ringer as they battled to earn their chance at stardom.

Olly Murs, Danyl Johnson, Stacey Solomon and Joe McElderry warbled for all their worth as a place in next week’s final beckoned.

It was bookies’ favourite McElderry who made the early running last night as his two performances went down a storm with the hard-to-please judges.

Geordie McElderry stole a march on his rivals after he earned a glowing endorsement for his rendition of Michael Jackson’s She’s Out of My Life.

Louis Walsh gushed that McElderry had the talent to sell millions of records. He said: “The thing about you, you would have an amazing recording voice.”

He added: “There’s a big, big gap in the market for someone like you.”

Dannii Minogue agreed, the antipodean saying: “You just sing like a dream, I can definitely agree with Louis that I can hear you all over the radio, all over the records, you are going to do very well and you have to be in the final.”

Joe McElderry then had the judges eating out of his hand as he followed up his first performance with a rendition of Open Arms by Journey.

Simon Cowell said: “I genuinely wish and hope you are there next week because you deserve it.

But it was a mixed bag for Dagenham diva Stacey Solomon.

Her performance of Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel divided opinions.
Cowell said it was the wrong choice of song, branding the performance “gimmicky and silly”.

But Cheryl Cole praised the performance as “absolutely fantastic”.

The 20-year-old donned a toga for her second song, Somewhere, from West Side Story.
This rendition went down much better with the judges.

Walsh declared: “That song was incredible”. Cole agreed, saying the performance had given her goosebumps: “That was the best I’ve ever heard you sing”, she said. Cowell said the performance had put her “back in the game.”