Popworldcupjustice: Japan vs Greece

JAPAN V GREECE

Guest referee: Carl Smith — Senior Writer, Sugarscape

 Sky's The Limit — 'Only Human' (The X Factor)

“As a rule, Japanese popstars are better than regular popstars. The glossy videos, the slick cho­reo­graph­ies, the killer choruses – they’re generally the Spice Girls to the rest of the world’s Girl Thing. But how is The X Factor Japan shaping the future of J‑pop, exactly? Well if Sky’s The Limit are anything to go by, we can expect something along the lines of Rough Copy acci­dent­ally stumbling into Westlife’s Lucky Voice karaoke booth five minutes before their hour’s up. ‘Only Human’ screams SAVE ME SONG, and while I can’t actually under­stand a word of the VT I can only assume they were told to ‘strip back the per­form­ance’ and ‘con­cen­trate on the vocal.’ In short, when you compare these boys to bands like SHINee it’s all just a bit shit. ”

 Maria Elena Kiriakou — ‘Hurt’ (The Voice)

“Christina Aguilera’s con­tri­bu­tion to the Voice franchise is just unpar­alleled really, isn’t it? So it’s only fair that, somewhere in Greece, Maria Kiriakou gives ‘Hurt’ a bash. She’s got all the makings of a good popstar – strong ser­i­ous­face, an over­act­ive smoke machine, offi­cially very good hair and (as a sidenote) THE VOICE. Not entirely sure what’s going on with the mimes on a show so against lip-syncing, but there you go. It kills me to say it given your usual ded­ic­a­tion to the cause, Japan, but Greece have got it in the group stages."

Carl's full time score:

Japan 1 — Greece 2

Now you can vote for your own favourite.

Next up:  Italy vs Costa Rica