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Nicholas McDonald is a Scottish singer. He was the runner-up of the tenth series of The X Factor in 2013. After the show, he signed with RCA Records and released his debut album In the Arms of an Angel in March 2014, peaking at number 6 on the UK Albums Chart.

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On 4 June 2013, McDonald auditioned in Glasgow for the tenth series of The X Factor. He sang Secret Garden‘s You Raise Me Up and received a mixed reaction from the judges. Judge Gary Barlow said “I think in a year’s time, you could be a finalist, so for that reason I’m going to say no.” However the other three judges, Louis Walsh, Nicole Scherzinger and Sharon Osbourne, all said “yes”, putting McDonald through to the arena, where he sang A Thousand Years.

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At bootcamp, he was the final contestant in the boys category to perform. He sang Jason Mraz’s I Won’t Give Up and afterwards Walsh said, “That was my favourite audition of the entire night.” McDonald took the seat of Alejandro Fernandez-Holt and progressed through to judges’ houses. At judges’ houses he sang If You’re Not the One and Someone like You. Walsh later chose him for the live shows, along with Luke Friend and Sam Callahan.

McDonald advanced through every week without ever being in the bottom two.

 

On 8 December, along with Sam Bailey and Luke Friend, he made it to the final. He became the first Scottish contestant to achieve this feat since Leon Jackson in 2007. On 14 December, he dueted with former Westlife singer Shane Filan and was later announced as one of the final two, advancing along with Bailey. 

 

After singing Superman (It’s Not Easy) by Five for Fighting as his winner’s song, he finished as runner-up to Bailey. When the weekly voting statistics were revealed after the final, they showed that McDonald and Bailey had been the top two contestants every week; McDonald won three weeks and Bailey won the other seven.

After the show ended, McDonald decided to concentrate on his singing career and returned to his school to say goodbye. In January 2014, McDonald announced that he had signed with RCA Records and would release his debut album in March of that year.

 

The album was preceded by the lead single Answerphone, which was be released on 16 March, the day before the album, the song has peaked to number 73 on the UK Singles Chart and number 28 on the Scottish Singles Chart. He released his debut album In the Arms of an Angel on 17 March 2014. On 23 March 2014 the album entered the UK Albums Chart at number 6 and number 1 on the Scottish Albums Chart.

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