Up until this weekend I had successfully avoided anything to do with the X Factor thanks to no TV aerial. Unfortunately this Saturday has a big red cross on my otherwise unmarked record. An indoor TV aerial had been found and positioned in optimum position for receiving ITV for my X Factor loving housemate to tune in. She convinced me to stay and watch as she thought it would be funny because I'm so critical of this sort of thing. She wasn't disappointed!
Firstly I'm going to briefly state why I hate the X Factor so much. It is a tired, formulaic show which has the same characters every year, presented in the same way, at least one person will have a lame sob story to try and play on the audiences sympathy for their vote (not their talent because they don't have any), churns out the same unimaginative "artists" every year, and always gets the Christmas number one spot (apart from the wonderful year when Rage got it - power to the people!!!) so that hard working bands or acts who haven't had an easy access into fame miss out. It was a bit of a novelty and a bit exciting when the shows Popstars and Pop Idol where on which must be about 10 years ago now but its been on every year since then and it is boring and predictable. It has nothing to do with music and anyone who thinks it has is a fool. As the show has progressed the judges (excluding Simon Cowel) have become more and more pathetic, treating the live shows like a popularity contest with the audience, not saying what the contestants performances are really like but saying everyone was wonderful so that they don't get booed! Lies! And lets not forget the way that whenever anyone unique and interesting comes along they get re-branded into the usual pop garbage. Remember Diana Vicars from a few years ago? Just compare her wonderful performances and image on X Factor to the mindless artificial bubblegum pop she has been rebranded into. Of course the main reason I hate the X Factor is because even by the live finals half of the contestants can't sing!! And this weekends programme was no exception.
The theme was rock night (of all the nights for me to watch) and I don't think the judges know what "rock" means. Of the eleven acts who performed only four of them could be deemed rock. As those acts belonged to Gary and Louis I'll let them off slightly, but as for Kelly and Tulisa, well I'm not really surprised that they were clueless! Bring back Sharon Osbourne I say!
The show was opened by one of Gary's boys who sang "Are You Gonna Go My Way" perfectly fitting for rock night and a choice I was pleased with. However he could not sing in tune. No one, apart from myself and a third housemate, seemed to realise this! The judges all said how good he was and what a great performance he gave. Now they must be deaf or something which clearly proves that they are not capable of being judges on a SINGING program. Also, a good rock performance requires more than just standing there and walking forwards a bit while a group of choreographed dancers dressed like the cast of We Will Rock You dance around you! A failed rock performance in my opinion.
Now with Kelly she did pick rock songs for her contestants - "Sweet Child Of Mine", "Livin' On A Prayer" and "Purple Rain" (not really rock rock but I'll let her have it as it is a brilliant song) - BUT SHE TURNED THEM ALL INTO BALLADS!!! "Sweet Child Of Mine" does work as a ballad yes, but because this contestant is Irish the song was given Irish folk song treatment and basically became a Celtic song, loosing any hint of rock. Fail! And "Livin' On A Prayer" a ballad?!?! I don't think so! This is a punch-your-fist-in-the-are-full-of-hope song not a ballad! It doesn't work. And it didn't give her contestants a chance to show that they can rock, can do something fast and daring and dangerous. If this was a clever ploy to distract the audience from finding out that they can't sing in that style then it didn't work on me and her girls don't deserve to win. They did however have very good voices and the one who sang Bon Jovi, although she was off in parts, I think she had it in her to put some rock in it.
Kelly's final contestant to perform, Misha, was phenomenal. She has a wonderful diverse voice, the best in the competition and the best I've heard on a show like this for a while. She properly rocked it up for "Purple Rain" and did a fantastic job. She and one other contestant are the only two who sang note perfect the whole night.
Let me tell you about Tulisa's offering. Someone needs to sit this woman down and explain to her what rock is. The song she chose for her girl group was a mash up of "Tik Tok" by Kesha (rock? I don't think so!) and "Push It" by Salt N Pepper. Now I was very confused by this, as were the other judges. She didn't even give it a rocked up backing track it was all synths and sounded like something you'd hear in a club. What the hell?! The group were awful (in true tradition of the groups category), their harmonies just sounded terrible and their voices don't blend well. For the boys, The Risk (terrible name), she gave them "Crazy" by Gnarles Barkley, again not a rock song. I do like this song as the music to it is very good but no, she even ruined that too and gave it a shit synthy sounding almost club like backing track. What a shame. The boys weren't too bad, they sounded ok together but they're nothing special. Tulisa is basically an idiot and proved that she knows nothing about music and isn't really capable of being a judge on this show. To add to that lets not forget the extremely inappropriate bullying allegation comments she made to Misha after her performance which had no place on the live show. It is an issue which should be addressed backstage in private. Again proving her incompetence.
On to the contestants who passed the criteria of rock night. Over 25s enthusiastic and slightly mad Kitty gave a fantastic performance of "Live And Let Die". Her vocals were brilliant, she began playing the piano (real musical ability!) and there was fire, lots of fire! She was the only other person to sing note perfect and deserves her place.
Wannabe rockstar Frankie appears to have already started living the rock n roll life style and gave a true sex, drugs and rock n roll performance of "Get Your Rocks Off". He kinda sounds like one of those rock stars who can't sing all that well but we like them anyway - like Mick Jagger or Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie - so in that respect it was quite good, although there were moments when it became more like rockstar going down hill on drink and drug. Quite a departure from the X Factor norm I must admit.
The final rock performance was this years comedy act Johnny Robinson. He is essentially this years Wagner. Louis gave him "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" which was perfectly suiting to his camp persona and although he performed well he is vocally quite bad. Funnily enough he's good at singing in a falsetto voice but not at normal range!
Anyone else was honestly too boring to bother talking about.
As for the judges I was pleasantly surprised by Gary Barlow. He isn't as mean as Simon Cowel was but he is the only one who speaks any truth and isn't afraid of being booed. However he didn't seem to pick up on most peoples bad singing. As I mentioned, only two contestants were note perfect but the general consensus from the judges was that nearly everyone gave wonderful performances! What a load of crap.
My opinion of the X Factor hasn't changed from this one forced viewing. If anything it has become worse. To sum up the program is basically mindless "entertainment" for people who are ignorant when it comes to music, with the aim of making as much money as possible while saturating the charts with more talentless, contrived "artists" who'll be gone within a blink of an eye. Don't believe me? Then who won in 2005, 2007 and 2009 and where are they now?
Johnny was worse the other weeks, believe it or not... This was his strongest performance yet. I'm not going to be surprised when Tulisa runs out of contestants by mid-November -- her "rock" choices were appalling.
ReplyDeleteKelly consistently has strong performers, and I think that's because she actually knows what she's doing. Musically, she can pick out the bad notes.
I love how honest Gary is; he's not afraid to say if someone is boring if it's true, even if he'll be booed. The audience is just a bunch of sheep who cheer for good comments and boo the negative. Ugh.
My only other comment in reply to your post is the about giving "good performances." Yes, the judges say that a lot. No, the performances aren't perfect, but people like Kelly I feel understand that there's more to a performance than just singing. Take Sammy.(sp?) She has a great voice, but she is BORING to watch. Somebody like Frankie, who moves around and entertains, is much more of a performer but probably less of an artist.
X-Factor looks for those performers who can wear a outfit and own the stage. But I think true artists will always have their space outside the X-Factor. They'll have to work hard to make it big, and it's not the easy rise to fame, but that's how they prove they're worthy to be at the top.
In reply to the part about good performances you're right there is more to a performance than just singing, but in a singing competition surely there should be a strong emphasis on the singing part. If they can't ge that right I don't think they should be in the finals full stop. I would happily watch someone who wasn't note perfect 100% of the time but put on a really good show which is why I quite liked Frankie's performance. But the point I'm making is that "good performance" was a phrase I heard from the judges numerous times throughout the show when only three of the contestants were visually interesting to watch; Kittly, Frankie and Johnny (Misha was compelling to watch but that was more to do with her voice). I thought that everyone else performance, vocals aside, was mediocre to boring (I agree with you on Sami), yet the judges kept saying they were good. A bit of walking on the stage and being upstaged by a team of over enthusiastic dancers doesn't count. And no Kelly isn't so bad at picking out wrong notes but she only did it about twice this weekend and there were many more offenders than that!
ReplyDeleteNot everyone gets "real" fame no, as I think Leona is the only person to have made it properly big. Probably because she is one of the few who can "own the stage", hardly any of the X Factor finalists over the years can do that. But everyone gets their five minutes of fame which is more than some struggling genuinely, talented people get. We don't hear much of him in the charts anymore but I noticed that Shane Ward is now in a West End musical. Theres no way he would have got that without the exposure from X Factor. It does give people an easy route into showbiz of some sort.