From
what started off as a warmed-over replacement for small-budget shitfest, Pop Idol, The X Factor has expanded, growing exponentially year on year, like
MRSA, resulting in what is now the flagship of ITV’s weekend primetime. The X Factor may be eight years old but
as was clear as I tuned in over a typical weekend, the premise has not changed
at all since its first run in 2004. At its core X Factor is over-egged, mass-televised karaoke, with millions of
viewers tuning in every week (peaking at 9.7 million in September) to watch a legion of tittering
gimps sing pop songs off key. In fact
the only thing that could further the aesthetic of a karaoke would be to have
some beery forty year old men to one side of the stage, throwing darts and
making uncouth remarks about Nicole Sherzinger’s rack.
In
its current carnation the show has managed to somehow actually become less
tasteful than ever before. The live shows have become televised concerts. As
the show opens, green lasers swipe and strafe erratically through the crowd and
huge quartz spotlights shine with the intensity of a thousand Hiroshima
bombs. Even the stage floor itself
pulsates and swipes with colours like a Beatles LSD trip. The whole spectacle
is almost gleeful in its execution; like it relishes being utterly
terrible. Series stalwart, the
irrepressible Dermot O’Leary, was introduced in the live finals via his own
dance routine. O’Leary is actually a fairly likeable presenter, even if he
can’t dance for toffee, and provides at least some personality among the
kaleidoscope of corporate bombast. The celebrity judge panel however, not so
much. The judges change year on year, and the current panel is headed up by
Gary Barlow, who glimmers with all the enthusiasm of a washed out old dish rag.
Barlow has surrendered any street-cred Take
That could possibly have held (which was probably, none at all) to be a
judge, and he takes it very seriously, attempting to fill the smugness vacuum
left by the departure of Simon Cowell. He cannot much rival the insensitivity
or ingenuity of Cowell; however his Yorkshire monotone and pointed sarcasm make
him the most likeable of the panel. Alongside him is series veteran Louis
Walsh, who seems impossibly grey. His dark eyes give him the appearance of a
doubtful mallard, and he rarely seems to mean anything he says or say anything
he means. He comes across weak tonight, and seems keen to avoid any
controversy, even though that is his job.
Then
there is Tulisa Contostavlos. When your crowning achievement to date is singing
in N-Dubz, you are hardly the go to
person for credible career advice, and Tulisa battles it out with Kelly Rowland
for most useless judge of talent. A doily would dispense better advice than
Tulisa; although a doily would produce a far less captivating sex tape. Swings
and roundabouts. Rounding off the fantastic foursome is Nicole Sherzinger,
singing sensation behind The Pussycat
Dolls. Sherzinger makes for pretty good tele; she has a certain shrewdness
about her. Still, to call it a panel of judges is stretching the jurisdiction
of what can be called a ‘judge’ to fairly disastrous limits. None of them seem
to particularly care about the sad saps stood on the stage before them, and
they possess between them almost no independent will at all. After a
performance the judges take it in turns to dispense some of the most
sickeningly saccharine praise you will ever hear. Nicole Sherzinger in
particular seems to enjoy pretending she is about to say something bad, before
then saying something positive; a technique that grew tedious about seven years
ago. Should any of the judges pluck up the courage to make some fairly
forgiving criticisms, the studio audience go all Roman Coliseum on them, booing
and jeering loudly over the top. Similarly should any praise be in order (it usually
is) the crowd scream with the sort of blood-curdling intensity usually reserved
for roller coasters and Barry Manilow concerts. What exact pheromone is being
pumped into the auditorium is not clear, all we know is that it is being pumped
continuously and in huge quantities. What on earth they do with them after the
show is over is a mystery to me. You can imagine the risk to national security
involved with releasing several hundred pumped-up pop fans into the quiet
streets of London. All shook up after a spirited performance by their favourite
boy band, the apocalyptic contingent of hormonal women and pre-teen fan girls
could tear apart half of Ealing in a flurry of boiling oestrogen.
The
acts are introduced one by one via a horribly edited VT, full of ‘swoosh’ sound effects, and weird
close-ups, often with some sort of fan or air conditioner in the foreground,
like the whole thing was shot in Louis Walsh’s creepy sex dungeon. You could
say there was a spectrum of talent on offer here, and I suppose it is, it’s
just a very short spectrum, comprising only terrible, derivative, and only just
bearable. This was made abundantly clear when the finalists released their
mawkish cover of Emeli Sande’s Read All
About It, sounding sort of like the DJ Earworm mix from 2008, except
terrible. There is of course some talent on show. This is mostly found with the
girls. Gazelle-necked Melanie Masson
gave a convincing rendition of Paloma Faith’s
Never Tear Us Apart, and the
cheerily spherical Lucy Spraggan impresses as well, though that is more down to
her instrumentalism and her song writing than her vocals; a rarity on a show
like this. Ella Henderson is the bookie’s choice to win, and rightly so; she is
the only contestant in the contest who doesn’t sound like somebody else. She
must also be the only thing of note to have ever come out of Grimsby. Beyond
these few there isn’t much to say.
MK1
seem to actually mock the urban scene rather than emulate it. You have your
obligatory boy bands too. Union J sounds like some sort of effeminate droid,
whereas District 3 sounds like something from Apartheid era Johannesburg. They
are almost offensively good looking, with trendy haircuts that seem to quiff
and stick up at the same time and a well practised smoulder. Both bands display
a staunch dedication to teeth whitener.
None of them seem to have as much as a glimmer of talent or edge about
them; clean-cut pre-teen fodder, made not as much for LPs as for calendars and
tumblr feeds. They are all very nice to look at but not interesting to listen
to. Not like that stopped One Direction
(but enough has been said of them).
Smoggy James Arthur tries to be all angst but comes across as someone
angry not at the pain of existence but at the cost of orthodontic correction.
Rylan does a good job at performing a continuing self-parody, making himself
the first (and only person) to ever make a hash of a song like Gangnam Style. But Jahmene Douglas takes
the biscuit for sheer weirdness, firstly for his voice, which resembles Shirley
Bassey singing into an oscillating desk fan, and secondly for his appearance;
he has one of the weirdest head/face combinations I have ever seen, like a
pint-sized reimagining of Gerald from Hey
Arnold! mixed with a bruised butternut squash.
In
the final on Sunday it was cookie-cutter District 3 and scarf fetishist Melanie
Masson that were in the ‘sing-off’; that’s what they actually call it. It was the lads who came out on top, which was
hardly surprising. We didn’t have any booboos this time. Last week saw Gary
Barlow storm off stage after Rylan survived the chop at the expense of
Carolynne Poole. It served as a good point to understand Gary Barlow’s m
otivations; storming off on live T.V over one warmed-over act succeeding over
another, whilst practically shrugging and opening a bag of Doritos when he was
recently caught practising tax evasion. But as ever X Factor reminds and reinstates the current cult of instant
stardom; and no wonder it grows year on year, it offers youngsters the
tantalising chance to get famous without working for it. Bands did become
famous before reality T.V. The real starting
point for the grass-roots talent has been and forever will be pub and club
circuits, which, ironically, is where most of the X Factor contestants will end up anyways, playing a couple of shows
at Powerhouse and then calling it a day. It is still fairly compulsive viewing;
not because it has singers you can root for, and not because it is a showcase
for new music, but because nowhere else will you see such a towering,
glittering display of stupidity and futility. If you want to see talented singer-
songwriters, watch Later..., or go and see some up-and-comers on the pub
scene. If you want to see some grasping hacks try and get something for
nothing, tune in next saturday. I'll see you there.
No comments:
Post a Comment