The bloody X Factor

[Gluben]

What I'm about to say is something which I've been wanting to put into words and well-structured sentences for a long time. If you are a fan of the show, I advise you to cease reading immediately. And if you don't particularly like long-winded notes, then I suggest you also stop and do an about-turn now. For it is not pretty.

Now normally, I don't watch reality TV, as readers of my previous two Facebook notes will know, but I had a late dinner last night. I brought it into the lounge, and lo and behold, two of my other housemates had it on. ow don't start by going "if you don't like it, don't watch it". I haven't been for weeks, and as I was tired and felt it a bit rude to go back upstairs to eat, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Maybe I was too weak (or hungry) to protest, but the result was that we ended up watching the, er, result. At least I was spared the cringeworthiness of the first half. Of course, I mean no ill will towards Alexandra Berkshire, JML or Eggnog. The nerves someone must have performing to a large studio full of total strangers and nutcases is one that haunts every comedian, actor and professional musician, and it is totally understandable to break down into tears. But unfortunately, I cannot take their sides in this particular instance. For at least two of them were guilty of murdering a classic, truly stirring song - "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. Anyone who has heard the original, the Jeff Buckley version or the Rufus Wainwright version (even that other guy on the soundtrack of Shrek) could tell you that a skipping of two verses and a terrible key change does not a good song make.

Second thing to notice: the numbers for each contestant were flashed up three times! I think we all got it the first time, or at least have known for the last week (me not being one of "we", of course). Poor Dermot O'Leary must have had numbers tattooed all over his skin to help him through the evening, by the end of which he clearly wasn't interested in Alexandra's tears or JJB's joy at getting through to the final. He simply wanted to get down to his local before last orders were called.

Everything, as ever, is "the best voice/act/performance yet" or "the toughest competition/journey/battle we've ever had", and all the brief snatches of "How do you feel?" (could you ask a more obvious question?) are answered with emotion and crying about succeeding to win their "dream". I don't know about you, but my dreams are ones which exist in pure fantasy and feature goblins and my grandparents in an uncompromising position, with me scuttling through drainpipes as some sort of gerbil, seeking to find eternal solitude from my dead fish, who is swimming down a neverending corridor. This may reveal more about my warped mind than is necessary to know (I made all that up by the way, but I did have two pet fish once), but either way, everybody has their own strange visions and are a bit embarrassed to talk about them. Sigmund Freud, as much as I loathe him, would have had the quickest day of his life had he analysed 6 weeks of an X Factor performer. Because obviously, it was soooo hard to go to that luxury apartment/hotel/mansion and "grapple" with the drinks and the king-sized beds. It must've been incredibly difficult to make friends with your idols and possibly get a voice recording and an autograph to show to all your friends and put up for the highest bidder on eBay.

The lighting was as intense as you could get it without blowing a fuse, even going so far as to switch from a calm blue to an evil red and flash CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED, when, you know, the phone lines were closed, or "frozen" as Dermot so eloquently called them. And the audience couldn't have been any louder if you had done that trick Bart Simpson once did by putting 15 megaphones into each other and causing a sonic boom to reverberate across the world and create an earthquake in New Zealand. Poor Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole couldn't be heard over the shrieks and "WE LOVE YOU EGGY!". It was rather revealing that after Alexandra's final song, Louis Walsh was the only one sat down - conspiracy theories will grow about how he is bitter at losing, but my guess is that after several weeks of shouting, yelping and clapping, he needed a good rest.

So what will happen now? Well, what always happens, presumably. The Christmas no. 1 will be the usual schmaltzy cack, internet freaks will moan about how the lines were jammed or someone from five rounds back deserved it more, and Alexandra might well become unknown in about 9 months until she releases a new single (or it could be the reverse, with JCB becoming internationally known for a bit), by which point the 2009 contest (shamelessly promoted at the very end of the show) will be well underway, complete with all the "hilarious" auditions and soap opera sadness. And maybe one or two of the judges will leave, come back, leave again, come back again, and be the source of 4 months worth of tabloid fodder for The Sun to capitalise on. Oh, and Simon "Codpiece" Cowell will be even richer.

But the most depressing thing about it all is the willingness, the sheer stupidity, the utter "people power" that is the general public. How can 12 million people become hooked on it, scientifically? Maybe it's more revealing that only 8 million voted, so what did the other third of the audience do? Perhaps they almost gained the resistance that some of us had right at the beginning when we already knew the outcome.

I'm sure all of this has been said already, and in a much more cohesive manner, and Mr Impossibly-White-Toothed Cowell doesn't care anymore. In a way, I can see where he's coming from. He's earned his money and has the right to disregard his critics, and I'm sure in a quiet room, he is as nice a man as you could expect, and the onscreen persona is just that, an onscreen "nasty" persona. In fact, I rather like his witty put-downs of idiotic families who think that little Christina can sing like an angel, but actually wails like Gracie Fields. But underneath that charmlessly smooth and slick exterior lies the brain of an evil genius at work. His smugness knows no bounds, and his wallet knows no bottom, and that is my problem, both with him and the music industry and record companies. No wonder good bands want to leave them. Almost everything about them reeks of a lack of creativity and a hell of a lot of tampering. Demographics, market research and target audiences (which I intend to talk about in another note) are the order of the day. And even more annoyingly, they fall for it. I know of no teenager who wants to buy this new midnight single (except maybe one of my cousins). That could be down to my upbringing or who I befriend, but I'd like to think that this silent majority of sane non-watchers is growing, or has grown considerably.

Could we fight back? Undoubtedly. Whether it would work or not is another matter. But it's time for a bit of hostility. The sooner we stop watching these ridiculous shows, the sooner they will fade from our screens. And that, ladies and gentlemen, can only be a good thing. A very good thing indeed.

[iSon]

Rather ironic given the subject, but the message stands:

[Gluben]

Rather ironic given the subject, but the message stands:

Oh I have a separate post for that monstrosity. I wrote it at the time of John Sergeant's departure (from the show, not the world), but it's still applicable now. I may well put that up here too.

Anyway, thank you very much indeed, it's an absolute dream to see a set of perfect 10s, I'm overwhelmed, it's been such an incred...oh, wait, must stop myself.

[Stuart*]

I call Nini. She may watch 'strictly', 'jungle' or any other 'celeb-fest', but I do take her word as gospel on these matters.

[lukey]

Thank you for this post - it's made a lovely start to my Sunday

I was thinking of doing the same but feared it would fall on deaf ears. I've never properly watched The X Factor, but obviously one has an unavoidable awareness of it. I should be able to quite easily - just - ignore - it, and yet I can't. Unfortunately it makes me irrationally angry, and finding out that this year's christmas turd would be a cover of Hallelujah was much more difficult to stomach than something so trivial really should be.

I've been bracing myself for the likelihood that one of my housemates will end up buying it and playing it ad nauseum, and I know I'm going to end up shouting at them, and there will be a lot of complaining that she's allowed to play what she wants to, and I know I won't really have anywhere to go from there, but it doesn't really take away from the swelling rage at the cynical musical massacre which crescendos every bitter Christmas, churning out predictably high-selling cock with no merit. And everyone says "that's just the music business" and all I can think is, that's 'just' the music business if you actively seek out churned out crap which is tuned to the best-fitting demographic, but seem people, some bloody people, actually dig deeper and look for music which is - good. And the most fucked up thing about this good music? The people making it will, will, GIVE it to you, right, because they WANT you to listen to it, to like it, to share it. And it's brilliant!

But no. We have our winner.

Great.

[marksi]

At any point from tomorrow (Monday) please buy Geraldine's Christmas song. It's only 69p on Amazon for the 256kbps MP3 file. It would be rather excellent if the X Factor shite was not number one this Christmas.

While you're there, Sir Terry and Aled's Little Drummer Boy isn't half bad either. And both songs are raising some money for charideee.

[Charlie Wells]

At any point from tomorrow (Monday) please buy Geraldine's Christmas song. It's only 69p on Amazon for the 256kbps MP3 file. It would be rather excellent if the X Factor shite was not number one this Christmas.

While you're there, Sir Terry and Aled's Little Drummer Boy isn't half bad either. And both songs are raising some money for charideee.

For what it's worth there's a group on Facebook of over 50,000 members planning to download Rick Astley's infamous song to try and get that to number one.

[Sput]

Now THAT is music! I think the X-Factor is a nice symbol of the desperation faced by both ITV and the music industry. Both are terrified about niche things and the internet, and this is a tried-and-tested method of getting lazy slobs to (a) watch their shitty channel and (b) buy their shitty music through some mis-placed sense of loyalty to one contestant. In a way it's brilliant: building instant backstories and creating that idea that the audience somehow gets what it wants but it's mainly desperate and faintly depressing that they're now relying on the same trick year after year. How long has it been now? It's the same sort of feeling I get from Channel 4 with Big Brother. They're just so out of ideas they're scared to change the formula because it might mean they get a bit less money. Either way, we lose.

[marksi]

At any point from tomorrow (Monday) please buy Geraldine's Christmas song. It's only 69p on Amazon for the 256kbps MP3 file. It would be rather excellent if the X Factor shite was not number one this Christmas.

While you're there, Sir Terry and Aled's Little Drummer Boy isn't half bad either. And both songs are raising some money for charideee.

For what it's worth there's a group on Facebook of over 50,000 members planning to download Rick Astley's infamous song to try and get that to number one.

It's only got 1115 members. Unless lots of them have suddenly left.

[Charlie Wells]

At any point from tomorrow (Monday) please buy Geraldine's Christmas song. It's only 69p on Amazon for the 256kbps MP3 file. It would be rather excellent if the X Factor shite was not number one this Christmas.

While you're there, Sir Terry and Aled's Little Drummer Boy isn't half bad either. And both songs are raising some money for charideee.

For what it's worth there's a group on Facebook of over 50,000 members planning to download Rick Astley's infamous song to try and get that to number one.

It's only got 1115 members. Unless lots of them have suddenly left.

Not too sure whether there's another group, however this is the Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37655682127
...currently has 53,347 members.

[JonathanEx]

So, the campaigns for Song's To Beat The X Bloody Factor To Number 1...

Geraldine 'Once Upon a Christmas Song'
Wogan and Aled 'Little Drummer Boy'
Rick Astley 'Never Gonna Give You Up' (Facebook group)
The Blanks (Ted's band from Scrubs) 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' (Facebook group)
Jeff Buckley 'Hallelujah"

And that's just off the top of my head. There'll be so many 'get this song to number 1!' campaigns that none of them actually will.