Saturday 14 April 2012

The X Factor


This year’s X-Factor has been rife with controversy. We’ve had bullying, drug allegations, contestants being brought back, judges fighting and contestants surviving on just twenty minutes of sleep per night. If social-networking site Twitter is anything to go by, then not only has the nation not enjoyed this series but they have also cottoned on to how fixed the whole event is. The general public have seen through the sob stories and the tricks that the editorial room play.

And yet The Human has still seen fit to make me watch this rubbish on a weekly basis.

Imagine my delight then, when, for the first part of the final – yes, there are two parts, presumably as a way to make more money out of the general public because after three months ITV and Simon Cowell can’t have earned enough to buy a crust, poor lambs – Degu HQ had no volume on ITV. It was potentially the best night of X-Factor this season. Even better, by the time the delinquent humanbean with whom I live had fixed the problem we were just in time for the adverts.

It says a great deal about this year’s X-Factor that, in order to make it big and to keep the public interested, they had to take the final to Wembley. They also had to lure the general public there with promises of performances from platinum selling artists. What troubled me was that we had been watching the programme for twenty-seven minutes on Saturday night and only heard from one of the three finalists. I’m not saying that the whole event is an exercise in time wasting and money-making, but…

River Deep, Mountain High

Controversially Amelia Lily, who had been voted off quite early on in the series but voted back in after Frankie Cocaina left, made it to the final, and with that incredible voice she deserved to be there. Her rendition of “Ain’t No Other Man” by Christina Aguilera was a great improvement on the original and her duet with Kelly Rowland of Tina Turner’s “River Deep” was a real festival of singing talent. If anything, I’d say that Miss Lily out-performed her mentor. I am disappointed that she did not survive the first night of the final, but then she was lacking the necessary sob-story to guarantee her a place in any reality-television final.

Last Christmas I gave you my vote…this year I’ll give it to someone special

For my money, not that I have much, being a degu, it was Liverpuddlian Marcus Collins who deserved to win. His rendition of Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” was a great way to kick start the final. It would have been a better way to kick start the final had it been in tune, but one can’t have everything.

Despite the expense – there’s that word again! – of the lavish staging (faux aeroplane) and numerous backing singers and dancers this was a distinctly average performance. Indeed, it only got worse for Marcus when he dueted with his mentor, Take That’s Gary Barlow; their rendition of “She’s Always A Woman” by Billy Joel left me vomming in my cage, wondering whether I could use my own vomit as a cover for escape a la Pat Reid.

You’ve got the marketability, err, love

My cynicism peaked with the performances of Little Mix. I am not a fan of girl-group-teeny-bop-pop anyway, but their post-Lily Allen “let’s all sing in a cockney accent and deliberately make it sound as discordant as possible” style is one that I simply do not get. What I want to know is how they have gone from being four teens who can't sing to performers. Hmmm…

Para Para Paradise . . . is when the professionals show up


The highlight of the two nights was watching the “guest” celebrities perform. I was astonished to see Leona Lewis singing on British television, we only paid for her to win the X-Factor after all. She showed outstanding loyalty to those members of the British public who did vote for her by heading to the USA within minutes of winning the competition herself. I felt truly privileged to hear her again. Until she started singing, and then I remembered how boring she was as a competitor on the show and why I didn’t vote for her then (and frankly wouldn’t now, either). Indeed, Michael Bublé may have been the only artist to hit all the right notes and do a quality performance on the first night of the final, and then, on the second night, Coldplay exhibited a winning combination of performance, song-writing talent and musicianship; things that this series of X-Factor had been entirely lacking until that moment.

Personally I was with Olly Murs, a runner-up from the past, who took to downing cocktails named after the finalists in order to survive the final. Such a good idea that I seriously considered doing the same; actually, Mr Murs’ adlibbing was so entertaining that I was on the verge of telephoning ITV and asking them to open a separate line so that we could vote Murs all over again.

Floating like a cannonball…

The winner’s song, Damian Rice’s “Canonball”, seemed apt to me. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, the noise coming from the television was so aurally offensive that I seriously considered tying a cannonball around my paws and jumping in a river. Secondly, both finalists really did float like cannonballs, delivering performances that made my heart sink, plummeting to the same murky depths as their professional prowess.

Who won the competition does not matter. (It was Little Mix.) Inevitably marketability won out over talent and the real loser was not the runner-up, but the Great British public who had to suffer hearing Mr Rice’s song murdered for a second time. It was at this point that I chirruped loudly, a chirrup meant to denote that if the channel was not changed soon then bitings would occur.

I suggest that we all take a long hard look at the girls who make up “Little Mix”; the so-called “winners”. The next time you see those well-rounded and normal British teens they will be pop starlets. They will have been styled, personally trained and photo-shopped. Their innocence and youthful exuberance will be lost. They will be skeletally thin and have personalities the colour of beige as the deliver the gospel according to Cowell in every interview. Their individuality is lost along with the souls that they have now signed over to X-Factor…

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