I happened to catch the last 5 minutes of the X Factor final on Sunday. It was a complete accident, and I felt a bit dirty afterwards.
It struck me that the bloke who won (Tom someone?) is just a clone of previous winners. He reminded me of Gareth Gates, in both his appearance and singing voice - which was not particularly good, from what I saw, and was just the usual insipid white-boy "soul" voice which is the default for singers of this type. Along with Houston/Carey-esque wailing for the female contestants.
If Simon Cowell had his way, "pop stars" would be churned out on a conveyer belt.
Which got me thinking about genuinely talented musicians who would never have made it through the audition round of X Factor, let alone to the final, despite being self-evidently vastly more talented than the deluded waifs who do make it that far, all to the benefit of Cowell's obscene bank balance.
Here's the list:
Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Thom Yorke, David Bowie, Robert Smith, Beck, Roger Waters, Donald Fagen, Joni Mitchell, Ricky Lee Jones.
Who else is there who has more talent in their little finger than the typical X Factor contestant, but wouldn't make it on the show?
3 comments:
Er, You, Rage Against The Machine and Des O'Connor.
In essence I agree, BUT, that kid did sing better in earlier songs than he did at the end of the show.
As i'm forced by the will of my family to sit through this garbage on a weekly basis, I must say that this years bunch were better than other years.
As far as those who wouldn't have got through..... Well i'm not a Dylan fan anyway, so that wouldnt have been a loss for me. I recon though Bowie would have done well. His sound is his creation, but he can sing with excellent clarity when he chooses.
remember when he sang with Bing!?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKTHvW2JcAA
My problem with American Idol (don't know about X Factor) is that all the singers sound alike to me. Yes, the ones that reach the finals have good voices and they have to perform a range of rock/country/pop, etc., but there's nothing really unique about the voices. I agree that grittier voices would've never made it in this day and time. On the country-front: Johnny Cash, maybe? Willie Nelson?
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