X Factor

When you type Cher into predictive text your phone gives you the word AIDS. I type in the name of an anorexic, slightly talented, faux gangster, badly dressed, teenage X factor finalist and I get an acronym for a virulent, deadly, immune system destroying virus. Is this just a spooky coincidence or does it run deeper?
After all, both Cher and AIDS are known for fucking over Africans. Things like this give me pause to ponder, as does X factor as a phenomenon.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve said a lot of nasty things about Cher, uncalled for and cruel things. However, if I’m honest Cher and I have a lot in common. Every Sunday she’s as shocked as me that she’s still in the competition.
I don’t know what it is about her that I hate the most. It could be the stupid clothes, the ludicrous eyebrows or just the fact that she only has a mediocre voice yet wants to be a grimy gangsta rapper when actually she still lives at home with her mum and dad and isn’t even badass enough to finish her dinner. It could one or all of these things but what really winds me up is her ‘attitude’.
Cheryl sees attitude, I see a surly teenager who would probably throw you the same pout if you told her to tidy her room. What really irks is this girl personifies the X factor ‘dream’, the dream of fame and riches and adulation that would be all the more attainable if she could sing better.
All of this year’s finalists are afflicted with the same starry eyed malaise. When they were kids, and they all pretty much said this word for word on Saturday, they wanted to be the centre of attention and subsequently found, when they sang, they were the centre of attention.
Few of them have made the leap, that there is a world of difference between a five year old being applauded by friends and family for singing along badly to a CD and a professional performer earning a living off the patronage of total strangers. Yes, they may indeed have a dream, yet whether or not this dream can be realised in the cold, cut throat world of the music industry is another matter completely.
Diana Vickers is finding this out now as she’s being taken to court by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers having plagiarised one of their best known songs.
Storm Lee is the latest to have his dream ripped out from under him. Here we have a thirty eight year old man with no talent of which to speak of, who has devoted his whole life to music and gotten nowhere. He changed his name to Storm, that didn’t work. He dyed his hair bright red for the show but for some unfathomable reason this didn’t save him. Despite all these effort he was ultimately undermined by his lack of talent. But surely as a man in his late thirties, having sung all his life, surely he must have heard a recording of his own voice. Surely a friend, a mate, would have taken him aside and told him that wasn’t really that good. No doubt this has probably happened in Storms ‘career’ and no doubt he ignored it because it clashed with the dream.
Diva Fever were equally delusional. They put their exit down to a poor choice of song. Not to their inability to sing it. Jimi Hendrix took the Star Spangled Banner and, at six o’clock on a Woodstock morning, he wrangled it into America’s musical and cultural history. With the crowbar of talent and inspiration, in front of a few thousand fucked up and sleep deprived hippies he took a dry, patriotic, ‘square’ piece of music and spun it on its head. So much so the event is still remembered and talked about today. FORTY ONE YEARS LATER.
By comparison we have already forgotten FYD. Our discretion said no.
X factor is generally a girl thing. Women are gentler and considerably more compassionate than men so therefore a little more inclined to indulge someone’s poor career choice for fear of upsetting them. But time and time again I can see that X factor is warping their minds. The Girlf, who is normally quite down to earth and straight forward, sat me down today and explained to me it was irrelevant that One Direction couldn’t harmonise because little girls like little boys and were voting for them in droves. My response was men like tits so if grown men were ringing and voting for the girls purely on the size of their breasts would that be equally valid. I got told to shut up.
My point was that a lot of support for the acts is based on their fuckabilty. Aiden seems to be the shows heartthrob even though when he sings he looks like a psycho horse with Jedward's hair. For some reason when someone appears on telly people find them more attractive than they actually are. Aiden looks like a horse, Katie looks like a man, and Matt looks like a painter and decorator, which is fine because he is a painter and decorator. Cher looks a startled Punch and Judy puppet.
One Direction look like they shouldn’t be out so late yet I’ve heard women comment on how cute they are. They are children and grown women are counting the days until they look like less of a freak when the say they fancy them.

The depressing and inevitable fact is one of these young, talent free fucks, will win it. Rebecca’s good but it’ll depend on how much of a fan base she can build up. Black singers don’t normally do too well. John’s alright but Paije is a one trick pony.
The real star, the real talent is Mary whose voice is outstanding, but Mary is fifty and fat. I would love it but I’d be surprised if she got into the finally three.
What would be great, just for my amusement, would be Wagner going all the way. He can’t sing to save his life but he’s clearly insane. He’s a fifty six year old, former lion tamer, who swears at the crew in Portuguese when they try and tell him anything.

What isn’t there to love?