Believe me, I get it. It’s vacuous nonsense. Simon Cowell is the devil and is single-handedly ruining the music industry. They’re all terrible, untalented shills, radio-friendly unit-shifters.
Except they’re not. Not really. Granted, I really dislike Cher, but Rebecca is clearly a pretty solid vocalist. And whilst Matt’s particular brand of whiny renditions of female pop covers isn’t exactly my cup of tea, he’s clearly just as worthy of a place in the charts as Willow f**king Smith’s god-awful tripe.
Because that is what this comes down to: if you hate The X Factor, it’s probably not really aimed at your demographic. The trouble arises in that cynical, jaded 16-65 males don’t buy pop songs, but everyone else does. There are near endless 16-year-old girls who love The Black Eye Peas and can’t wait to spend their pocket money on Cher’s single, just as there are mums everywhere that will definitely be listening to Matt’s album whilst making the tea, and loving every pedestrian minute of it.
Constant noise...
Just to retain a bit of credibility, here’s a link to my Last.fm profile. That’s right, I listen, on average, to 27 tracks a day. I’m pretty confident that is more than you, or at least sufficient to convince you that I ‘like’ music. Browse through the library, and you’ll see there’s only about 2% of it that is ever likely to bother the Top 40. So, not only do I listen to more music than most people, but it’s less commercial. Most of it is by no means obscure, but it’s certainly not the sort of albums Tesco are going to be stocking as loss-leaders.
I mention all of this because this year, for the first time ever, I watched X Factor most weeks, and sat on Facebook and Twitter and bitched about it, or discussed what I liked, or sniped about what I could do better. And for the most part, I had a really good time. It’s an excellent social activity. TV is mostly a passive experience, but this allowed communication and participation, without Simon Cowell (remember, he is the devil) profiting from my phone bill. The X Factor, whether we like it or not, is now a cultural touchstone. We can fight it all we like, but even without watching it last year, I know who JLS are. I’ve seen their branded condoms in Superdrug. I would almost certainly never buy a Leona Lewis album, but ‘Bleeding Love’ is a beautiful pop song, and she is a very, very talented singer. So instead of being a pretentious prick and sneering at it and those to enjoy it, just realise it’s not really for you, and it’s not going to hurt you. I prefer Biffy’s original too, but if it introduces a new audience to them or makes them a fortune in royalties, which it is now certain to do, we’re all winners.
So just relax. Calm the online petitions and ‘alternative Xmas number 1′ campaigns, cos SiCo will almost certainly profit from it all regardless.
To play us out: