So – The X Factor returns as the summer begins its inevitable slide towards death.
Simon Cowell and his assembled panel of wantwits return to our screens with a highly-scripted, highly-laboured and horrifically brash singing competition and, as the overwhelmingly histrionic opening announces the new audition format, it’s almost as if this endless bombast of fast edits and glaring, red-light humiliation has never been away.
It’s twenty minutes before we get to see an actual audition as the show is so involved in sucking its own balls. It also knows, with an hour-and-a-half as its full run-time, it can spend forever describing how these are the hardest, most terrifying auditions yet seen on The X Factor. The new format, in which the potential participants audition in front of an arena full of morons, is nicked straight from Cowell’s own Britain or America’s Got Talent – so it’s not any kind of revelation. But clearly it deserves 1,200 seconds devoted to describing it.
They do, in their defence, take time to introduce the same panel of judges as they had last time. Soulless clothes-horse and alleged singing sensation Cheryl Cole stares down the lens like a baffled horse. Louis Walsh bristles with fear as the camera lights up his curious non-face. Cowell sneers towards the screen before his grimace falls into a new-tooth smarm and Danni Minogue stares straight ahead like a taxidermist’s prized case study.
And here’s Dermot O’Leary. Lovable ol’ DOL – selling his presenter soul for coin – that matey affection schtick now drifting into self-parody. He shows us that a massive amount of people have queued up to take part in this shit, and they all cross their forearms like the hammers in Pink Floyd’s The Wall, as though they’re hanging about for the Nuremburg organisers to let folk start rallying.
Looking at the clock, so far, the format’s been:
- Intro
- Catch up
- Ad break
- Catch up…
…and we haven’t seen a single act in twenty minute as the whole production’s been too busy auto-fellating itself to remember the point of The X Factor’s existence.
Eventually the first audition kicks off and it feels like the new stage-setting may take some getting used to. Where before the only reaction to how horrendous / impressive the singers were came from the four familiar faces, you now have to get your head around thousand of children and infantile adults getting themselves into a frenzy if they like someone or baying for blood if the stage-bound warbler don’t impress them much. It feels like it’s stripped the show of any sliver of charm it might previously have had. If someone’s bloody awful, you’re more disgusted by the reaction of the audience with their chants and their booing than you are by the singing mess you just heard. If someone puts in a good audition, you end up wanting them to fall off the stage and injure themselves, just to stop the interminable whooping of Joe Public. And the worst thing is, this feeling manifests itself the minute the first act steps on stage – so it looks like it’s downhill all the way from here for the new look X Factor.
The first audition has arrived. The Dream Girls are a pair of Lithuanian immigrants who summon memories of the Cheeky Girls. They moved to the UK simply for this opportunity, they say. When they take to the stage, they plough into Robbie Williams’ Angels like a knackered steamroller. One of them can vaguely carry a tune but the other blows all hope with a low-end whinny that scrapes against the nation’s collective eardrum. It was a terrible performance – laughable, really – but the real question is whether or not it deserved the response it drew from the crowd.
After much piggish groaning and mockery, during which it was possible to feel the full spectrum of shame involved in being British, we suffered one of those Yes-No-Montage-Blurs in which they rush through other auditionees too unremarkable to give a full feature to. It’s strange that a talent show should feature the names, backstories, age and professions (or lack of) of those not allowed through to the next stage whilst great swathes of successful contestants only get a flashed clip of themselves being accepted, without us hearing a note of their performance.
Very strange indeed.
Luke Bailey, Allison Collim and an old man named Steve destroy a song each and are booted out the back door (but not before we learn their name, location and pub of choice) and the disappointment is now at full, relentless throttle. Any excitement at watching the opening show of what will be an endless series is now far, far adrift and cynicism becomes the only filter it can be viewed through. It’s impossible to take it seriously in any way from this point on.
Here comes Stacey Solomon to lift the spirits – a nineteen year old student from Dagenham who loves being a single mum because it means she can do anything she wants! Hooray!
Everyone expects Stacey to be dreadful but she can sing. And she’s very pretty, with a large aquiline nose that is somehow the sexiest hooter in nasal history. After they tell her she’s through, the production moves on to Manchester – as if there’s any real chronology to how they edit this stuff together.
Another Yes-No-Montage-Blur and some girls in blue get through, along with a man in a leather jacket. Clearly their victory is unimportant as we don’t dwell on their success. The reason being that Emma Chorder is in the house.
Remember Emma? She’s the obese girl who turned up on her own last time, wearing what Simon called a ‘wedding dress’. She patently couldn’t sing, and was asked to leave. But this series she returns with her sister in a new act called, imaginatively, Sister Act. Emma tells Dermot that she is currently living in a car, having been evicted from her flat ‘for singing in the street at three in the morning. What’s more, she’s sharing the five-seater with her sister, ‘a dog, a cat and a bird’.
They sing Hero by Mariah Carey and, naturally, it’s an assault on the ears. It’s unclear why they ever turned up but there’s the sneaking suspicion they were asked to, or encouraged to. They certainly weren’t dissuaded. In fact, they were paraded. And that’s the real problem with The X Factor as a whole. It’s extremely cruel. There’s no doubt these people are being laughed at and, even watching it objectively as you and I no doubt were, we’re still contributing to this culture of nastiness. And we’re contributing to the coin in Cowell’s pocket. It’s unarguably a grubby state of affairs.
Next, a sexless gnome called Joe from South Shields gets through thanks to Cheryl Cole having been born in proximity to where he lives. And it’s pretty obvious he’s another one of those acts that’s been pre-groomed by Cowell.
It stinks!
Next we travel to Glasgow, where an awful little man called Kyle loves Cheryl. Despite this, he is rejected. We move on to some twins, a pair of Eraserheads with David Lynch quiffs, all dressed up like the Double take brothers. They come on and bizarrely start rousing the audience into life with Americanisms. ‘It’s really great to be here tonight’ they holler, self-assured, as though this is their night. Cowell is unimpressed and gives them a ‘no’. I can’t remember if they got through based on the other votes.
The next Yes-No-Blur causes some kind of meltdown and it’s impossible to see the rest of the show as anything other than an elongated montage filled with loosely edited and unrelated audition nuggets. A bearded man called Roy Robson is ejected. A young man flanked by his bitches in an outfit called Triple Trouble storms of the stage, hurling his microphone to the floor. A girlband called RTI murder a Supremes tune. A man called Nathan wears a chicken hat and insults Simon. Another pair of gay twins wander on and don’t get through, despite Louis declaring his love for them. It’s all a big mess of flashing lights and horrible clip-juxtaposition.
Finally, we take a breath and the show focuses on returnee Dwayne who, after singing a classic, is made to sing something current. A tad unfair, asking him to sing an unprepared number, but Dwayne pulls it off and the audience go crazy-happy. It’s pure pantomime and feels incredibly staged. In fact, as he wanders off triumphant to the instrumental sections of Wires by Athlete, you can’t help but remember the lyrics to that very tune. ‘You’ve got wires going in, you’ve got wires coming out of your skin… through corridors and automatic doors’…
It sounds less like a song about a baby on a life-support machine and more a vision of Dwayne’s future as an androgynous, robotic Cowell-drone. It’s unintentionally apt.
More Yes-No-Montages and a sequence in which Simon is shown to be really angry with the standard of the performances, even though they probably cobbled together some clips of really bad auditions and put them in order to inject some dramatic tension into proceedings, making the last act of the day, Danyl Johnson (nope – not the good one), seem better than he actually is. And overshadow Dwayne’s earlier achievement, somewhat unreasonably.
Danyl blows the house down, weirdly being allowed to sing a full song. He blasts his way through a Joe Cocker-style version of I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends which features backing singers on the DAT – offering the man an advantage not available to the other acts. Cowell and co get to their feet and applaud the singing teacher as a way of signing off episode one of this artificial, poorly thrown together confection with a bang.
If you missed it, don’t worry. It’s always on ITV2 and will be forever, until your life is over, until the day the world finally ends. It’s back, and it’s clinging on like a determined limpet with fish-hook fingers.
84 Comments
Apparently he’s called Danyl Johnson. An offensive spelling of the name Daniel. He was proper fit though.
Would’ve been funnier if it had actually been Daniel Johnston.
Edited to be accurate, despite that stupid spelling of what was a perfectly decent name.
Stacey was proper fit.
WE’RE FALLING INTO THEIR TRAP
I like the bits where Louis Walsh pretends he’s never me the Irish acts he probably has managed since the age of eight. And surprisingly sticks up for them in the face of all criticism.
In fact I’ve had issues with this ever since Nadine from Girls Aloud LIED on Irish Pop Idol. LIED. Like a lying liar.
I watched that episode of Irish Idol and was glad to hear Nidine (Nadine? whatever they call her) was street-legal.
How many people will choose “You Raise Me Up” as their song this series, I wonder? It makes me do my nut.
At least before in the closed auditions you could vaguely accept the judges’ mockery of these people as they had some sort of tenuous background in the music world. And there were only 4 of them. I don’t really fancy watching 2,500 shitgibbons that I would go great lengths to avoid in everyday life laughing at the latest freakshow, particularly when some of the people coming up onto stage don’t seem to be all there in the first place – much like Danni Minogue’s range of facial expressions, in fact.
They might as well amalgamate this with “Britain’s Got Talent” and run it all year. Fuck…
Why don’t they just cut out the ‘good’ acts and merge the two as you suggest, calling it ‘Britain’s Full of Idiots’. All morons, all performing badly, all the time.
I hope neither an Irish nor a woman wins this year’s The X Factorings, thanks a lot. It’s about time we had another Steve Brookwallader (I think that’s his name) on our hands, and not some copy of Mariah Carey.
Mariah’s got GREAT tits.
Those eraserhead twins were truly awful, like sh*t clones of Eoghan Quigg with stupid big hair attached. They made me want to punch my telly…
They’re all searching the internet, you know? Those two swollen monstrosities; that ‘crew’ of children who wanted to show British teenagers aren’t all violent psychos by threatening Simon Cowell on national TV; them twins wot should of been drowned from birth, they’re all looking for themselves. I bet at least one turns up on here, I bet.
I hope they are, it’d be nice to talk to them. I haven’t got many friends.
BNPTV
I don’t want to be friends with that Scotch Girls Aloud fan. I found myself roaring ‘WE USED TO HAVE A FUCKING EMPIRE!’ as that mincing little prick did his ‘performance’ for the skeletal Madame Cole.
I think in these times of recession they could save money both for themselves and Britain’s masses of talentless wannabees by having the auditions for both in the same place, churn through all the bad ones for X-Factor, then have them go off stage left, grab a unicycle or a trombone and run back on to do their Britain’s Got Talent audition too. Saves a lot of bus fares, and they can just use the same supercomputer that does all the flashy stuff on The Cube to put on the graphics for each show afterwards.
Peter – are you saying The X Factor is like BNP Television? That’s a hard one to argue… though they did send some Lithuanian immigrants packing, I suppose.
The Cube – now THERE’S a show.
X-Factor = laughing at the mentally ill.
I have to cleanse myself afterwards.
But didn’t he have such a ballsy attitude? No? What, he was just a f*cking rude idiot… Bless him and his feisty nature eh…
And also, Sister Act are both hairdressers. How? At the risk of being fattist, how could they get close enough to cut someone’s hair? And who would want them to?
I swear I’ve seen those two Lithuanians in a dirty movie before. Maybe not those exact Lithuanians, but very similar ones. ‘Modelling’ over in Eastern Europe’s a euphamism for ‘P0rn Actress’.
They’ve turned the show into shit! That’s an hour and a half of my life I’ll never get back.
Anybody else think Danyl looks like one of the freaky folk from the drugs drinking advert? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8207212.stm
These ones?
A bit.
BBC news featured this yesterday. A researcher had gone “undercover” as a contestant and hadn’t made it past the X Factor researchers.
It was a very odd piece. BBC trying to “dis” an ITV show, then looking a little awkward.
My glib soundbite was really just expressing my concern that the whole crowd shouting and booing and cheering at those they perceive to be below them / hold up as great stars has more than the slightest fascist whiff about it.
I mentioned Nuremburg in the review, Peter – I’m onside with that one.
Nick – I just read that article. I thought it was quite interesting to see how hard it is to see the actual judges…
I watched X-factor this weekend after two series of not watching. Safe to say I’ll not be watching again for a few years. Found it truly dreadful – padded out like mad and up its arse with its own importance. The sad thing is that it’ll get great ratings, the Christmas number one, and Cowell will continue his world domination, on his way to becoming the devil incarnate.
Now, how to avoid it from now until Xmas – just hope something decent turns up on the other channels I guess.
Unless one is “entertaining” ie dreadful SH
I like the Daily Mash’s take on the name, ‘Britain Must Be Stopped’. Sounds about right…
I once copped off with one of Girls Aloud in a kitchen at a party, which just goes to show that they have no quality control whatsoever. Is Simon still doing terrible things to danii this year?
I only saw bits of the show (just enough to make me feel sad and ever so slightly cheapened!) but just have to ask – did anyone manage to make Cheryl Cole cry? The old “sob story-cry-sing-get through” formula is one they have used before, just wondered if they were trotting it out for the first episode.
Jamie – You didn’t like it because it didn’t contain any black pudding, whippets, clogs, TB, muck that with a little investigation reveals brass, dark satanic mills, the dangers of traversing Ilkley Moor without a hat, ‘proper’ fish and chips, barely-concealed racism, tin baths, ferrets, flat caps or Christmas cake eaten, inexplicably, with cheese.
Literally, how easy is it to get a standing ovation nowadays?
*stands and claps*
Yeah, quite easy.
How dare you resort to lazy stereotyping Napolean. Now if thou’ll excuse me, I’m off to t’working mens club to have a sup of ale and watch t’entertainment there – we’ve got the black and white minstrels playing tonight – always a favourite here.
Interceptor – I got off with the rest of Girls Aloud in the master bedroom while you were wasting your time in the kitchen.
When are they going to introduce lions to the X Factor?
I like the idea of the show – I love seeing people singing, having a go, and I like to applaud their efforts and enjoy the gems. But so often this show is not about applauding efforts – it is about mocking them, and I don’t like that, or the way that it seems acceptable these days. I would prefer judges who said thank-you for showing up, etc, and found something nice to say to even those they told were not good enough. I don’t mean lie. I just mean show common dencency and good manners. Which are no longer common. We copy what other people do – like the judges. The comments of a lot of people here are hurtful and mean – the contestants are real people, who could well read their comments and be hurt. I wish we cared more about people and less about our “right” to be as rude and uncaring as we want these days.
Jamie – I forgot old women with gigantic bosoms, cricket, beef dripping, cobbles, ‘proper’ beer that isn’t like that piss they drink in that London, Yorkshire puddings as big as wheels, lung cancer, race riots, lamping, brown sauce, brown bread, drystone walls and the fact you may as well be dead if you weren’t born within the borders of God’s Own Country©.
You people make me sick. And I’m one of you.
*is sick*
Sarah – I agree. From now on we should all live in a marshmallow world full of pillows and puddings. As we dance, hand-in-hand, along Lollypop Lane, we can stop occasionally and smell the bubblegum flowers.
That said, those two girls up there should be leathered to within an inch of their lives with hot wet towels.
Pilchard-everyone knows the real party is always in the kitchen.
Which one off of Girls Aloud did you do, Interceptor? Was it the one made out of milk, the Happy Shopper Mariah Cary, the man, the racist cadaver or the other one?
And was bum fun on the cards?
*weaves daiseys into Napoleon’s hair*
*skips with kittens*
*faints*
Come to think of it, it’s funny that the one out of girls aloud who beat up the toilet attendant WASN’T actually the one from Yorkshire. She let the side down there.
She did a bit. At least she had the decency to come from the North East, mind. They’re all louts up there.
Which one was the violent one?
I used to be in Girls Aloud; maybe it was me that Interceptor copped off with.
Until they threw me out for lying.
Nick – The violent one is the one wot looks like she lives on one stick of celery per day. She’s off of Girls Aloud.
Fourstar – Which one were you?
I’ve just ‘tubed ‘Sister Act’
There really is no excuse to have them on. To be honest the fat one on the right needs some sort of medical help and re-parading her on XF isn’t going to help her. Quite shocking actually.
If there was a gun pointing at my head, I’d go for the fat one on the left.
If there was a gun pointing at my head I’d ask them to kindly point it at the fat one on either the left or right
Sarah does have a point. It does seem that alot of TV progrms do denograte people. Whether it be Dragos den, The apprentice, that dreadful prog with Anne Robinson etc. If people were to talk to us like that at work or in the street we would certainly not be happy.
(exception to the rule is mate piss takes).
Nonetheless nobody forces these people on TV so they do not what the consequences might be. However it might be in societies interest if there was more politeness as an exemplar. So I am with Sarah on this one. Thanks so much for coming, but you need to do more work on your act/business proposal/whatever.
I’d close my eyes, think of England and get stuck in, Crispybits.
Anyone fancy making me a coffee? Seeing as Her Ladyship fucking won’t, like.
DINLT – I bet you’re on the Sex Offender’s Register.
A lot of errors in my post above.
No Nap I am not.
Yes you are.
I have an idea.
Seeing as how the Premier League is turning into a big pantomime, why not play each match and then all the players could line up in front of a panel of celebrity judges who would then rip their performance to pieces and decide who should win and take the three points.
It would be brilliant and the FA/UEFA/FIFA could fix it any way they wished and nobody would care.
‘I think I’m ready’
‘ok, off you go…’
‘Thank you…’
*smiles nervously, takes breath, looks down then up, beathes in…*
‘Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit cl… Sorry Simon’
*farts arc of bloody excrement all over Danni Minogues forehead, ear and shoulder*
‘God, Danni, I’m so sorry. Sorry babes.’
I reckon England CHEATED in the Ashes. Australia should of won.
I’m sorry, Napoleon, but…
“SHOULD OF?”
Who knew the vagina had a “natural flora”
Anyone?
Sorry, Jerry Kyle ad break…..
That’s right, Fourstar:
‘SHOULD OF’
How’s THEM apples suiting you?
*speaks to Dermot*
‘Ugh, I don’t know what happend, Dermot. I think it must’ve been something I ate, possibly Ebola. I’m so embarassed!’
‘and it’s been quite a journey for you to get here…’
‘Yes *sniff* my great grandfather passed away last year at 98 after dying peacefully in his sleep in his Queen Anne bed at his Georgian mansion in Buckinghamshire leaving the family riches and land beyond our dreams. Have you filled up yet? Simon?’
‘I’m crying like a ruddy horse here, I think you should let him through anyway, Simon’
‘You’re through, but next time, please try not to follow through!’
*audience laughs*
‘I love you guys, thanks. Sorry, Danni’
‘It’s okay, cobber’
Australia should of tried bowling them apples; they’d of done a lot betterer.
Hahahahahahahahaha we won the Ashes.
You won the Ashes? Which one were you?
has anyone mentioned how SH did a blog-bit, then repeat/remind about the blog bit in his post? Was it intentional??? Was it satire SH???
I was the one on the left, next to Cheryl Cole. Do keep up.
BM – I pointed people at the bug eyed drug driving post I wrote rather than at the FAR INFERIOR write up on the BBC. It makes perfect sense.
Fourstar – Does that make you Ashley Cole? If it does, then I want 110% out of you on the park this Saturday, lad. There’s no room in my squad for time-wasters, not if we’re to stand a chance of staying at the top of the First Division this season.
*adjusts comb-over*
It’s the craze that’s sweeping the nation!
No, the other side. With the beret and the wooden leg.
Personally I do not think we could have won it without 4*.
Well done 4*!
Mind you..those final wickets went down as I changed from Stella to Fosters in my local. I can’t help but think this might have played a part in the victory.
SH:
“It’s twenty minutes before we get to see an actual audition as the show is so involved in sucking its own balls.”
Then:
“Looking at the clock, so far, the format’s been:
Intro
Catch up
Ad break
Catch up…
…and we haven’t seen a single act in twenty minute as the whole production’s been too busy auto-fellating itself to remember the point of The X Factor’s existence.”
Satire or bad memory?
Michael Crawford?
Neither… Sorry if it reads badly, I’ll refund your ticket later.
Cocks?
no it reads fine sh, *grabs handbag* i just thought you were being super-awesom-o clever, instead of your usual very clever indeed.
What can I say, BM? That kind of self-reflexive ingenious wordplay spews out of me without me realising, completely by mistake and without me even realising several hours later.
TREASURE ME.
Thanks DINLT – in fact, out in the middle I was informed of your lager choice and it inspired me to take that last wicket under the helmet (stop sniggering) at short leg.
So yes, we, that is to say me and you, won the Ashes.
oh, i do. always.
helloooo!
despite its many and myriad failings i shall be watching nearly all the xfactors.
stacey rocks, stacey to win!
danyl was a plant. a plant, i say.
that geordie dude = a bit repulsive. i also could never vote for someone called dwayne, sorry.
‘You gotta be in it to win it,’ they say.
I was in it, I didn’t win it.
haha lol theres another time
hi everyone i am alexs who win the xfactor last year u all ok
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