Britain’s Biggest Baddest Bad loser

(Or the real reason the UK fell out of love with the X-Factor!)

So the third rule of war that pretty much everyone knows is:  Never, ever start a war on two fronts.  That is the third rule if you’ve seen “The Princess Bride”, the first two of which are never start a land war in Asia and never go up against a Scicilian when death is on the line.  Now, as I mentioned, the third rule of war is one of those that everyone knows, except three sets of people ...Megalomaniacs ...US Presidents ...And Simon Cowell.

Over the last twelve months or so, after splitting himself a tad thin with “Britain’s got talent”, “American Idol”, “X-factor” and setting up “X-factor USA” Simon Cowell decided to ditch the anchor that no doubt he saw as finally holding him back (probably how he saw it) which was the “X-factor UK” and palm it off onto some random people in the UK and dart off to america to hit the big-time (????)

Since this journey stateside started however, a number of cracks have started to appear in Mr Cowell's previously glorious defences.

Some might say the decision to replace natural (. . . Ish!) Cheryl Cole with robotic Nicole Share-Singer (got myself a crying, talking, sleeping, walking living “pussycat” doll!) showed that he was losing the ability to judge, but more bizarre than that even has been how badly affected the UK version has been hit, not perhaps by his lack of presence as a judge, but by his missing hand as head of the series.  Because being a judge is not as easy as it looks. And when you make 3 wholesale changes to only 4 positions mistakes are bound to be made.

Obviously, the thing to do to give yourself the best shot of having a successful series is to make sure that your final hundred or whatever is loaded with great singers and that was one mistake that was made at the outset of this series, although to be fair to the new three, sometimes this is easier said than done, and even our old favourite judges in the past were far from perfect as this clip of the BVB (big voiced babe) Suzie BT shows, sometimes it’s far harder to listen with the head as it should be when the heart gets in the way.  

With a number of great voices forgotten about way before they should have been or else disastrously loaded into groups and going out early(Remember Miss Frank ...way to avoid that?  Do what they did with One Dimension ...and have no lead singers!) and some of the choices of final 16 and then 12 being extremely dubious(Cocainer shouldn’t have been anywhere need the top.  Not because of the drugs thing, but simply because he was shit!) what has become painfully obvious is that the main aim of these talent shows has long since been forgotten.  Back in 2001 before the first reality music show "Pop Stars" music sales were collapsing, with piracy rife both online and even on personal levels no-one seemed to care about music anymore.  Some would say that the rise of utterly anonymous and instantly forgettable dance music acts mixed with samey manufactured turd boy-bands was more what killed the industry, but anyway, my point is, nobody cared.  

So the original remit of "Pop Stars" (which was a pre-cursor for "Pop Idol" which was a pre-cursor for "X-Factor") was to reawaken people’s love of music and song, and for a time it was very successful, but as time has gone by what we have seen is the same songs being used, time after time after time.  We have had various Queen weeks, Beatles Weeks, Rock weeks, Big band weeks even a Britney Week.  No Elvis week, Hollies week, Beach-boys week, Slade week, Madonna week, Stevie Wonder week or even a Bowie week.  Now we just tend to see the same songs regurgitated week after week in usually insipid fashion.  

But in spite of all these things there has arguably been an even bigger reason as to why the UK has fallen so out of love with the X-Factor and it’s all to do with when a certain Mister Cowell really became incapable of taking no for an answer.  

Now, the first time this happened in a big way is arguably when Will Young won the first ever series of "Pop Idol" with Cowell’s preferred winner Gareth Gates coming a close second.  In spite of scoring higher sales in the singles charts, however, in the albums stakes Gareth Gates was a distant second to Mister Young.  Simon Cowell was a victim of his own plans success; music had won.

However in 2009 Simon Cowell’s dark-side resurfaced when a little scottish woman entered his life on "Britain’s got talent".  Most people remember exactly where the were when they first saw Susan Boyle not just stun Britain but stun the world.  I remember were I was.  I was watching "Britain’s got talent on our old sofa".  When Susan came out of nowhere the media went nuts, she became the favourite to win and Youtube seemed to be in meltdown with people watching the video of her stunning the audience over and over again.  If Simon Cowell could have sold shares in Susan and floated her on the stock market (chortle!) then I’m sure he would have.  Nothing could stop her winning Britain’s got talent, could it?  Well actually ...yes.

What everyone seemed to forget, including Mister Cowell, is what a devastating effect the media pack would have on the sensitive Ms Boyle’s temperament, but also that someone else could actually come along and perform so well that they could actually win.  On the night of the final Susan was ...well, she was okay, but DIVERSITY were awesome and were very worthy winners.  They were the ones that would appear at the Royal Variety Performance ...Susan would not.  

This was not what Mister Cowell wanted.  The media wanted a Susan win, he wanted a Susan win, so Susan must win.  In spite of the fact that she came second, in spite of the fact that the point of the prize was that it marked the winner out as special, Susan had to win, and win she did.  As well as Diversity, Susan Boyle also performed at that year’s Royal Variety Performance and Simon turned her into a global superstar.  Diversity, by comparison, did okay.

The interesting thing is that since this little turn of events, the same thing has pretty much happened on both subsequent series of X-Factor.  In 2009 Joe McElderry won the X-Factor, he had a single out initially and then nothing was heard from him for about 8 months.

Simon, then get’s his losing act Olly Murs out into the public eye during that time, gets a single out, appears on the X-Factor and has a subsequent single out quickly after.  Unlike Joe he was allowed to gain an audience and keep it by keeping in the media’s attention.  Joe was let go.  

Skip forward twelve months ...Matt Cardle, clearly best singer, performer and best act, 

Same story, slight difference.  Unlike Joe, Matt has a MASSIVE first single, then, nothing for eight months, in the meantime, Simon’s losing act, One Dimension, are kept in the public eye all the time with books, T-shirts, posters out all year (they hadn’t actually had any records out and yet they had TWO books written about them.  ????) and again have two singles out in quick succession.  Simon’s act lost the X-Factor for one simple reason ...They weren’t good enough, as live performer’s or as singers, but these days the music isn’t allowed to win.

And I suspect more than anything this is why the UK has fallen so out of love with the X-Factor.  It’s like voting for a political party in an election and then finding out the the person who won it won’t get to form a government because the person who organised the election prefers someone else.  If the whole point of voting is that someone else wins, then what is the point of voting.  

Simon Cowell’s pride may be damaged by the fact that he can’t make a winning act but his commitment to creating successful career’s for his losing acts means that whatever the public do, whatever the public want their wishes are going to be ignored and winning acts tossed onto the scrapheap soon after the competition ends in preference for the acts Simon has worked with.  This, more than anything, I suspect, is why the UK has so fallen out of love with the X-Factor.  Yes, he had spread himself thin, which hasn’t helped things, but the fact that personal bias of a judge rather than impartiality is what guarantees success stands against the central notion of the show.

The show represents the dreams of, perhaps, a fairer society, a meritocrasy, where those with the talent and ability are allowed, not just to showcase their abilities, but gain the deserved success from them.  Now that show is about who your mentor is rather than how good you are, then one can argue that said show’s days are numbered.

I’ve been Mr Chatable.

Please remember my first book FREE AT LAST:  A NOVEL is available for Kindle on Amazon for only £2.29 and only $2.99 on Amazon.com for US fans.  Enjoy and drive safe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGBWz2Rxu94
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtwVfJqBfms
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