The Sob Story Factor
The X-Factor is the kind of undemanding Saturday-evening show to watch when you've got a cold, as I have, and as I may have mentioned to you a couple of times. (Okay, I'm trying to pretend I haven't watched it every other Saturday too, so just humour me).
Two things I don't like about it - and there are others, but I'll leave them be for the moment:
The first one is in the early stages of the competition where they sing really, really badly, and get rejected, and then go "Oh, please, please, Simon, it's what I've always wanted."
Well, so what? I may have always wanted to be an astronaut or a ballet dancer or a brain surgeon but if I haven't got any of the required skills, I can't be one. And if you can't sing, you can't be a singer. That's it. Live with it.
The second thing is the sob stories. Once they get into the final twelve, every other contestant seems to come up with a there-were-twenty-of-us-living-in-a-paper-bag-in-the-middle-of-the-road type story.
And I don't want to know. I don't want to be feeling guilty because I prefer someone who didn't find the X-Factor application form amongst her deceased father's possessions, or who wasn't abandoned as a baby, or who doesn't want to win the X-Factor to help their family out of poverty.
I want to be judging them on their performance. That's the place for the strong emotions too: I love singers who really take you with them into the feelings of the song.
This year, the best of them by far is a young Welsh singer called Rhydian. He looks a bit like David Bowie in his Life on Mars phase and came over as rather over-confident at first - - but, of course, a lot of that could have been in the editing; and subsequent shows have shown he's a lot to be confident about, because his voice and performance skills are stunning.
He hasn't, as far as I know, told us anything horrific about his past. I hope he wins.
Two things I don't like about it - and there are others, but I'll leave them be for the moment:
The first one is in the early stages of the competition where they sing really, really badly, and get rejected, and then go "Oh, please, please, Simon, it's what I've always wanted."
Well, so what? I may have always wanted to be an astronaut or a ballet dancer or a brain surgeon but if I haven't got any of the required skills, I can't be one. And if you can't sing, you can't be a singer. That's it. Live with it.
The second thing is the sob stories. Once they get into the final twelve, every other contestant seems to come up with a there-were-twenty-of-us-living-in-a-paper-bag-in-the-middle-of-the-road type story.
And I don't want to know. I don't want to be feeling guilty because I prefer someone who didn't find the X-Factor application form amongst her deceased father's possessions, or who wasn't abandoned as a baby, or who doesn't want to win the X-Factor to help their family out of poverty.
I want to be judging them on their performance. That's the place for the strong emotions too: I love singers who really take you with them into the feelings of the song.
This year, the best of them by far is a young Welsh singer called Rhydian. He looks a bit like David Bowie in his Life on Mars phase and came over as rather over-confident at first - - but, of course, a lot of that could have been in the editing; and subsequent shows have shown he's a lot to be confident about, because his voice and performance skills are stunning.
He hasn't, as far as I know, told us anything horrific about his past. I hope he wins.
posted by Daphne at 9:36 pm
2 Comments:
Rhydian is aweseome!!! I suspect they cast him as the villiam because he doesn't HAVE a sob story - he's just a pretty normal, nice guy who's studied singing for years and happens to have a fantastic voice. He's my favorite to win, head and shoulders above the rest...
Yes, I think that's why they were trying to portray him as arrogant at first when he was saying things like "I've studied singing and I'm good" (I paraphrase). But the producers have minimised this approach now since he doesn't actually seem arrogant, just aware of his own ability - as he needs to be - and he does put the work in and is actually fantastic. Glad you agree he's by far the best!
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