Gary Barlow’s X Factor Video Diary 2
October 3, 2011 Leave a Comment
Bloody X Factor
September 26, 2010 14 Comments
It’s Sunday night and I’m watching The X Factor. I’ve made the mistake of watching it pretty much live, so I can’t fast forward through the boring bits. There are lots of boring bits. I wish they’d get on with it.
Last year I wrote ridiculously long posts about the live shows. It was quite a bind, to be honest, but they did get quite a few hits. I’m a whore for those hits. I’ve not decided yet whether to do the same this year; at the moment I’m really not feeling it.
Oh god, why don’t they just get on with it!
For someone who claims that they like The X Factor, I spend an awful lot of time moaning about it. It’s quite weird and I don’t have any satisfactory reason for why.
Louis had a little cry; Simon chewed his pen. Overly dramatic music. Contestants bawling. This means everything to me. Some things never change.
So. They’re about to make the earth shattering announcements. I’m off to watch it.
I wish I could say it was nail biting. It isn’t.
Post Recycling – January 2009
January 13, 2010 Leave a Comment
As I’ve not yet watched last night’s Celebrity Big Brother, I thought I’d take a look back at what I was doing last January. It turns out that I was mainly talking about Celebrity Big Brother.
2009 started with the post, The Can’t Be Arsed Factor, in which I finally got around to discussing The X Factor final. And by discussing it, I actually mean that I discussed why I would not be writing about it. There was definitely some blog fatigue creeping in at this point.
Before the CBB madness kicked in, I wrote a piece about the recently revealed new Dr Who in
New Who. I don’t really know why I wrote it, I think I was probably just trying to be a bit topical.
My first CBB post was Bore Me More in which I explained why I like it even though it was uneventful. This is certainly applicable to this year’s series too. The rest of the month’s posts take the form of CBB ‘poles’. After vehemently disagreeing with the Daily Star’s ranking of houstemates, Team Extreme’s JLS and myself created our own version. I’m not going to list them all, but you can see an example, here. We’re so creative.
This month’s Post Recycling is pretty short as I’m trying to write it in my half an hour dinner, but just wait until you see how short next months post is going to be.
You can read all the posts from January 2009, here.
Ten Predictions for 2010
December 31, 2009 8 Comments
Here are my predictions for the forthcoming year:
1. I’ll continue to stress about taking a day off from blogging and keep promising myself that I’ll do it, and then chicken out at the last minute. Then I’ll just do it for some spurious reason.
2. I’ll say that I’m going to go sim-only and keep my existing iPhone when my contract expires. Then once it has expired, I’ll immediately buy an iPhone 3GS.
3. I’ll want to buy a macbook, but won’t.
4. The X Factor will be the worst series ever, but I’ll start blogging about it and see it through to the end.
5. Someone will get murdered in the final series of Big Brother. Of course, it will be a hoax, but Channel 4 will still get reprimanded for mental cruelty.
6. I’ll have a burning desire to buy a PS3, then I’ll buy one and never use it.
7. Liverpool will finish fourth in the league but then get knocked out of the Champion’s League in the preliminary round. I had to temper my optimism with some pessimism.
8. Liverpool will get a new owner, and they’ll prove to be worse than the current ones.
9. I’ll go to a comedy gig that I really didn’t enjoy but I’ll still write a vaguely positive review.
10. The Gravy Boat will win an award. It will probably be one that was invented by me.
The X Factor Finals: Gone and Almost Forgotten
December 21, 2009 7 Comments
Ah, Mondays. Do you remember those halcyon days when Mondays were set aside for X Factor blogging? Me too. It was only last week.
Anyway, I thought that after writing so much about the bloody programme I should take time to look back over the series as a whole. Like last year, however, I can’t be bothered doing it properly. For conciseness, I’ll use bullet points.
- I’m completely finished with the auditions process and wish they could do away with it. Bullying is not funny.
- The format changes sucked (auditions in front of a live audience and the live shows split over two nights), but the viewing figures were stronger than ever.
- This year’s finalists weren’t even close to being as good as last year’s. If I hadn’t committed myself to blogging about it then I think I would have given up.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this year’s competition is what has happened after it finished – the Rage Against The Machine V. Joe chart battle. The campaign itself seemed like a harmless bit of fun, but I was still pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. I didn’t hate the campaign, like I did last year’s ‘our cover version is better than your cover version’ debacle, but lurking somewhere beneath the surface is a deep misunderstanding of what the X Factor is.
It’s no coincidence that the song was chosen for the lyrics: ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me’, and a whole bunch of people believe that the mainstream single buying audience literally do whatever Simon Cowell tells them.
Guess what? They don’t.
Sure, he manipulates and promotes his own artists. That’s his job. But, other than the Christmas number one, which, until this year, was sewn up by the X Factor winner, what impact does it all really have on the music industry? If you look back at how many people have gone on to have successful careers post-X Factor, then you’ll clearly see how little difference it actually makes. Those that have had a modicum of success, like Will Young, Girls Aloud, Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke, would clearly have had successful careers regardless of their origins, whether you like them or not.
This missing link seems to be this: The X Factor really hasn’t got a great deal to do with the music industry. It’s a talent show mixed with a soap opera\pantomime that’s designed to be big, family friendly, Saturday night entertainment. I watch it so that I can have a moan about who is good, who is bad and who is indifferent. I wanted Joe to win the final, but I’d never buy one of his records in a million years and I don’t think he’ll make a good pop star. It’s all about the competition. If they sell a few records on the back of it, then that’s a bonus (for them).
Yes, it was nice to break the monopoly and see something different get to number one – but don’t celebrate because you think you’ve saved something sacred from being tarnished. This is the pop singles chart! Stop and think about it for a minute. The concept of ‘Christmas number one’ is itself is an A&R man’s trick to flog more records. And have you actually looked at some of the songs that have been Christmas number one in the last 20 years? They include The Spice Girls (three times), Westlife and Bob the Builder? They’re not exactly striking a hammer blow for the cause of ‘real’ music.
You don’t have to like the X Factor, but at least don’t like it because you don’t like it, and not for some spurious ‘moral’ reasons.
Anyway, rant over. Time is ticking on and I want to go and watch telly. I should really tidy this up a bit more and try and make my arguments a little more cogent, but I can’t be arsed.
The X Factor Graph
December 19, 2009 Leave a Comment
Those of you who have been reading my weekly X Factor updates will have noticed my ‘X Factor Ratios’ – which aren’t actually a ratio as much as they are a percentage. This figure represents the length of time that it took me to watch the programme based on the total running time. For example, if the running time of the show was 2 hours, and I watched in in 1 hour, then the X Factor Ratio would be 50%.
Way back in week 1 of the competition I threatened to do a graphs of all these ratios when the competition was finished. Well, here it is:
Click graph to enlarge.
So, what can we learn from the graph? I think it’s mainly that I don’t watch very much of it. The highest figure for any show was 50%, for Week 1 Saturday. It certainly helped me to stick with the show to be able to fast forward through much of it.
It’s also telling that the ratio is significantly lower for every Sunday show compared to Saturday. It’s really stretching it to have the results on a different night.
Anyway, I could probably do some more analysis, but I can’t be bothered.
The X Factor Finals: Grand Final 2009
December 14, 2009 7 Comments
The final of the finals is finally here. May God have mercy on our souls.
Saturday
Running Time (including the Xtra Factor): 180 minutes
Time I watched it in: 77 minutes
X Factor Ratio: 42.8%
Before I started writing this\watching the show, I remembered that someone was going to be leaving, so I thought I better make a prediction. I thought that Olly would (and should) be the first to be eliminated. Look how that turned out.
Unlike previous series, I don’t really care which of the acts win this series. I would have slightly preferred to have Stacey win, but I have to admit that Joe deserves it.
Each of the contestants performed three songs, the opener was the song that they sang at their first audition.
Stacey – What a Wonderful World – Stacey looked really nice here, although they had her precariously perched on a stool in a very short dress. Again. My upskirt conspiracy theory rumbled on to the very end. The song really suited her voice and it was a pleasant, if slightly boring, performance. The nerves showed a little in her vocals, but that’s hardly surprising under the circumstances.
The judges comments were predictably bland.
Olly – Superstition – I didn’t really mind the singing too much (apart from the fact that he couldn’t say ‘suffer’), but the dancing was as irritating as ever. I’m fully aware of how my dislike for Olly is completely irrational.
Nothing worthy of comment from the judges, again.
Joe – Dance with my Father – I didn’t know the song and guessed the title from the lyrics. It was another good performance from Joe, but it was very musical theatre.
I’ve given up on the judges – they’ve got no incentive to say anything nasty when it’s the final. How boring.
The next set of songs were the not-so-secret duets. I don’t know why the judges were being so coy about who was performing as it had been announced everywhere – including the info button on Sky.
Stacey – Feeling Good (with Michael Buble) – Mickey Bubbles singing was really weird and, as a result, it was like they weren’t performing together. Does he usually sing like that and is this why he is so popular? I found it baffling. Anyway, Stacey looked pretty sexy in her shiny dress. She also sang really well, maybe her best yet. Mickey didn’t seem convinced that Stacey could win, he could have at least have pretended.
Olly – Angels (with Robbie) – I hate this song and if there was any lingering doubt on who might be the ‘mystery’ guest, then it didn’t last long. Olly was pretty awful and Robbie actually cocked up his own song by coming in before he should. Robbie looked like he was going to start crying and the whole thing felt incredibly awkward.
Joe – Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me (with George Michael) – Joe was excellent. Although they looked like father and son, it was definitely the best duet, both vocally and in terms of performance. At the end, George had that big star ‘I don’t quite know what’s going on’ vibe. He also said that it must be nerve wracking to meet ‘people like him’.
The last round was the contestants ‘best song’ from the series.
Stacey – Who Wants to Live Forever – Whatever you think of Stacey, you have to admit that they’ve certainly made the most out of her legs over the series. Although I like her voice, her performances are just too tentative for her to be a pop star.
How can Simon make the phrase “you smashed it” sound so unenthusiastic?
Olly – Fool in Love – I’m not even sure that I can remember him singing this before and I don’t have a clue what it is. He’s not awful but I didn’t really like it. I don’t know what he could actually do to impress me.
Joe – Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word – Well, I have to admit it, Joe deserves to win the competition. He was excellent, again.
So that was it, all that was left was to announce who’d be going home. Tragedy struck as Olly was announced safe. I felt a little bit angry and sad inside. It was down to Joe and Stacey, and clearly Joe wasn’t going home. Poor Stacey. Oh well, it actually makes tomorrow interesting for me, as I’m now desperate that Joe wins. Stacey was incredibly gracious in defeat, which makes me wish she stayed in even more.
The only thing worth mentioning on The Xtra Factor was when Simon asked a pensioner caller what she was wearing and what she had on under her dressing gown. It was quite revolting., but very funny.
Sunday
Running Time: 180 minutes
Time I watched it in: 54 minutes
X Factor Ratio: 30%
I really couldn’t be bothered watching this, but it would be a strange time to quit. Despite saying yesterday that I really wanted Joe to beat Olly, I couldn’t actually be bothered.
There was some god-awful group song from all the finalists. I fast forwarded through it.
Olly – Twist & Shout – Annoying. That’s all I have.
Joe – Don’t Stop Believin’ – Yeah, it was alright.
I think I shocked even myself with just how uninterested I was. You’ll be glad to know that I bravely soldiered on.
JLS did a duet with Alexandra Burke. Then they wheeled out Leona Lewis. Were they just trying to prove how bad that this year’s contestants have been in comparison to past winners?
They then performed ‘the winner’s single’. Did I recklessly fast-forward or did Simon forget to tell us what it was called? The chorus uses the phrase “the climb” so I googled it – apparently it’s a Miley Cyrus song. It’s quite insipid, but what you’d expect.
Olly – Not great. He’s not actually that bad, vocally, I just don’t ‘get it’.
Joe – I preferred this to Olly’s version, mainly because Joe is a more natural singer. It really felt effortless compared to Olly.
How many times have we had to listen to Cheryl saying how much she’s glad to have met Joe?
I fast forwarded through George Michael, but thought I’d listen to a bit of Paul ‘Macca’ McCartney. Then all the finalists joined him on stage to sing ‘Drive my Car’. Deary me. I didn’t want to watch but I couldn’t look away. Macca saved it by doing ‘Live and Let Die’ – a mentalist classic.
I can’t believe how long they dragged out revealing the winner. I fast forwarded for ages and it still didn’t come. Eventually the right decision was made and Joe won. I can’t quite believe that I think it was the right decision.
Over on The Xtra Factor Holly reveals the predictions that the judges and presenters made at boot camp, about who the final winner would be.
Dermot – Olly
Holly – Olly
Louis – Olly
Dannii – Nicole (didn’t even get through the the live shows)
Cheryl – Olly + Miss Frank (Louis demanded his rule book because she picked two acts)
Simon – Olly
They also revealed who got the most votes in each of the live shows – it makes for quite interesting reading:
Week 1 – Danyl
Week 2 – Stacey
Week 3 – Rachel
Week 4 – Danyl
Week 5 – Danyl
Week 6 – Stacey
Week 7 – Joe
Week 8 – Joe
Week 9 – Joe
Week 10 – Joe
Joe clearly had it sewn up by the last few weeks, but it’s interesting to see that Stacey and Danyl won so many weeks.
In Conclusion
You can probably tell, by how rushed Sunday’s write up is, just how fed up with it I’d become by the end. I can’t even be bothered making any final conclusions. See you all next year for some more X Factor fun.
Total Duration: 360 minutes
Total time I spent watching it: 131 minutes
Overall X Factor Ratio: 36.4%
The X Factor Finals: Week 9
December 7, 2009 12 Comments
It’s the ‘semi-finals’; thank god it’s nearly all over.
Saturday
Running Time (including the Xtra Factor): 150 minutes
Time I watched it in: 70 minutes
X Factor Ratio: 46.7%
It’s Michael Jackson night, so at least there might be some good songs. Of course, he did plenty of bad ones too. Fingers crossed that no one does ‘Earth Song’ (you can read more about my fear of Earth Song here).
Olly – Can You Feel It? – No, Olly, I can’t. I’ve never been a huge fan of Olly, but this was probably his worst vocal yet. He’s also an atrocious dancer. This week, he seemed to have been inspired by a fish. Simon looked ecstatically happy – he’s got a great poker face.
Dannii said that they could all feel it in the room. Bully for them. All the judges gave him absolutely glowing praise, so maybe it’s just me.
Joe – She’s Out of my Life – I’ve slowly warmed to Joe, very much in a case of substance over style. He’s still not my cup of tea but at least he can sing. It’s just a shame that they gave him such a depressing song. I can’t believe that he’s now one of my favourites – it just shows how bad some of the others have been this year.
Louis gave sickeningly gushing praise, Dannii and Simon quickly followed suit. I started to for someone to get an absolute slating, just to liven it up. Cheryl, of course, loved it – he is from Newcastle, after all.
Stacey – The Way You Make Me Feel – Gosh. Dannii is either really brave or really stupid to pick the penultimate week to give Stacey an up-tempo song and a routine that involved more than just standing still. It didn’t quite work, but it was nice to see her doing something different. It was a bit of a weak song really, and really did nothing for her voice.
Simon: ‘It was fine, but it wasn’t you.’ There’s a reason why he’s the best judge and his comments here were really spot on.
Danyl – The Man in the Mirror – Simon covered his mouth early on in the song as if to say: ‘Dear god, what have I done?’ As always, Danyl was much stronger in the second half of the song. Was he terrible or was he actually pretty good? Yet again, I had no idea. He got a standing ovation from Simon AND Cheryl. I didn’t think it was worthy of that.
Simon said it was incredible and then got even more carried away. I take back what I said about him being the best judge.
The second set of songs are ‘judges’ choice’. Joy.
Olly – We Can Work It Out – This was the straw that broke the camel’s back – Olly is crap. This was bloody awful. And his dancing is neither big nor clever. Towards the end, I did start to wonder if he’d actually suffered a nervous breakdown and nobody had noticed.
Louis said he was impressed that he picked a song that wasn’t well known. Yeah, because the Beatles are just an obscure indie band.
Joe – Open Arms – Cheryl did a really awful overhead clap at the start of the song. It made me feel a bit embarrassed. I don’t know what the song was (I looked up the title), but it was absolutely awful. We were right back in the realms of musical theatre with this performance. He was also stood on a table.
The judges were getting on my nerves by this point. Cheryl thinks she is actually Joe’s mum.
Stacey – Somewhere – The cheese factor was really cranked up with this song choice, but it did suit her voice. I’m no fashion expert but her dress wasn’t very flattering; I kept thinking that it was going to inflate.
Simon came out with one of his classic lines: ‘You are back in the game, sweetheart.’ I hope that Stacey wins, simply because she’s so bashful when she gets compliments. It’s not a very good reason for wanting someone to win, but its all I’ve got. Thank god that she did this song last or she may have been in trouble.
Danyl – I Have Nothing – God, Simon can’t half pick some melodramatic rubbish. I’ve reached this weird point with Danyl where I simultaneously think that he’s a cracking singer and that he’s absolutely garbage. I don’t really know how to comment.
Louis now officially thinks that everyone should be in the final. Cheryl managed to give him positive comments without actually giving him a compliment. She clearly doesn’t like him.
With the main show finished, I thought I’d managed to escape its evil clutch, but the Xtra Factor played a snippet from Earth Song. A snippet is more than I can handle. Holly appeared to be wearing one of Bet Lynch’s old dresses, but, dear god, was she ever working it.
We get to the best bit of the week – the public interrogation of the judges, who seem to be genuinely dreading what the callers are going to ask them. You can’t have better proof for what a good feature it is. Jenny phoned in for the third week running and completely lost the plot. I’ve never heard anything quite like it and Holly said that she was a bit scared. Jenny is either a great actress or a complete nutcase. Louise then phoned in and attacked Dannii in a Paxman-esqe way over what Stacey wears on stage. Simon just sat and grinned.
My predictions:
Should go home: Olly
Will go home: Danyl
Sunday
Running Time: 120 minutes
Time I watched it in: 43 minutes
X Factor Ratio: 35.8%
I was at my brother’s when the show was on live and I had the misfortune of watching the first 40 minutes. I couldn’t believe just how boring it was in real-time. This kind of robbed my final bit of enthusiasm for blogging about it.
Danyl went home.
In Conclusion
My prediction was right and the early favourite, Danyl, went home. I wish it had been Olly. Here are my current favourites, for what it’s worth.
1. Stacey
2. Joe
3. No… I’m not going to say Olly.
Total Duration: 270 minutes
Total time I spent watching it: 113 minutes
Overall X Factor Ratio: 41.9 %
Post Recycling – December 2008
December 4, 2009 Leave a Comment
December 2008 was my first full month of writing PSGOM, which is why it’s a little depressing that I only managed to crank out 7 posts. At least my apathy makes writing this post a bit easier. Welcome to Post Recycling!
The first post of the month, on the 2nd, was Emergency Beacon, in which I complain about tough it is to be a blogger, and excuse myself for not completing a post a day. Ah, how young and naive I was, back in those days. And lazy. I’m glad to say (and you should already know this, if you’re paying attention) that I’ve actually been achieving daily updates for a few months. It’s all about forming a habit – if only I could have expressed this to my -1 year self.
Anyway, as lame as it is, this post was significant because it was the first one in which I basically just say that I’m not going to be posting today. There have been quite a few of them since, so it’s good to know where it all started. Spurred in to action by my own crapness, I managed to publish 5 posts in the next 6 days – which wasn’t bad going. For then.
These posts included Me Reading Comics RIP, a lament on missing the world of comic books. If I was to do it again, I’d probably re-write it quite drastically, but the essence of what I was trying to say is still there. It still makes me a bit sad to think how out of touch I’ve become. Since writing the article, I checked on Wikipedia to see if Batman really was dead (he is). I then read a synopsis of how it had happened and it was mental, to say the least. It was as if all those years of commitment to the DC Universe had completely disappeared; I guess I now know how it feels to be de-programmed from a cult.
I clearly hadn’t become addicted to X Factor blogging at this stage; I commented on the final four contestants in The Fantastic Four?, but I didn’t bother commenting on any of the subsequent shows. What’s interesting is that, apart from Alexandra, I was pretty ambivalent about the contestants. Which is weird, because I think I’d prefer any of last year’s final 5 (Alexandra Burke, JLS, Eoghan Quigg, Diana Vickers and Ruth Lorenzo) over this year’s finalists. Is this feeling genuine or is it just the rose-tintedness of hindsight? Will I think the same thing next year? Perhaps I will, but it might be because the contestants are worse again. God, I hope not. I guess you could check back next year and see.
My final post of the year, Lazy Boy, is another post whining about me not having done enough blogging. It was certainly becoming a theme. Would I pull my socks up in January? Come back, next month, and find out.
View all of my posts for December 2008 here.
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