X-Factor Crystal Ball

I should put money on Katie Waissel appearing on I’m A Celebrity… within the next two years.

1D’s problem is their total lack of competence – OK, not being able to sing doesn’t matter, but they can’t harmonise, they don’t dance, they don’t have any singular thing to latch on to and to stop even their obsessive fans getting bored of them. Videos and live performances are going to be an issue. Compare them to how tight and professional JLS were at the same stage. And they’ll be torn between taking time off to maybe improve all those things, and rushing into a career just to capitalise on XF.

I hope some good electronic producers start pursuing Rebecca with alacrity. I fear what you said on Tumblr is true though, unlike Cher (and maybe Matt) she’s just not pushy enough to define her own aesthetic.

I am going to really enjoy Matt being reduced to a Brooksteinesque husk of bitterness by the Cowell machine.

Haw, Joe McElderry’s new single made No 68 this week. Can’t believe anyone thought his career would amount to anything.

I was watching the snooker on the other side. Proper entertainment.

Duets week is always like that though! It’s a fundamentally unfair trick to pull on yr rookie pop recruits, it’s like the 2000AD stories where a cadet gets sent on patrol with Judge Dredd.

I think the angle on One Direction is that they’re bubblegum – I can’t remember the last time a boy band was launched who weren’t intended in some way to be streetwise.

I didn’t think Matt and Rebecca were so much “outclassed” as singing their own, perfectly fine, versions of songs which were then subsequently staged to suit the star. Matt’s style was never suited to the pyrotechnics they set up for Rihanna and it was a bit “Lady and the Tramp”; while I was quite enjoying Rebecca until the overblown Xtina vocals kicked in. The most telling pair of duets, perhaps, was the year when Ray Quinn with Westlife looked like a nipper allowed to join his big brother’s gang, while Leona with Take That already looked like she was taking them on as equals.

As for your categories, Tom, Nicolo has surely already reached oblivion… while Belle Amie provided an unexpected highlight for me with a rather sassy version of “You Really Got Me”, and I wouldn’t mind hearing them again.

I think it was as simple as 1D looking like they liked one another and BA looking like they hated each other! Erithian is right that “You Really Got Me” was BA’s best moment but it was also the only time they did anything good at all. It was apparent they all thought they could/should sing solo, whereas all of 1D had an endearing gratefulness that it’s not them having to do the lead vocal (obviously not an asset in a future career! But it made them gel better)

Cheeky scamps should cover it I think. Is the material out there? No idea. Quite interested to see though – JLS have made some OK pop records but what they would do was punishingly predictable from the word go.

Oh sorry – meant to add – loved and agreed with each one of those, Tom! Especially the Paije one.

especially the disconnect between the judges’ appraisals and what appeared to have happened in front of my eyes

YES – this was particularly noticeable this series, and by the end the judges had pretty much given up all pretense of “judging”. I don’t expect, y’know, detailed crit from them, but look at clips from past X Factors and the difference is marked.

@lex. Utterly unrelated to this thread. But do you have any thoughts esp. written down/linkable anywhere about Girl Talk?

I’ve been enjoying listening to the recent album (and earlier stuff too) just in the last couple of weeks. It suddenly occurred to me about a week ago that part of what I was getting out of it was all this stuff that was new to me on the rap side – esp. all the bitches and hos stuff that I’d otherwise completely avoid but, heh, Girl Talk layers it over Sabbath and Gabriel and NIN and Outkast so I can deal with it in that case. I remember you scandalizing Erithian and myself (and others) with a lot of raunchy rap lyrics that were completely new to us (and to most popular regulars)… so I’m guessing that you in particular would be in an interesting position with respect to Girl Talk. Possibly absolutely none of the samples would be new to you! At any rate, can I tempt you to share any thoughts? (Note that I’m not committed to any final assessment of GT myself. I’ve been having very casual fun with the records and thought the following youtube comment about them was great: ‘Girl Talk? is like holding a mirror up to the music industry, except it’s one of those mirrors that make you look skinny and attractive.’ But that’s as far as I’ve gone!)

Related to thread: I gather Cher didn’t win the thing. Wasn’t she the best thing since Amy Winehouse about a month ago? How did she blow it?

She has a kinda Minajian theatricality which is what I like most about her! Mind you theatricality is what I liked most about Aiden too.

re Rebecca – it was fine when she was doing the torchy songs and it could be passed off as focus (cos her voice really was good) but they kept giving her things like “Satisfaction” to do! I do fear for her a bit.

For a while I really thought they were going to get Minaj in as Cher’s celebrity duet in the final. That would have been amazing. Especially if they’d done “Roman’s Revenge” – imagine Cher bellowing “I’m a BAD BITCH – I’m a CUNT!” on live Saturday evening TV ♥ ♥ ♥

Tom’s right though in that her stage presence was seriously impressive and unrivalled – Rebecca got all the flak for standing still all the time (and by the end it was just funny how rigorously she stuck to it), but it’s not like Matt/Mary/1D were known for moving around, let alone dancing. But in the majority of her performances, Cher scampered around some pretty complex staging and pulled off singing and dancing simultaneously without seeming remotely fazed. (“No Diggity”, “Nothin’ On You” and “Get Ur Freak On” showcased this best I think.)

@swanstep – I’m a bit of a Girl Talk hater I’m afraid! I don’t understand why corny student mash-ups are still a thing in 2010 – I remember the 2002-03 wave and even then they seemed totally faddish. Girl Talk just takes that and adds your standard atrocious indie smugness to it. What it comes down to is that I prefer all the original hip-hop/R&B/pop songs he uses and don’t think dumping a shitty indie song behind them so much “recontextualises” them as “desecrates” them.

Oh my god Nicki Minaj and Cher would have been glorious.

Joe McElderry is the greatest contestant that show has ever seen. His ‘Sorry seems to be…’, ‘Could it be Magic’, and ‘Don’t Let the Sun’ are unimpeachable lessons in spot-on pitching, emotion, and communication.

Belle Amie were great.