[Archived] Xmas Number One - Do Your Bit!

[MarkBRFC71]

You may or may not have heard about or joined the Facebook campaign, but please read the article below. As we are all obviously very discerning in our taste - following Rovers proves that - we need to lend our weight of support behind this to stop another Cowell karoake muppet getting to number one. Plus, seeing RATM on TOTP on Xmas day - singing a song containing 'f**k' about 30-odd times - has got to be worth getting behind! I trust you all to do what you know to be right .....

Mark Steel: Help save Christmas from the dreaded X Factor

What makes music powerful is being systematically removed

Wednesday, 9 December 2009

There is still hope for the planet. The odds are against us but we have 10 days left to save the world and stop X Factor from creating another putrid Christmas number one.

Because these people are not only trying to destroy music, they're trying to make us surrender to their unstoppable naked power. We watch them package an act until their entire identity has been moulded into a corporate Cowellite auto-crooner, then let them sell the resulting warble back to us as if it's in some way natural. It's like falling for the three-card trick but when the cards are face up. We're going "Is that one the Queen?" and need someone to scream "No it's THIS one you dozy morons, that's the three of clubs – you can SEE."

All that makes music powerful is systematically removed by the X Factor process. Anything dirty, painful, eccentric, scary, in other words individual, is scrubbed away, so if Janis Joplin or Kurt Cobain or Eminem had ever applied, they'd have been chortled off in the first audition.

Instead everyone's made to look a mild variant of the same, so someone could ask to sing "Strange Fruit", the Billie Holliday song about a lynching, and they'd end up doing it as a jolly ballad with 20 dancers doing twirls while dressed in hoods, then bounding up some glittery stairs where a noose would be hanging.

The contestants are asked to strive for the sort of perfection displayed by Janet Jackson on Saturday's show, in which every jerk and twizzle of her and her 8,000 dancers was choreographed with tedious mathematical precision as she span about in one of those microphones that make performers look like they're working in a call centre, and seeing as she was presumably miming she must have been wearing it so she could do a bit of extra work for British Telecom while she was on.

So while we hear her yelp "Oo ya ya yoo," what she's saying is "Your broadband should be reconnected by 6.30 this evening." All spontaneity and expression was meticulously flushed out and the result was a soulless mess that left me thinking I'd rather be watching her brother, and I don't mean as he was but as he is now, just tipped on to the stage.

But it's not just the songs. The whole soap opera element is carefully planned, so stories emerge that this week Olly had to battle on with extraordinary courage following the death of his favourite tadpole, or Lucie has had to overcome the childhood trauma of being exorcised after being taken over by demons. But the worst part is it's addictive. A three-minute glance and you can't help following it for the rest of the series; it's more dangerous than crack.

Maybe this is because some of the performers do have a passion and individuality, that survives despite the fact that progressing depends on keeping it suppressed. Stacey, for example, is brilliant because she looks as if she's said "Here Simon, can I go on first otherwise I'll miss the District Line back to Dagenham." But if she ever wants to write her own songs or do something dark she'll run up against the business plan being built for her. Whoever wins will be like the great blues singer Robert Johnson, they'll have to sell their soul. Except at least he sold his to the devil, who does have the best tunes. In X Factor you have to sell it to Simon bloody Cowell.

The plan is that next week a single will be released, in which the winner sings a Miley Cyrus song, which they may or may not feel applies to them but it's been decided, and that will become the Christmas number one, and it will be on all the time, in cafes and taxis and shopping centres and they'll find a way of downloading it into your dreams. But there is hope. A campaign has been launched by fans of the iconic anti-capitalist band from the Nineties, Rage Against the Machine, to make their glorious volcanic anthem "Killing in the Name Of" number one instead.

Already the bookies are making it favourite to be X Factor's main challenger, so what an end this could be to a decade. We might be facing indefinite Etonian rule, and ceaseless unwinnable conflicts that would beat the Hundred Years War except the planet will have disintegrated by then, but we can beat them on this. So buy the single between the 13th and the 19th. And if it works, next year in the X Factor final there'll be a double act called Fit '*Wicked singing a romantic version of "Killing in the Name Of", while 60 dancers descend on ropes setting fire to a banker's bonus.

[Hughesy]

SuBo will be number 1 - get over it.

[Mattyblue]

Love how you whack in a bizzare Tory dig there!

Didn't Blair go the 'Eton of Scotland' and inst darling a former public schoolboy?!

The mess they've left the country in and people bang on about Eton!

[sleepyjack]

Love how you whack in a bizzare Tory dig there!

Didn't Blair go the 'Eton of Scotland' and inst darling a former public schoolboy?!

The mess they've left the country in and people bang on about Eton!

There are more than two political parties in the country. Mark Steel isn't affiliated with either of those you mention.

Can't see any chance of RATM getting to #1 if Jeff Buckley couldn't manage it from beyond the grave last year, but it'd be nice.

[Tom]

I'll be honest the article was so boring if anything it made me want to buy cowells record

[LeftWinger]

http://www.oddschecker.com/specials/christmas/christmas-number-one/win-market

The bookies seem to think this has a chance.

[broadsword]

Long since gave up paying any attention to the charts.

[LeChuck]

Well...I participated in a similar thing last by purchasing Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah; the campaign didn't stop X Factor getting to number one but it did reach number two, pretty impressive considering it wasn't even officially released.

I'll join in again this year. Mark Steel is one of my favourite comedians so that makes me want to I think. He's a socialist by the way, I'm sure he ran for one of the socialist parties many years ago.

[broadsword]

The thing is, people will still but the X factor single in their squillions, all that will potentially happen is that the single will be one placing lower.

The charts are for schoolgirls I think.

[Eddie]

You do all realise that the money will still be going to the same people right? Record sales make money for record labels, not the artists. All things like this do is bring a smile to the face of record labels who get a nice christmas bonus from some idiotic attempt by the public to "fight the man". Who cares if the x-factor is number one? If people want to buy it then let them. I don't know why any particular musician is more deserving of that title than anyone else.

I'd love it if musicians, or any form of entertainers for that matters, were all ultra-talented and dedicated and had worked their way up the ladder for 20 years, at times living on the street and perfecting their art, but that's never going to be true for everyone.

If you want to upset the record labels then keep your money in your pocket.

[brian_gallagher85]

It's Simon Cowell and the bunch of morons that watch the show that I want to see disappointed

[Al]

It's Simon Cowell and the bunch of morons that watch the show that I want to see disappointed

Millions get pleasure out of watching that show. Maybe it's not them that are the morons? Maybe it's the childish ones who want to improve their street cred. by opposing them? Just maybe!

[Stuart]

Millions get pleasure out of watching that show. Maybe it's not them that are the morons? Maybe it's the childish ones who want to improve their street cred. by opposing them? Just maybe!

I think it's something in between, Al. Most (if not all) chart 'music' is an insult to the term. Everything sounds largely the same, and X-Factor is the interactive manifestation a record producer getting rich by creating press-out pop stars who dance (and sing) to his tune - literally and metaphorically - before being discarded after a couple of years in favour of a younger version.

I can accept the argument that some people are entertained by this kind of show and music but it's just 'New Faces' by another name (and probably several variants before it). Whilst I'm not doubting that there is an element of theatre to the proceedings which keeps people interested, it's a pretty shameless manipulation of the public.

It's basically the TV and Music Executives uniting to tell the masses what they should like - which is very similar to the tabloid media telling us what we should think.

I won't be buying the X-Factor single, nor will I be buying the Rage Against the Machines' 17 year old trash - just to prove a point. I'll continue to buy and listen to music I like - regardless of what anyone else thinks but I imagine X-Factor fans would say the same.

[Tom]

Say what you want about cowell, he got the big guns in tonight, George Michael and McCartney on tonight.

Pauls voice is going though it seems unless he's just ill.

The winners song on X Factor is recycled from Miley Cyrus so I'll just buy one or two copies, must still do my bit to continue the outrage

[Al]

I think it's something in between, Al. Most (if not all) chart 'music' is an insult to the term. Everything sounds largely the same, and X-Factor is the interactive manifestation a record producer getting rich by creating press-out pop stars who dance (and sing) to his tune - literally and metaphorically - before being discarded after a couple of years in favour of a younger version.

I can accept the argument that some people are entertained by this kind of show and music but it's just 'New Faces' by another name (and probably several variants before it). Whilst I'm not doubting that there is an element of theatre to the proceedings which keeps people interested, it's a pretty shameless manipulation of the public.

It's basically the TV and Music Executives uniting to tell the masses what they should like - which is very similar to the tabloid media telling us what we should think.

I won't be buying the X-Factor single, nor will I be buying the Rage Against the Machines' 17 year old trash - just to prove a point. I'll continue to buy and listen to music I like - regardless of what anyone else thinks but I imagine X-Factor fans would say the same.

Fine words Jisty but the public will only watch what it wants to watch and not, as you insinuate, what Simon Cowell tells them to watch. I don't buy singles so I won't be participating but it does annoy me when poeple are called morons because they don't watch what some strutting twenty something, looking for street cred., tells them they should, or shouldn't, be watching.

[brian_gallagher85]

Millions get pleasure out of watching that show. Maybe it's not them that are the morons? Maybe it's the childish ones who want to improve their street cred. by opposing them? Just maybe!

I'm not after street cred, I just plain despise the glorified manufactured crap that that man peddles

None of his winners have as of yet had a career that lasts longer that 2 years max.

I do admire him thought for the fact that he made £3.5 million from voting alone from the "show"

[T4E]

You may or may not have heard about or joined the Facebook campaign, but please read the article below. As we are all obviously very discerning in our taste - following Rovers proves that - we need to lend our weight of support behind this to stop another Cowell karoake muppet getting to number one. Plus, seeing RATM on TOTP on Xmas day - singing a song containing 'f**k' about 30-odd times - has got to be worth getting behind! I trust you all to do what you know to be right .....

Mark Steel: Help save Christmas from the dreaded X Factor

What makes music powerful is being systematically removed

Wednesday, 9 December 2009

There is still hope for the planet. The odds are against us but we have 10 days left to save the world and stop X Factor from creating another putrid Christmas number one.

Because these people are not only trying to destroy music, they're trying to make us surrender to their unstoppable naked power. We watch them package an act until their entire identity has been moulded into a corporate Cowellite auto-crooner, then let them sell the resulting warble back to us as if it's in some way natural. It's like falling for the three-card trick but when the cards are face up. We're going "Is that one the Queen?" and need someone to scream "No it's THIS one you dozy morons, that's the three of clubs – you can SEE."

All that makes music powerful is systematically removed by the X Factor process. Anything dirty, painful, eccentric, scary, in other words individual, is scrubbed away, so if Janis Joplin or Kurt Cobain or Eminem had ever applied, they'd have been chortled off in the first audition.

Instead everyone's made to look a mild variant of the same, so someone could ask to sing "Strange Fruit", the Billie Holliday song about a lynching, and they'd end up doing it as a jolly ballad with 20 dancers doing twirls while dressed in hoods, then bounding up some glittery stairs where a noose would be hanging.

The contestants are asked to strive for the sort of perfection displayed by Janet Jackson on Saturday's show, in which every jerk and twizzle of her and her 8,000 dancers was choreographed with tedious mathematical precision as she span about in one of those microphones that make performers look like they're working in a call centre, and seeing as she was presumably miming she must have been wearing it so she could do a bit of extra work for British Telecom while she was on.

So while we hear her yelp "Oo ya ya yoo," what she's saying is "Your broadband should be reconnected by 6.30 this evening." All spontaneity and expression was meticulously flushed out and the result was a soulless mess that left me thinking I'd rather be watching her brother, and I don't mean as he was but as he is now, just tipped on to the stage.

But it's not just the songs. The whole soap opera element is carefully planned, so stories emerge that this week Olly had to battle on with extraordinary courage following the death of his favourite tadpole, or Lucie has had to overcome the childhood trauma of being exorcised after being taken over by demons. But the worst part is it's addictive. A three-minute glance and you can't help following it for the rest of the series; it's more dangerous than crack.

Maybe this is because some of the performers do have a passion and individuality, that survives despite the fact that progressing depends on keeping it suppressed. Stacey, for example, is brilliant because she looks as if she's said "Here Simon, can I go on first otherwise I'll miss the District Line back to Dagenham." But if she ever wants to write her own songs or do something dark she'll run up against the business plan being built for her. Whoever wins will be like the great blues singer Robert Johnson, they'll have to sell their soul. Except at least he sold his to the devil, who does have the best tunes. In X Factor you have to sell it to Simon bloody Cowell.

The plan is that next week a single will be released, in which the winner sings a Miley Cyrus song, which they may or may not feel applies to them but it's been decided, and that will become the Christmas number one, and it will be on all the time, in cafes and taxis and shopping centres and they'll find a way of downloading it into your dreams. But there is hope. A campaign has been launched by fans of the iconic anti-capitalist band from the Nineties, Rage Against the Machine, to make their glorious volcanic anthem "Killing in the Name Of" number one instead.

Already the bookies are making it favourite to be X Factor's main challenger, so what an end this could be to a decade. We might be facing indefinite Etonian rule, and ceaseless unwinnable conflicts that would beat the Hundred Years War except the planet will have disintegrated by then, but we can beat them on this. So buy the single between the 13th and the 19th. And if it works, next year in the X Factor final there'll be a double act called Fit '*Wicked singing a romantic version of "Killing in the Name Of", while 60 dancers descend on ropes setting fire to a banker's bonus.

F**k you, I wont do what you tell me.

[Eddie]

Not many pop stars have particularly long careers, so it isn't surprising that few x-factor winners hang around for very long.

[brian_gallagher85]

The vast majority do manage to release an original song or two and some sort of album though.

[Al]

I'm not after street cred, I just plain despise the glorified manufactured crap that that man peddles

None of his winners have as of yet had a career that lasts longer that 2 years max.

I do admire him thought for the fact that he made £3.5 million from voting alone from the "show"

There you go again with the self opinionated terms (glorified, manufactured crap). May I cite Will Young as lasting more than two years? Leona Lewis will obviously be a star for a lot longer. Not a bad track record when you look at the shelf life of pop singers these days. Girls aloud have not done too badly either and if you include other similar shows Jamie Cullum aint done too badly.

Would you like more or is that enough to justify the shows' existance?

[ultrablue]

If you are good enough and have something special about you, you will stick around. Leona Lewis was excellent on that show last night. The dweeb who won this time has nothing about him in way of entertainment. He won't be on the radar for long

[Tom]

The vast majority do manage to release an original song or two and some sort of album though.

Like JLS you mean? Or Alexandra Burke? Or Leona Lewis? Or Will Young?

[Sandiway Blue]

I'm not after street cred, I just plain despise the glorified manufactured crap that that man peddles

None of his winners have as of yet had a career that lasts longer that 2 years max.

I do admire him thought for the fact that he made £3.5 million from voting alone from the "show"

I agree to some extent,but music has been "manufactured" for over 40 years with bands like The monkees etc even The sex pistols were manufactured.

I hate X-factor with a passion because of the never-ending amount of tv air time it takes up.But the one thing i will say is at least some of them can actually sing in tune as opposed to the music industry `critics` latest fads like pete Docherty and Florence and the Machine.In all honesty these acts shouldn`t even be given a gig in a pub they are that bad.

[Al]

If you are good enough and have something special about you, you will stick around. Leona Lewis was excellent on that show last night. The dweeb who won this time has nothing about him in way of entertainment. He won't be on the radar for long

That's one to file away for resurrection in a couple of years!

[Hughesy]

Simon Cowell could well have the Christmas top 3........

SuBo

Joe

Leona

Oh the outrage ha ha!