Much wailing and gnashing of teeth recently about the news that the winner of this years X-Factor – a low-rent version of American Idol, for our overseas readers – is to release, as their first single, a cover of the magnificent ‘Hallelujah’. Music snobs – i.e. people like us – have been left in a state of uncontrolled agitation by the news. My favourite line in the whole hoo-ha came on the Guardian blog, where a poster sagely noted that there “are some songs you just don’t cover” and that “Jeff Buckley must be spinning in his grave”. The irony being, of course, that Buckley’s version was a cover, the song being a Leonard Cohen composition and Buckley’s version bearing more resemblance to John Cale’s superb take on it.
It is sacrilege of course, but I find it hard to get worked up about it. X Factor isn’t about music, it’s about television and making money, roughly in that order. The recorded version of this song will be an utter abortion no doubt, but it’ll be easily avoided. Radio One and those ghastly digital TV Pop stations will play it, it will rocket to number one – the Great British public have shown in the past that the X Factor winner could release a spoken version of Fred West’s Diary for their first single and they’d still send it to the top – die on it’s arse after a few weeks and then the winner might make it (a la Leona Lewis) but probably won’t (a la all the others.) This is not Simon Cowell having a Damascene conversion to the ethereal beauty of real music, this is about the most-watched YouTube clip of this years X Factor being contestant and favourite to win Diana warbling her version of this in an earlier round. That sealed the deal. This isn’t art, it’s commerce.
The other big news from the X Factor was the genuine outrage in the British newspapers that Britney Spears appeared on the show and mimed her new single. “It’s a singing contest!” they gasped, all indignant and puffed up by their recent ‘success’ in the Brand/Ross farrago. Well, y’know, Britney Spears…singing…never really been the point, has it? Britney Spears made it on the back of a video which, cruelly but accurately, tapped into every male on the planet’s pervier Lolita side. She’s not a singer, she’s a performer, Miley Cyrus with a divorce and two kids. Good Lord, having her mime was probably a bonus, we are not talking the Voice of an Angel here.
Overall, it’s daft to get worked up about manufactured pap. Save your ire for people like James Blunt and Duffy – as soulless and hateable as anything Cowell ever produced, but with pretensions of relevance and a fanbase who actually don’t realise they are feeding their ears vacuum-packed emptiness in three minute chunks. Platitudinous nonsense for the generation who bought too many shoes. That’s the real enemy. They deserve your hatred, the Pop machine just your contempt.
Filed under: General Stuff Tagged: | duffy, Hallelujah, James Blunt, Simon Cowell, X-Factor
I take severe umbrage to this post – there is NOTHING wrong with owning too many pairs of shoes.
Fair enough about Cowell (and Duffy, and Blunt) they are waste of space fucktards.
Leonard Cohen will be spinning in HIS grave. Oh, wait, he just looks dead, right.
No-one needs more than four pairs.
Leonard may be old, but as he was charging £104 for tickets to his tour, he ain’t daft.
oh dear you’re a pretentious middle-class pseud and that’s a fact
No-one needs more than four pairs.
Are we talking about socks or shoes?
aa – fuck off, Dad.
Longman – shoes. A man needs socks!
I have one pair of very old shoes and one pair of very old trainers.
I think the X Factor’s good for society, whatever keeps them off the streets for a bit…
I also only have one pair of shoes and one pair of trainers. And one pair of boots. That’s all a man needs.
Apart from that – I agree with you. If you still care about what music’s in the charts you need to bloody well grow up as it’s completely meaningless.
I’m glad our more sensible posters have rallied behind the shoe cause.
And both SH and TS are right, it just isn’t worth getting annoyed about.
Not like Strictly, of course….
To call chart music ‘meaningless’ is meaningless, as ‘meaning’ is obviously user defined. It also implies the thumprint of the ‘real’ music world, the world wherein Sugababes are not as good as Eric Clapton, the world where mad people live.
Sugababes piss all over eric Clapton.
I fear the thread is moving towards hideous revisionism, and the completely false that ‘pop’ is as valid as anything else. Sugababes are more pleasant to listen to than other bands / performers, but they’re still not good. Saying “When being forced at work to listen to the radio that song is more pleasant than many others” is hardly a ringing endorsement.
I have too many pairs of shoes and socks.
No, I still reckon Sugababes are better than Eric Clapton.
Sugababes are better than about 90% of all recorded music.
Possibly going a bit far there Wally!
87% then.
I like a man who compromises in the spirit of togertherness.
AA, you’re a twat, but I think that has been well established.
Pop music has a place – most of the stuff in the charts serves as a nice bland way to gain some common ground with people who don’t share your musical tastes. Are you all going to dance around at your cousin’s engagement party to “Love will tear us apart”? No.
Plus, some of it is very good. American Boy by Estelle is my single of the year. the point wasn’t about pop music, it was about the cynical money grabbing cunts that produce it.
Every time Simon winks caringly at one of his hopefuls, you can see the fucking pound sign flashing in his other eye. Covering hallelujah is just an extension of that. Say the wee Irish retard wins it – what the fuck is that going to sound like? I can hear him now in the booth “is this a hymn then, is it Ted?”
Oh, also, I’ve got fucking hundreds of shoes, you bunch of paupers.
Cowell is cool, I rather like him. He took Robson & Jerome to #1, FFS!
I hate the Sugababes’ music but I’d quite like to fuck one of them up the arse and get the other two to lick it off. Doesn’t matter who does what.
That’s a disgrace, and especially appalling when you could have said ‘made love to them tenderly in their dirtbox before indulging in oral pleasure with the other two.’
Hey, good god man, you have a terrible tongue in your head for a lady. I think I love you.
She’s the patron saint of this site, if a saint can say ‘cunt’ as liberally as GGm does.