TV
Greetings Pop Puppies.
Popstars, Pop Idol, Pop Idol 2, Popstars: The Rivals, Fame Academy 1 and 2. Of the hundreds of wannabees from the afore mentioned shows and millions spent in phone votes, how many singing superstars have we phone-voters created, eh?
One. Will Young. And he would have been discovered anyway. If we, the great, unwashed British public were record company talent scouts, we’d have all been sacked by now. One Stupid Choice, Michelle McOneHit, Alex Farts, Girls Affray, Hear’Shite, David Smelly or whatever. You get the picture. Truth is, we’re not very good at picking pop stars using the 25p phone vote route. We’re pants, in fact.
The Also-sangs.
Then there’s the talent who vanished in a quagmire of bad cover versions and suffocated individual style topped off with industry big cheeses more interested in their yacht upgrades that nurturing genuine talent. But then the music industry is all about industry first, music second. Gareth Gates, Javine, Sam ‘Bo Jangles’ Nixon et al. Pop moguls cashed in quick and left the talent with an embarrassing back-catalogue and sore egos before they can even buy a pint in a pub. What a waste as Ian Dury would say.
Can You Feel The Love In The Novelty Acts?
But Reality TV Pop isn’t all bad news, Chart Chavs. There’s the sub category of "winners" I like to call You’re Kitch But My Gosh We All Love It, you know who they are: The Cheeky Girls, Darius Denesh etc. Yes, Darius is a novelty act. He’s our country’s token comedy pop star and we should be thankful for Popstars for discovering the hilarious Glasgow twit. I still can only watch his rendition of Baby, One More Time for a few seconds at a time and only in the company of a nurse armed with an breathing apparatus on standby.
No More SGPSB (Stereotype Generic Pop Star Bores), Please.
Most modern pop ‘stars’ are more bland than the experience of eating a tub of warm humus in a dysentery beige Ford Escort parked in a wet car park in Huddersfield. I saw a TV interview with Rachel Stevens recently and it was so dull, uninspired and vacuous that I wanted to throw myself off a pop cliff. She and virtually all of her pop contemporaries are just the characterless front puppets of money-making management team. You know the sort. Thin. Smiles a lot. Mediocre voice. Good song-writers and producers. Talk about "their people" a lot. Unnaturally stick-straight hair. Lipgloss. And that’s just the boys.
I suppose growing up on a diet of the diverse, artistic, opinionated Culture Club, Madonna etc at primary school spoiled me a bit but my gawd, where did this current generation of pop stars learn to be so dull and inoffensive? Pray to the God of Pop that The X Factor not only gives us someone with talent but someone with a personality, too. Even better, someone whose personality and style filters though into their music because that’s such a rarity these days.
Video Killed the iPod/Ringtone/MP3/CD star?
In a post vinyl, almost post-CD, download ringtone, iPod blah blah world with record company shares shakier than Shakin’ Stevens in an earth quake, pop music is in a strange place right now. One minute, Katie Melua is in the Top Ten, then it’s The Fact Food Rockers. Duran Duran are back, there a song in the charts about Cory Haim, Peter Andre has been at number one this summer…Big Brother’s Nadia has apparently got a record deal but Gordon Haskell is also shifting his tunes. Pop doesn’t even know what it is anymore, it can’t define itself in the interactive age and it’s for this reason that I think The X Factor might give us something special because the boundaries of pop are currently, thankfully,in utter turmoil.
All Hail Chutzpah Shazza!
I’m enjoying The X Factor more than its similar predecessors because Sharon Osbourne adds a cajoling, juxtaposing mixture of unpredictable motherliness and outright bitchiness that really works. She, somehow, makes Simon Cowell more of a boy bitch and Louis Walsh more of a clueless, loveable Irish grandpa. The woman has so stolen the show and who more qualified to pick new talent than the wife of a rock god with a pathological dislike of Christina Augilera? Shazfabulous.
Bands Banned? Bananas.
One tiny criticism, why weren’t bands allowed into The X Factor process? Ah well, I’m sure Rock Idol is planned anyway. Buy stocks and shares in Spandex catsuits, Jack Daniels and Fender Stratocasters! - quick! A zillion The Darkness fans can’t be wrong. (Hi Caz!)
Generation X?
As the public tire of bland pop prince and princesses and music of many different genres and from artists of a broader age range, who knows, The X Factor might unearth something special, eh? Or even another Darius if we’re really lucky.
Emzi.
Warning: Emzi reserves the right to listen to Sigue Sigue Sputnik and The Cheeky Girls while maintaining dignity at any time.
Popstars, Pop Idol, Pop Idol 2, Popstars: The Rivals, Fame Academy 1 and 2. Of the hundreds of wannabees from the afore mentioned shows and millions spent in phone votes, how many singing superstars have we phone-voters created, eh?
One. Will Young. And he would have been discovered anyway. If we, the great, unwashed British public were record company talent scouts, we’d have all been sacked by now. One Stupid Choice, Michelle McOneHit, Alex Farts, Girls Affray, Hear’Shite, David Smelly or whatever. You get the picture. Truth is, we’re not very good at picking pop stars using the 25p phone vote route. We’re pants, in fact.
The Also-sangs.
Then there’s the talent who vanished in a quagmire of bad cover versions and suffocated individual style topped off with industry big cheeses more interested in their yacht upgrades that nurturing genuine talent. But then the music industry is all about industry first, music second. Gareth Gates, Javine, Sam ‘Bo Jangles’ Nixon et al. Pop moguls cashed in quick and left the talent with an embarrassing back-catalogue and sore egos before they can even buy a pint in a pub. What a waste as Ian Dury would say.
Can You Feel The Love In The Novelty Acts?
But Reality TV Pop isn’t all bad news, Chart Chavs. There’s the sub category of "winners" I like to call You’re Kitch But My Gosh We All Love It, you know who they are: The Cheeky Girls, Darius Denesh etc. Yes, Darius is a novelty act. He’s our country’s token comedy pop star and we should be thankful for Popstars for discovering the hilarious Glasgow twit. I still can only watch his rendition of Baby, One More Time for a few seconds at a time and only in the company of a nurse armed with an breathing apparatus on standby.
No More SGPSB (Stereotype Generic Pop Star Bores), Please.
Most modern pop ‘stars’ are more bland than the experience of eating a tub of warm humus in a dysentery beige Ford Escort parked in a wet car park in Huddersfield. I saw a TV interview with Rachel Stevens recently and it was so dull, uninspired and vacuous that I wanted to throw myself off a pop cliff. She and virtually all of her pop contemporaries are just the characterless front puppets of money-making management team. You know the sort. Thin. Smiles a lot. Mediocre voice. Good song-writers and producers. Talk about "their people" a lot. Unnaturally stick-straight hair. Lipgloss. And that’s just the boys.
I suppose growing up on a diet of the diverse, artistic, opinionated Culture Club, Madonna etc at primary school spoiled me a bit but my gawd, where did this current generation of pop stars learn to be so dull and inoffensive? Pray to the God of Pop that The X Factor not only gives us someone with talent but someone with a personality, too. Even better, someone whose personality and style filters though into their music because that’s such a rarity these days.
Video Killed the iPod/Ringtone/MP3/CD star?
In a post vinyl, almost post-CD, download ringtone, iPod blah blah world with record company shares shakier than Shakin’ Stevens in an earth quake, pop music is in a strange place right now. One minute, Katie Melua is in the Top Ten, then it’s The Fact Food Rockers. Duran Duran are back, there a song in the charts about Cory Haim, Peter Andre has been at number one this summer…Big Brother’s Nadia has apparently got a record deal but Gordon Haskell is also shifting his tunes. Pop doesn’t even know what it is anymore, it can’t define itself in the interactive age and it’s for this reason that I think The X Factor might give us something special because the boundaries of pop are currently, thankfully,in utter turmoil.
All Hail Chutzpah Shazza!
I’m enjoying The X Factor more than its similar predecessors because Sharon Osbourne adds a cajoling, juxtaposing mixture of unpredictable motherliness and outright bitchiness that really works. She, somehow, makes Simon Cowell more of a boy bitch and Louis Walsh more of a clueless, loveable Irish grandpa. The woman has so stolen the show and who more qualified to pick new talent than the wife of a rock god with a pathological dislike of Christina Augilera? Shazfabulous.
Bands Banned? Bananas.
One tiny criticism, why weren’t bands allowed into The X Factor process? Ah well, I’m sure Rock Idol is planned anyway. Buy stocks and shares in Spandex catsuits, Jack Daniels and Fender Stratocasters! - quick! A zillion The Darkness fans can’t be wrong. (Hi Caz!)
Generation X?
As the public tire of bland pop prince and princesses and music of many different genres and from artists of a broader age range, who knows, The X Factor might unearth something special, eh? Or even another Darius if we’re really lucky.
Emzi.
Warning: Emzi reserves the right to listen to Sigue Sigue Sputnik and The Cheeky Girls while maintaining dignity at any time.
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