I will admit that back in the early 2000s when the like of Popstars and Pop Idol were launched I watched with eager anticipation to see who would win. Very quickly the novelty of these so called 'talent shows' wore off because the contestants were below par. At the start the hopefuls were bearable, but the talent pool dried up very quickly and in an attempt to mask the substandard quality of the entrants, X Factor UK now includes these horribly cringey and utterly talentless characters that feature purely to increase ratings and voting income. Prime examples include Wagner, Diva Fever and Mary Byrne. Yes. Mary Byrne, that lovely lady from Ballyfermot. Accuse me of being cynical but I am convinced she only made the live shows to get more of us Irish on the voting bandwagon. And this year that little urchin Janet Devlin is the token Paddy who is pretty mediocre and is quite obviously a lame attempt to rip-off Ellie Goulding.
Which brings me nicely on to my second major gripe; In Janet's initial audition she performed Elton John's Your Song. I'm no Elton fan but it's a great tune, possibly his best. Needless to say she performed it in her wavering, faux-innocent, child-like, cute little Irish girl way. The judges gushed. The audience roared. She was through. She was commended on the originality of her interpretation. How beautiful. Pure genius. Eh hello?! Despite the fact that these people work in the music industry they fail to mention that Janet's version of Your Song is remarkably similar to Ellie Goulding's. Now, I'm not suggesting they don't know Ellie Goulding's version, what I am suggesting is they clearly want to portray her as amazingly unique and different. Go X Factor!
This isn't the first time this has happened either. Cast your memory back to the year 2002. Remember Will Young? (where's he's gone?!). In case you can't remember back that far, he was the winner of the very first Pop Idol. Aaaaanyway, quite a few times during the competition Will performed Light My Fire by The Doors which led to ridiculous amounts of praise for his original interpretation of the song. I still remember how irked I was by this. There was absolutely nothing original about his interpretation as it is identical to that of Jose Feliciano's.
Here we have Will Young's 'original' interpretation:
And Jose Felicano's version, released in 1968:
Despite my disillusionment with X Factor UK, I have a soft spot for the American X Factor. Shock horror the American version actually has people that can sing on it! Who knew? But we all know that the vast majority, including the winners, will disappear into obscurity once the show is over. Why is this? My theory is that even though these people may have excellent vocals, ironically they do not possess the X Factor.
Take Melanie Amaro for example. Her performance of Beyonce's Listen is near pitch perfect. Yet, it misses that j'ai ne c'est quoi. Actually it's not a certain something, I think I know exactly what it is. First off, she hasn't got the looks. I know it's cruel, but let's be honest with ourselves the music industry is superficial. Beyonce on the other hand is absolutely gorgeous, no arguments there. Secondly, Melanie Amaro's voice is very consistent but unfortunately isn't distinctive. Whereas, Beyonce's voice is multi-dimensional, ranging from gravelly to complete tonal lucidity. It also possesses an incredibly unique timbre that is immediately identifiable.
Melanie Amaro singing Listen:
Beyonce singing Listen (few keys lower):
Having a unique voice is almost a prerequisite to success. Name any truly successful solo artist and they will all have very distinctive voices. Some examples that come to mind are: Elvis, John Lennon, George Michael, Michael Jackson, Annie Lennox, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Florence Welch, Lauryn Hill, Neil Young...you get the point.
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