Factory Records

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Discussion on another LJ reminded me that we've not talked about the X Factor yet this year on Poptimists. This seems remiss, since it'll produce at least one enormous hit before 2009's end and - if it does it's job - a viable pop star for a couple years' more.

Also I have actually been watching this year and I'm too ashamed to Twitter about it. We're down to 10 contestants which seems acceptably POLL-sized to me. Kandy Rain's bold attempt at UK ho'n'B was first out, and last weekend that ridiculous kid in the hat was rightly removed. So who's left? And - from our point of view - who might actually make good pop records (as good as "Bad Boys" say, let's not aim too high)? You may have as many ticks as you want.

[Poll #1474745]

Comments

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Isn't it? As someone who avoids the show like the plague, maybe I'm missing something, but I thought that was exactly the point. Isn't it essentially focus groups for new artists on a massive scale?

[caramel-betty.livejournal.com]

The real point is to make money and provide a vehicle for Simon Cowell's ego. Significant phone voting revenue, significant ad revenue, rapidly selling Christmas number ones etc. do that just fine without the need to actually find a pop star with any quality or longevity.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Well, I was thinking - marginally less cynically I guess - that the point is to create a compelling game show that sustains the interest over 12 weeks. What you get on the X-Factor isn't a launchpad for a career, it's a super-compressed career in itself - a narrative arc of stardom and failure. The winner (and the one or two other viable contestants maybe) then have a career which can't possibly match that intensity of emotion and narrative, so they quickly fade away.

[koganbot]

I wouldn't say that Leona Lewis has faded away. And isn't Shayne Ward still in business?

The fading away significantly hasn't happened for some of the winners and also-rans on American Idol and on one or more of the other American talent shows: Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Chris Daughtry are massive, while Miranda Lambert (third place on Nashville Star), Jordin Sparks, Jennifer Hudson, and Kellie Pickler have viable careers, and Fantasia and David Cook are still in there pitching, and Kat McPhee and Brooke White and David Archuleta aren't yet altogether out of it (too early to tell about Allison Iraheta, Adam Lambert, and Kris Allen from last year); there are possibly several more in country whom I don't know about who came up through AI or some other talent show (Caitlin & Will, winner of CMT's Can You Duet, did one of my country singles of the year, "Even Now," but neither of their singles did well enough to get their album released, and they parted ways with their label and with each other).