A return trip to Lapland? €550. The average bail-out fund? €80 billion. The look on Simon Cowell’s face when ‘One Direction’ failed to make it into the final two on The X-Factor? Priceless.
But for any eagle eyed viewers the suspicion that, regardless of who won X-Factor, ‘One Direction’ would be the true victors, had been growing from the semi-final stages. Ever since Simon brought back the five individual members – who rather bizarrely weren’t considered worthy enough to make the semi finals on their own merits – a Spiderman style sense started to envelope my hairy nostrils that regardless of the opposition’s singing prowess, they were the chosen. Cue to the semis and despite the experience of the other groups in that category, the talents of both ‘One Direction’ and ‘Belle Amie’ – the other five ‘losers’ selected as a counterpoint all-girl group – had apparently grown to such an incredible degree they were shoo ins.
Suddenly Simon was drawn to ‘mentor’ the groups. Week after week dragged by as accusations that auto-tuning was being employed to enhance vocal abilities were levelled. Unfortunately, Simon couldn’t disguise his over-whelming preference for ‘One Direction’ and ‘Belle Amie’ swiftly looked abandoned; eventually eliminated during the third live show. Even dickie-bow loving, Louis Walsh, couldn’t camouflage his feelings spluttering out what the viewing nation already knew; Simon was putting all his “energies” into ‘One Direction’, they’d “no mentor” and “it wasn’t a great song choice, but what were you to do.” Meanwhile intellectual heavyweight, Cheryl Cole, attempting to soften their burst bubble congratulated ‘Belle Amie’ on their “great taste in music” – covering a song already covered by ‘Girl’s Aloud’ – and how she “Wanted to up there singing it with you.” By the by, the night ‘Belle Amie’ were purged, the other sing off place was filled by Katie ‘gis a chance’ Waissel who sang barefoot because she wanted to “feel the music man.” Oh Gawd.
Like wind you can’t control, the final weekend came. Despite only four acts left, the producers saw fit to clog the TV with four hours of tele-visual entertainment between Saturday and Sunday, not counting the autopsy show etc. Mind you there was a break every five minutes, which gave just about enough time to stop retching every time Danni ‘musical encyclopaedia’ Minogue made another gushing comment. I won’t send you into a coma by recounting the shenanigans of the final, suffice to say that even Stevie Wonder couldn’t have missed ‘One Direction’ miming with ‘Uncle’ Robbie ‘dead stare’ Williams. Cowell’s bewilderment that ‘One Direction’ hadn’t won with 99.9% of the vote continued long after the winner was announced as he desperately scanned the allegedly concealing voting patterns of every final night for a hint that ‘One Direction’ had been swindled.
However, my previously mentioned Spiderman traits sense a bit of a con. Along with ‘Talkback Thames’, Cowell’s company, ‘SYCOtv’, the trading name of ‘Simco Ltd’ co-own the rights to The X Factor, which means that any artist he deems good enough go on his label. Check their web page and you’ll see the final four from this year’s X-Factor are already listed meaning he wins no matter who wins the public vote.
This article was originally published in:
Fountain News Digital – December 2010 (Issue 2)
We are re-publishing all articles from our past newsletter, Fountain News Digital, and you can view all completed newsletters here. There were nine issues published in total between 2010 and 2012.
