Saturday, December 15, 2007

Popular Culture Bulletin No 94

***REALITY TV WARNING: Do not read this post if you do not watch the X Factor***

Far be it from me to pretend that I have my finger on the pulse of popular culture, but has the Great British public gone stark staring bonkers? How on earth could any rational being believe that Leon has as much talent in his little finger as Rhydian has in his whole body? [Correction - t'other way around!] Yes, Rhydian may be a tad odd, but he has the voice of an angel, whereas Leon has the voice of a pub singer on a bad day.

[battens down hatch]

52 comments:

Anonymous said...

*shrugs*

I wanted Same Difference to win, so what do I know?

Archbishop Cranmer said...

"...but has the Great British public gone stark staring bonkers? "

Possibly. They have after all consistently voted Labour for the past decade, and the possibility of the victory of a mediocre Leon over the manifestly superlative talent of Rhydian is a natural consequence of entrusting vitally important matters of state to the hoi poloi.

Are you sure you want a referendum on the EU Constitution...?

copydude said...

These days, it's all about Nokias and Telegenics. But you knew that.

Machiavelli's Understudy said...

People like pub singers.

They like anybody who sounds like themselves appearing on TV. It confirms that they must have talent if someone like them is on the telly.

When I was at performing arts school, most of the girls who sang sounded irritatingly American (at the point of coital no return), slamming words in to one another. The existence of crap music and musicals confirmed their idea that how they sung was popular.

Anonymous said...

Did you exercise your democratic right on this issue, Iain?

Nich Starling said...

I agree. Leon is a one trick pony whereas Rhydian was just quality in every performance. The result left me underwhelmed.

Ralph Hancock said...

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.

Anonymous said...

We must remember that the Scots have a (justifiable) inferiority complex. They make up for this by voting in their droves when one of their own appears on these talent shows. Unfortunately, once the euphoria of the win subsides, they then forget to go and buy the records, as witnessed by the tragic careers of previous talent show bravehearts David Sneddon and Michelle McManus.

X Factor played right in to their hands by pitching the final as an England vs Wales vs Scotland contest.

Oh well, if it makes them feel better, why not...

M. Hristov said...

Absolutely “spot on”!

I was astounded because the future “Christmas No. 1” was obviously adapted for someone with Rhydian’s vocal range. Leon could not quite make it in the “sing off”.

Leon will be easier to “package” than Rhydian and easier to control. He certainly showed remarkable improvement over the series but he was still very inferior to the Welshman.

Rhydian had an unfortunate “creepy air” to him. He repeatedly reminded me of an old enemy of mine, who was leader of one of our professional bodies. The person who advised him to use peroxide in his hair did him no favours. However, all this evaporated when he opened his mouth and sang faultlessly.

Yet, the voting public did not seem to see this. I fear that Leon’s win may be a by-product of Scottish Nationalism . Vote for the Scot, even if he is abysmal !!A sad day for democracy.

Anonymous said...

simple explanation Iain my man

ye canne keep the Scots down

Tapestry said...

Another example of the established media practice of fiddling with response statistics to get a politically correct (in view of media) result.

Anonymous said...

45% of the public are now Cameroons - image is the key, talent is secondary. Leon is Cameron. Rhydian is Brown, he might have talent but he looks weird, no common touch. Same Difference are the Lib Dems, judge for yourselves which is Clegg and which is Huhne.

Anonymous said...

My wife and I had Leon down to win because Rhydian was the vastly superior performer and it was a public vote.

Anonymous said...

Leon, despite his obvious lack of experience (he had only been singing seriously for a few months) has a richer voice than Rhydian, and his vocal performances had more character.

Secondly, Rhydian came over as a rather cold individual, whereas Leon appeared to be warm and sensitive.

Finally the voting public assumed that Rhydian will be still able to launch a recording career, whereas winning the X-Factor will give Leon the boost to his confidence which he needs in order to further perfect his vocal skills. He has bags of raw talent.

I would have been quite happy for Rhydian to win, he has a fine voice and was a reliable performer, but Leon was a worthy winner. Asserting that he is no better than a pub singer tells us more about you than it tells us about him.

Anonymous said...

It was Kylie wot won it!

Just goes to show what a crap old series of results you can get with democracy. Take away their voting pencils. Long live Benevolent Dictator Dale...

dizzy said...

Iain it's very simple, and it's also why I cleaned up big time by backing Leon last night. It was all because of the Kylie duet because it was the best performance of the night across the board and that is always the key to winning in these sort of show, the memory affect. The duet was so natural between the two of them. The minute that song was over Leon had won.

The minute that song was over was also the same moment that I rushed to my laptop and pumped shitloads of money on him at 13/1 before the market odds shortened rapidly which they did. The great British public weren't wrong, they're just fickle. They vote for what they remember as being great, not necessarily the most consistently great thing.

Point of Interest: Last Year we had Leona, this year we had Leon. Weird huh?

Anonymous said...

Scottish Mafia - will Brown stop at nothing to dominate us with his cronies?

Anonymous said...

Is there anyone out there who still believes that any TV competition, which is reliant on people phoning in their votes, is straight?

After all the revelations of the past year (even Blue Peter's was fixed, for heaven's sake) I can't believe that people would bother voting any more.

These "competitions" are about as believable as a public enquiry which involves the Labour Party...we know it's going to be a fix from start to finish.

Anonymous said...

I agree. I can only assume that everyone simply assumed Rhydian would win, and thus didn't bother vote when they might have done.

Richard Lowe said...

Hear Hear!

Personally, it was between Same Difference and Rhydian, especially seeing as how Leon has as much stage presence and charisma as a lump of coal.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely. An unbelieveable result. I guess all those sob stories paid off in the end. Out of the four X Factor winners, I would say Leon has to be the weakest of them all.

What shocks me the most is that the bookies got it so wrong. I suspect once Same Difference were eliminated those who were previously supporting them must have started voting for Leon.

Anonymous said...

Yawn, never watch reality TV programmes

Anonymous said...

Whats an X factor???

Anonymous said...

as Glyn Davies points out in his blog overnight, the minute Lembit Opik pledged his support to Rhyddian, the Welshman was doomed.

Anonymous said...

Pretty boy v Slightly odd boy with great voice.

No contest!

Anonymous said...

Not the first time in recent history that a talent-restricted Scotsman has made it to top position! At least people had the opportunity to vote this one in.

Anonymous said...

Looks matter!

Leon is very cute and Rhydian is very unattractive. Rhydian's style wasn't contemporary - he is no pop idiol.

That's life. :)

Normal Mouth said...

Surely the contention is that Leon has less talent in his whole body as Rhydian does in his little finger, not vice versa?

On grounds of talent and commercial prospect it is a strange decision. But Leon's blubbing, together with a much better choice of final song, swung it.

Anonymous said...

its eurovision in miniature

wo man sprechen kann, spricht man uberall

sorry, no umlauts

Anonymous said...

OK - that's enough popular culture b*ll*x - back to the serious stuff.

Iain - you need to read Henry Porter in the Observer today - the most incisive 'fisk' I've seen of the recent Toynbee and Short ramblings on freedom.

Anonymous said...

A pedant writes:

Ian, you said in your post: 'How on earth could any rational being believe that Leon has as much talent in his little finger as Rhydian has in his whole body? '

I think you have that the wrong way round - it should be 'Leon has as much talent in his whole body as Rhydian has in his little finger', shouldn't it? Or have I misinterpreted you??

Either way, I think the vote was perverse - Rhydian was odds-on favourite and the bookies rarely get it that wrong.

Anonymous said...

Not sure what you mean - unless you've got whole body and little finger the wrong way round....

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Iain. As sad as this makes me sound, its G4 all over again.

Anonymous said...

England just can't cope that it doesn't rule everything anymore.

Come on Iain, Rhydian was a piece of camp nonsense. Yes, fantastic operatic voice, but he can't sing out of his one style.

Anonymous said...

Iain,

It's 11.40 am and I see that you haven't visited your blog this morning.

I blame your new bed....

With that in mind, I have the ideal Christmas present for you. Where should I send it?

Anonymous said...

Cheer up the same will happen with Celebrity Strictly Come Dancing. Alesha Dixon who is far and away the best dancer will lose out to one of the men because they are far more "fanciable"

K S Rees said...

I really don't understand why X-Factor went to such pains to pitch the final as a competition between the countries - all it achieves is to persuade people that they should vote for their nation not their preferred singer.

I think it is unfair to label Leon as a pub singer, he has got a nice voice and he has improved drastically over the course of the series. Rhydian was, however, the better of the two.

Let's face it, Rhydian's career will probably be more satisfying and varied now that he's free to choose which direction he would like to take. I'm sure record companies will be queuing up to offer him contracts.

Leon on the other will benefit the most from the guidance and publicity that being X-factor winner affords.

A Swansea Blog

Mulligan said...

Iain

As soon as they made it a Wales v Scotland v England competition there was only ever likely to be one winner with only the English voting for the best act, and the rest on a purely nationalist basis. Rather like a general election in fact.

Anonymous said...

perhaps it was more to do with Leon being "Scotland's choice"?

They have nothing else to spend our money on up there....

Anonymous said...

Is Rhydian gay? - don't really care I just wanted to calibrate my gaydar.

BeadieJay said...

javelin - Rhydian isn't gay, bad news for you maybe, but good for me ;)

I'm gutted he lost, he was by far the most consistently good singer throughout the whole competition, and Leon kept singing out of key. But the teenie boppers got their man, and they're welcome to him. Rhydian's rendition of the Christmas song was miles better than Leon's and if Leon gets to number one, well, too many people have more money than sense!!

I strongly believe Rhydian will go on to have a great career, and in a year's time we'll all be going "Leon who?!"

It was stupid of the X Factor to turn it into a national fight. And I know of many people who tried to vote for Rhydian but couldn't get through on the phone.

Anonymous said...

And so was Simon Cowell calling Rhydian "Leon" at the end "Freudian" or was it all a fit up?

Chris Paul said...

Rhydian will make the most money and have the most success. Same Difference also have a fair chance of doing something. Leon may need quite a lot of good fortune and perhaps develop a "band" presentation to be more than a two or three hit wonder.

Anonymous said...

I agree Iain and thought it terrible to make it Scots versus Welsh versus English - surely it's the talent that matters? And you're right, Leon is BOOORRRIINNNG and I'm afraid just NOT cute (canvas). But, of course, Rhydian didn't need to win, he's far, far better than X-Factor!

Anonymous said...

"Same Difference also have a fair chance of doing something."
That'll be each other if you believe what you read in the blogs!

Anonymous said...

You are all mugs.

Don't you realise this is a fixed competition - the telephone lines are just there to earn income, not to decide who wins.

Clearly, the promoters thought it more lucrative overall if Leon won.

They will sign up the other fellow as well, probably.

Mugs.

Anonymous said...

How did Mat achieve the final of Strictly Come Dancing? His Tango was mechanistic as he was comcentratimg on trying to remember his steps and his Waltz was average. In both cases the judges overmarked in sympathy for his putrid showing the previous week.

Anonymous said...

Iain at last something we are interested in. My wife said Leon would win and I wanted Rhydian despite fancying the girl out of the duo. I waz robbed and it backs my campaign that nobody on benefits should be allowed to vote for anything. Re The Floods I think they were caused by lots of rain.

Anonymous said...

His version of "Somewhere" from West Side Story was very good indeed.

scott redding said...

Personally, I blame Michael Parkinson, and his championing of Michael Buble and Jamie Cullam. If Parky had championed Billy Idol and albinos, Rhydian would've been a shoo-in.

Anonymous said...

"or was it all a fit up?"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7147931.stm

Anonymous said...

freedom to prosper said...
despite fancying the girl out of the duo.
Ah, finally thought of a use for that extra-large ball-gag?