It has been 8 months now, since we all obligingly sat down with a couple of friends, some choice lunch meats, and self loathing, and watched Matt Cardle furiously leaking into his corduroy jeans.
Oh, and won X Factor 2010.
Some would say the healing process after viewing this will need a considerably longer time frame. Every daily tabloid feature for the entire of 2011 would possibly argue otherwise. Yes, that’s it. X Factor is certifiably, and unequivocally ?BACK?. Which is just as well, because the hysteria over rivals down at C5 Celebrity Big Brother completely died the moment Kerry Katona earnestly admitted to Brian Dowling that her ?life has been a rollercoaster?.
But if you truly have been soaking your brain in balsamic vinegar since ?When We Collide? hit Number 1 last December and have absolutely no idea where Cheryl Cole is, or listened to Katie Waissel’s solo single on the Alan Titchmarsh show ? then here is the drill on what the 2011 UK series eventually settled to be. (And yes, Katie Waissel’s solo single on the Alan Titchmarsh show did involve the phrase ‘Shoop Shoop De Langalang’, now that you ask.)
Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue are out. Gary Barlow, Kelly Rowland, and Tulisa InstanbulnotConstantinople are in. Louis Walsh is still there. Except he actually IS a sex pest now. And before you start harping on about how the charges were dropped, just remember that they also dropped the charges on a Japanese cannibal who wrote an open confession on how he killed and ate a woman once. ?Not that any of this will stop ITV1 cramming in another 4 million pounds to beam a 3D hologram of Simon Cowell to provide a variety of coy homosexual jibes for Louis every week of the live shows. Probably. That ?joke? will die with us all.
As we enter into the haven of choirs, bright lights and panning shots of mass gangbangs up and down the UK in the opening titles, we discover immediately that ITV1 have decided to go about this giant exile from the US business in the healthy, British way of dealing with things. By lying to themselves and everybody else. The most amazing part of this, is their decision of entitling the incredibly strange collection of new judges as ?the next generation?. ITV1, please GOD, show a little decorum. Do you understand how much time and therapy and dry humping we had to endure to get over the whole Sugababes thing?
As expected, Gary Barlow fills the void of Simon Cowell, and presumably also X Factor?s bottomless Take That quota. (Like that time they appeared in the last year?s live final three times when nobody asked, par ex?mple.)
Tulisa is of course there to accommodate the gaping urban crevasse that Cheryl brutally left behind, lest the whole Cher Lloyd thing SOMEHOW doesn't work out. Louis Walsh, as we half-heartedly established some time earlier has somehow managed to become the only original judge standing. Possibly through violent sexual threats. Because he is a serial rapist now, if you remember.
ALSO – Kelly Rowland is also there. Because sometimes, Kelly Rowland just has to be there.
So a Cowell-less X Factor. Surely a more optimistic place, a sanctuary of promising talent, or as Dermot is constantly saying whilst revolving manically on the spot ? time to face something that vaguely represents music?
The first contestant is a teenage boy who has the exact formation of hair flicks as Alex Turner from 2007. Also, he has a penis.
Not a great start.
With all the sexual charisma of a Louis Walsh basement party (Which would’ve been funny in 2010, but now of course is a sensitive matter due to all that whole Sadist Cult thing he apparently founded) he saunters on stage, sings a fucking Zutons song in the most terrible way?imaginable, and then shows his arse crack to the world. Which has tattoos of women’s names on it. Because this gentleman has had sex with some women. And how else was he going to prove it? Luckily, because this show is all about the music now, he gets through. Because sometimes, pop music actually is about having your conquests names inked on to your Gluteus?Maximus in a lovely Lucinda Handwriting style of font, so shut up.
By this point in the programme, it has been 21 minutes and we've seen one person perform so far. The updated Talk Talk adverts are a grave disappointment also. But, it's early days yet, and things could still improve. After all, with time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes satin, does it not?
Next up, is a outrageous bint of a woman called Kitty. Kitty has about 1800 faces on top of her regular face, enjoys pleather, and being an idiot called Kitty.
Kitty saunters up to the judges with her blonde hair, and her confidence, and her incredibly clever idea of singing a Lady Gaga song acapella. (Quick note to confused music fans: You may have noticed pop music of this kind of calibre tends to have music attached on to the back of it. What Kitty has cleverly deduced in some sort of bizzare John Lennon-esque twist, is to sing the song WITHOUT the music.) Then, if she wasn’t horrifyingly original and unique enough, she tells the judges about how she's had a terrible life, because her friends couldn't get the day off work and come and see her perform or something. And we’ve got to say, in all seriousness, we know here at hecklerspray, we like to have a little chuckle at people’s expenses sometimes. But in this respect, Kitty’s problems really put it into perspective that some of the people on these shows actually use those sort of stories for their OWN PERSONAL GAIN, so we’d just like to draw attention to that, if we may. Like that guy whose wife died, and then sang Tom Jones? It's not Unusual, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Disgusting.
The montages continue thick and fast. It becomes apparent to Kelly Rowland that the UK is a bit different to the US, and is consequently amazed by everything, including the degree of shininess of her own fringe. Unless that’s just the cocaine, of course. Gary Barlow pretends that he has musical integrity (He co-wrote a song with Natasha Bedingfield) and gets his own personal montage where ITV1 sufficiently ram it into our heads that he is supposed to be ?the mean one?. So just in case you’re still confused, we’ll just quickly run through it one more time, just to make sure we understand.
This is not the well known singer Gary Barlow from Take That, who wears scarves and coats sometimes like a regular human being. This is Gary Barlow, the meanest bastard on reality television. Like Craig Revel Harwood, or the one with alopecia from Dancing on Ice. Or some other tyrannical, square-haired, cock-thirsty talent show judge. Absolutely no idea who. Shame we’re in a convent where we can’t use Google.
There's a beautiful intermission period in amongst the pointless phone-in competition and the continuous wide shots of riot-addled major cities where a fundamentally mental woman called Goldie Cheung comes on stage and encapsulates a beautiful Grace Jones/Ke$ha hybrid performance piece whilst vomiting profusely into a Morisson?s bag. Meanwhile, BBC4 is being axed.
The main focus for tonight?s opening show however (Because it's definitely not the judges, who are probably too boring to even try and catch malaria, right?) is 16 year old Janet Devlin, (or ?Janis Joplin? as everyone?horrifically? keep appearing to be saying) because she's been on the news. Well, you know. It's been a slow news year. She sings songs on the internet, if you dare to dream of such a thing. We of course, just thought YouTube was some sort of transport system in the south of England, so what do we know, eh?
Okay, we do know this. If you didn't think life could get more jarringly twee than an Ellie Goulding cover of Your Song – why not try a 16 year old in a cardigan singing an Ellie Goulding cover of ‘Your Song’ instead? Okay, fine – obviously the fact she doesn't brush her hair is so unbelievably madcap you'd think she was out of a Leslie Neilson movie or something. But ultimately, there is nothing quite as horrible as four people congratulating an impressionable teenager for being ?unique?.? Since when did being a limp little girl musically come back into fashion, anyway? Even Kate Nash stopped wearing plaid dresses once someone for the love of mankind thrusted a Le Tigre record in her face. Just awful.
Obviously our own ‘personal highlight’ of the show was the ending, which closes upon a very upset young man who doesn’t sing very well at all calling Tulisa IstanbulnotConstantinople ?a dog? without a shadow of remorse. ?THEN – in a moment of pure Orson Welles-esque brilliance, Dermot tells him to ?watch his mouth?. Yeah. You can keep your malaria, and your trousers, Simon Cowell. You may be in the US with your sexy Herve Leger-clad prostitutes and tall T4 presenters, but we've got something you\’ll never have. Badly educated men with anti-social behaviour issues.
Tune in next week, where Louis Walsh cries for non-Freudian reasons, Tulisa and Kelly put their arms up at the same time, and absolutely NOBODY releases a song called ‘Put the Needle On It’. Next up on ITV1, Chris Tarrant legitimately tries to get on board with a show entitled ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire Soapstar?’ – which in all frankness doesn't even work on the level of an oxymoron now, does it?
Until then!
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