On Sunday, we witnessed what came to be the last programme documenting the audition process of the underrated, revolutionary post-feminist Space Opera series “The X Factor 2011″.

Hear that over there? That’s Ewan Mcgregor singing Your Song in a melancholic manner with an umbrella. See that over in the other direction? That’s your inescapable loneliness.

But put all that heroin and selection of complimentary bath salts to the side for one moment! Those headaches are probably nothing to worry about after all. Let’s just kick back, and remember all the classic moments of the past few weeks instead. Remember when a woman told Tulisa how it was all HER opinion, and then on top of that, that other thing happened as well? Sometimes the path to creating amazing music is hard. Just ask Brian Wilson or David Sneddon. Or both! They’re probably sitting together on the same park bench somewhere, trying to feed Hula Hoop packets to pissed off swans.

Ah, Memory Lane.

Sunday night’s show promised us such splendours like the prospect of Gary Barlow teaming navy with maroon, and Louis Walsh literally retracting the gift of the human voice to one unlucky, nondescript contestant, cruelly telling them that ‘singing is not for you.’

Then along came our beloved Dermot O’Leary, with all his layers of self-loathing and wool. Dermot, with his choreographed face, standing outside the Millennium Dome with thousands of blissful, cheering people waving merrily, despite the devastating financial collapse that the building once suffered, like the insensitive prick that he is.

In one of the more experimental features of the show, we were introduced to a special segment where some people actually tried their hand at auditioning for the X Factor. These people came in the vaguely upsetting shapes of Neil and Sue Perkins Margaret.

Neil and Margaret are the sorts of people who are lonely and not conventionally attractive. You have may have once seen something about it on Panorama. The reason this is really really funny is because it means Neil and Sue are less likely to procreate, due to not successfully accommodating Charles Darwin’s theories of natural selection and as such are subsequently void as a contribution to the species. Just really, really funny.

Neil and Margaret met on the internet and are middle aged, which ITV1 respect so much that they have dubbed their interview with an insincere midi clip of The Carpenters’ Close to You in the background, presumably to help articulate the immense success rate of social networking in the early 2010s/true love.

Also: KELLY ROWLAND LOVES THE CARPENTERS.

Margaret, without any shadow of hope, did terribly in her audition, despite having a man to hold her at night. AND she’s ugly. God, that’s kind of funny too – in a way. Neil, of Being in Love With Margaret fame, came up next and by all the forces of the stars, the galaxies, and Mystic Meg’s Microsoft Word documents, Neil can’t sing either. Blimey, we guess that whole Sonny and Cher thing was just a massive anomaly. Neil looked like he was going to cry. Neil also looked like he was drawn with charcoal and then brought to life by the BBC Visual Effects company.

Margaret and Neil go home, allowing us to return to Liverpool. Or Gary Barlowverpool, as you may be more familiar with it being called these days. In fact, there was something rather mystical in the air throughout the whole show – because in Liverpool, Dermot O Leary by no manner of coincidence, bumps into one of the three featured singers in the programme and conducts a very long descriptive interview with him, which is bloody good luck if you ask us.

The lad in question was Bradley Johnson – a check-shirted maverick of contemporary performing arts who used to hang out with scallies. Like how Margaret and Neil were happy to have found each other after years of pervasive emptiness and scabies – Bradley was expelled for being a dillweed at school, so is naturally more deserving of: THE SINCERE VERSION OF THE INSINCERE MIDI CLIP.

Oddly enough, the judge’s small talk with Bradley conveniently circulates around asking Bradley if he just so happens to have been expelled from three schools and is subsequentlyfeelingunsureofhisfuturecareerpath recently. WHAT THE WHAT? HE HAS AND IS? Harry fucking Potter, isn’t it insane that the one time the judges happen to ask that particular line of questioning, it happens to be utterly factually accurate to an auditionee’s life? If this pre-audition chit chat always took place in the same manner though, surely Matt Cardle would have never won the X Factor, as he’d have been ushered off the stage sobbing into a hemp rag.  But for Bradley, the future is considerably more encouraging as he bravely gets over behaving appallingly at school and gallantly gets on stage and sings an Ed Sheeran track, all by himself. It’s colon-wrenchingly more amazing than the word ‘amazing’. Barack Obama even reportedly tried to give his Nobel Peace Prize back after a mate of his +1′d Bradley’s performance from YouTube.

Some more people bothered to audition, like we even need to listen to anything poorly masquerading as ‘music’ post Bradley’s introduction of the acoustic guitar genre, but nonetheless, The X Factor insists on giving EVERYONE a chance. Yawn. Bring on Joe Cox, who wants to achieve his dreams or something. Such a bloody killjoy. Upon auditioning, Joe Cox discovers that he won’t be getting the chance to be gay during his time on The X Factor -even if he wanted to be, as the judges man-handled him into admitting that he ‘likes ladies’. “Do you like the ladies Joe? DO YOU? WE BET A HANDSOME SINGLE MAN LIKE YOURSELF LIKES THE LADIES!” Sorry Joe. On the bright side – a bit of ambiguous sexuality didn’t do a certain mastermind of white soul Will Young any harm! (before he got blackmailed by The Sun, obviously.)

MEANWHILE – KELLY ROWLAND CONTINUES TO BE AMAZING.

Next up to perform, was OF COURSE  Terry Winstanley. You remember Terry. Terry being the unstoppable force that generated such wonder over the years on Dawn French’s chocolate orange adverts. Terry is old too. This series of X Factor has had a momentous amount of  messed up middle aged men on it this year, which probably is something to do with the ‘NEXT GENERATION’ thing they keep harping on about, or because otherwise they might invent Diana Vickers again.

Maybe Tulisa just sapped up all the youth in the world, and that’s why everyone on this series looks like they were painted by Fearne Cotton. Beautiful, amazing, Tulisa. God, she’s so fledgling and current. Unlike Terry who enjoys simpler pleasures, such as melodically assembling a Micheal Bolton cover version with ‘gusto’. Nice one, Terry. We bet his wife is alive, and everything. Not only do we like Terry, but we we really like what Terry did with his X Factor sticker. Right in the centre of the shirt. A simple but effective twist on the X Factor Audition Sticker, considering Cher Lloyd used to just fuse hers to her kegal muscles, and shove dice in her mouth.

A woman with a croissant on her head sang a song and was rewarded for inexplicable reasons – but more importantly than that, a man called Deep Dhillon turned up. Deep Dhillon – a name that genuinely has appeared on a birth certificate in the medium of a coherent woman’s handwriting at some point. This is the whole ‘Johnny Robinson’ debacle all over again. (Seriously, imagine being called ‘Johnny Robinson’. See, you can’t even try.) Deep Dhillon is not even a joke name. We know there’s a dildo joke starkly available, but quite frankly it just doesn’t seem worth it. Seriously, not even for us. Is there anything really that funny about an untalented primordial bloke called ‘Deep’? It’s just a bit upsetting, really.

TAKE THAT INTERLUDE.

Next up was That Comedy Old Woman With The Empty Lungs (Which is not just something we just tried to 40d, honestly) Alright, for the sake of giving some of the more superannuated members of society a vague swipe at respect, we will call her by her actual name – which is Ceri Rees, which we bothered to find out for you. If you’ve accidentally watched 8 years of X Factor before, you will know that Ceri is a regular auditionee who ultimately disappoints herself and us again and again, because sadomasochism is just too damn sexy to give up.

Unfortunately for everyone, Ceri can’t sing. Not as in, she cannot sing a Whitney Houston song the way Whitney Houston used to sing a Whitney Houston song 40 years ago – She cannot sing. She cannot sing to the extent that she literally cannot sustain speech. There is absolutely no phonatory process of any sort for Ceri to even attempt to pursue. The woman is simply tired and old, like if Neil Buchannan were to create a Big Art Attack in the Sahara Desert. (This reference would probably be funny if Neil Buchannan wasn’t regrettably racist – if you believe the internet rumours.) Yet despite this – ITV1 happily give her the same amount of air time that they also give to men who brutally beat their wives and/or the friends of Peter Andre.

And then of course – after receiving mockery from braying New Look shoppers/musical experts in the audience, ITV1 play the Jaws theme tune over the top of her, because the fact that she reacts unreasonably can only be explained by dubbing her with the soundtrack of a film about an impetuous, crazed beast.

And that’s it.

Congratulations – you made it to Boot Camp, alongside this stupid bitch.

See you next week to see if the contestants can handle the grueling task of singing alongside only a piano, or will they succumb to the temptations of  beat-boxing to Simply Red instead? Only time will tell.

Oh, and we didn’t watch Xtra Factor. Why, did you?

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On this day in 1983, music lost one of its most brilliant and unique voices in Karen Carpenter of The Carpenters.  Aged 32, Karen passed away of a cardiac arrest after a long struggle with anorexia nervosa, ensuring that her already melancholic voice would forever sound so bittersweet that every listen would leave the listener cosy, yet somehow grieving.

Of course, The Carpenters hit the big time with cutesy ballad, ‘Close to You’ which topped the American chart.

However, The Carpenters, despite being possibly the most un-cool band in history, were much more than that and a lesson in songwriting and melody in their purest form.

After a pretty inauspicious start, The Carpenters become an overnight sensation with the release of their first LP, which featured the brilliant reworking of Burt Bacharach’s ‘Close To You’, as well as the magnificent ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’.

In a time when rock music was desperate to push the envelope, which took pop stars further out of the stratosphere to almost Godlike status to fans, The Carpenters ambled into view like they were two old friends, plugging away with their Brill Building songsmithery and fondness for that most elusive of things – a great tune.

So easy are The Carpenters on the ear, that listeners can often assume that they’re dealing with something too safe and not adventurous enough. It’s easy to forget that music doesn’t need to charter new territory to be brilliant and The Carpenters looked back at a time when popstars weren’t there to be offensive or edgy, but rather, provide a direct connection to your heart, be it with a tale of happiness or sorrow.

While the messages in The Carpenters’ records may not have been complicated, the rich melodic pop they produced was anything but simple.

Between Richard and Karen Carpenter, they created immensely deep pop records that could be dissected into each layer, not that they would ever ask you to do such a thing. The Carpenters were the Phil Spectors of cosiness, producing records that sounded deceptively easy to make. However, there’s never been anyone quite like them since and certainly, no-one has possessed a voice so easy on the ear as Karen’s achingly gorgeous tones.

And yet, underneath the polish of this group was one of the hardest working bands in music. Extensive touring of the world saw them sweeping up hearts and minds everywhere they went – apart from those too stubborn to give such an openly accessible band a chance. Those that skipped past the band didn’t realise the ferocious talent they possessed, even breaking out into some of the most off-kilter pop ever made, as seen in the brilliant ‘All I Can Do’.

From 1971 to 1975 the duo played 814  concert appearance, with additional TV spots and time recording albums. Of course, this incredible work ethic would take a disastrous toll on the band with Karen’s weight problems spiralling out of control and Richard’s dependency on Quaaludes injecting the band with a darkness that wasn’t shown in their music. Things came to a head in 1975 when Karen collapsed on-stage.

In 1983, Karen had suffered cardiac arrest as a result of the strain of her obsessive dieting.

Karen left behind a legacy of awareness for eating disorder. Other celebrities came out and spoke of their problems in the hope that they could stop potential deaths in younger fans with the same problem.

However, it’s the music we’re here to celebrate and Karen’s unique and brilliant voice. While ‘Close To You’ is the song the band will forever be most associated with, it’s ‘Yesterday Once More’ that captures the spirit of the band most, looking at their love of pure pop-music and the multilayered harmonising and perfect melodies that made The Carpenters such an achingly great band.

It is definitely time for a reappraisal where The Carpenters are mentioned in the same breath as Carole King, Lennon and McCartney and Brian Wilson.

Richard Carpenter once spat that critics would chide them for making music that was for ‘the people who believe in apple pie! The people who believe in the American flag! The average middle-American person and his station wagon!’

Or, as they’re really known, ordinary people – and they’re the people who really make music tick – not some dickish critic who aspires to some imagined art in his head.

The Carpenters. They made incredible music for humble people. God bless ‘em for it.

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If you care deeply about the fate of houses that skinny dead women used to live in, then this is the story for you.

The family home of The Carpenters is going to be demolished because the current owner is sick of weird Carpenters fans hanging around all the time, and the fight is on to save the important memorial that one quite dull band used to live in for a while until one of them died.

Will the campaign to save The Carpenters house from demolition be successful? More importantly, can you really bring yourself to be even slightly bothered about whether a sodding house gets knocked down or not?

Some terrible things happen to the houses of dead celebrities. Take Graceland, for example – Elvis fans have literally started to go there to die now, while Johnny Cash's house suffered the biggest indignity of all in 2006 when a Bee Gee bought it. Perhaps it'd be better if all these houses were just demolished.

That seems to be the case at the moment with the old Carpenters house in Downey, south of Los Angeles. Although the house holds special significance for fans of The Carpenters because if featured on the cover of one of their albums and the band recorded there and it's where Karen Carpenter collapsed before she died, the current owner wants to knock it down anyway.

The reason? She's fed up with creepy Carpenters fans coming along and staring through the windows like a bunch of easy listening sods and leaving flowers everywhere. BBC News reports:

Fans of The Carpenters are objecting to plans to have pop duo's former family home knocked down… Jon Konjoyan, fan of the act who had huge success in the 1970s, said: "This house is our version of Graceland." The five-bedroom house was immortalised when it featured on the cover of The Carpenters' 1973 hit album Now & Then. Jessica Parra, whose parents own the house, said at first they allowed fans into their home and gave away items left behind by Richard Carpenter. "But honestly, it became horrible, not only for us but for the neighbourhood," she said, adding that fans "peek in windows and take pictures".

Sort of makes you wonder what they thought they'd be getting into buying a house where a woman who sold 100 million albums died. If they didn't want all this intrusion, perhaps it'd have been wiser to a house belonging to someone who fewer people cared about, like Dane Bowers or Shane Richie or something.

But regardless of that, it'll be interesting to see whether the Carpenters fans will be able to halt the demolishment of their heroes' home. Perhaps if enough of them gang together they'll be able to buy the house and turn it into a theme park-style shine to The Carpenters, that lets fans pay to lie down in the exact spot where Karen Carpenter collapsed, or ride a nauseatingly psychedelic ghost train that helps visitors understand what it was like to be Richard Carpenter when he was off his face of Qualuudes. And, of course, the Karen Carpenter Experience, which mainly involves not eating very much for a while.

Chances are that none of this will happen though because, as Carpenters fans, the protesters are among the puniest and most ineffectual saps ever to walk the earth.

Read more:

Carpenter house faces demolition - BBC