Saturday, December 15, 2007

The X Factor Final 2007 - Part 5

Well, you wouldn’t take a tip off me, would you? I’ve at least been consistent in getting it wrong all evening. Leon won! I must admit, I am as stunned at that result as Leon obviously was. And relieved too. Leon is at least a modest kind of guy. He only began singing about 10 months ago, but he has quite a voice and I guess it will keep getting better for a while. He will be Christmas number one. After that, I don’t know…

Anyway, I guess it's now back to business as usual - poetry, criticism etc - all that stuff I've left behind for one evening.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shocker! But well deserved. Leon really came good on the night. Old Rhydian looks gutted.


ABJ

Rob said...

Yes, a real shock. I'm trying to feel sorry for Rhydian, who probably believed he would win, but I'm struggling. The duet with Katherine Jenkins was so horrible - that might have been the turning point.

Good for Leon!

Rachel Fox said...

What is this X Factor you speak of? It's Strictly Come Dancing all the way in our house. AT least ballroom dancing is daft to begin with. Music, on the other hand, is the most beautiful of human activities and accomplishments. Too precious for the likes of Mr Cowell to be involved in its destruction.
Don't you think?

Colin Will said...

50% of our household members are with Rachel on this, whereas I don't watch either, preferring to compete with Jeremy Paxman on University Challenge.

I entirely agree with you, Rob, on the business of classically-trained singers trying to sing popular music. They can't do it and shouldn't attempt it. The most cringe-making example I can cite was watching Kiri te Kanawa and Jose Carreras making a pig's breakfast of West Side Story. Awful.

Rob said...

Rachel - I think the destruction job was completed before Simon Cowell came on the scene, but we may as well blame him anyway. I don't think the X Factor has much to do with music really (with the exception of Leona Lewis last year) - it's a soap opera.

Colin - I think you should go the the X Factor auditions next year. How about we get together with a few other poets, set a poem to a well known tune (by Whitney or Mariah, for example), sing it as badly as possible, and see if we can get on TV?

Colin Will said...

You're on Rob. I'm a second bass, and I used to sing in a madrigal group. Will that count against me?

Rob said...

Colin

It definitely won’t count against you. In fact, it has all the makings of a classic X Factor moment, something along the lines of:

…twenty seconds into the performance of Shelley’s Ozymandias sung to the tune of “One Moment in Time…”

Simon Cowell: OK, enough. Enough! Look guys, it was terrible, one of the worst auditions I’ve ever heard. Except…except for one thing – you with the beard. What are you doing singing with that lot?

Colin: Eh, well, they asked me, and…

Simon: You are brilliant. You could go all the way in this competition. But first you’ve got to drop those losers.

Colin: But they are my friends.

Simon: Dump them. You could win the X Factor. With that lot, you’ll never make it out of wedding gigs.

Dani Minogue: And you’re hot!

Colin: Ah, OK then.

Louis Walsh: You’re fantastic. You look fantastic, you sing like a star, and Scotland will get behind you. Yes.

Sharon: A thousand times, YES!

Dani: Mmmmm. Yes, indeed.

Simon: You’re in the next round. As for the rest of you, go and write some poetry or something equally useless. It’s all you’re good for. But don’t even think about singing in public again.

Colin Will said...

The last time I saw Dani was a few years ago when she and Roger Lloyd Pack were doing a couple of open air productions in the Botanics during the Edinburgh Festival.

I always used to get letters from 'Disgusted of Inverleith' after Festival shows, but I thought they were (and are) a Good Thing.