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Well, it’s back

7 Oct 12 | Re: Talent show crank-up | Link-U-Post

The eight-week, why-is-this-on-TV audition process is out of the way and X Factor live shows are back. What's always slightly surprising when I watch this first week is how, out of the thousands who audition, and with the benefit of a boot camp (?) and much other preparation, they struggle to find the dozen they need who are fully up to the standard.

I suppose the simple fact is that very few people have what's needed to be a top-level pop star. Abs Breen’s solo star may have plummeted after that promising Uptown Top Ranking tribute, but he would have been a mid- to high-level hope on the X Factor.

Watching on catch-up, I'm pleased to have the pre-song video packages bundled with the performances this first week so that I can get my introduction to who everyone’s supposed to be – who’s the Plucky Underdog, the Prickly Hatred Focus, the Little Sweetie, the Anonymous Try-Hard, the Oldie Last Chancer, the Hilarious Joke. All those slots are more or less filled once again. Perhaps the only one missing so far is the Obvious Favourite, so this could be a damp year, or we could see someone really find their feet over the three months like Little Mix did last year.

Hard to tell who I'm going to like at this stage, but here are some numbered thoughts:

1. Loved the Shania Twain version of Starships.
2. That boy band may as well be called Another Direction and have overdone hair. UPDATE: Having now watched District3’s performance as well, it seems that comment applies to two of this year’s acts, though District3 do sing better.
3. Without singling anyone out and hurting the poor dears’ feelings, there was at least one of those disorientating moments where the judges turned their full panegyric hosedown on what I had thought was a fairly ropey turn.
4. They shouldn’t let them write their own raps. Or maybe they don’t, who knows.
5. No Kelly so no “You put it down” this year, sadly, but the best line was encouragingly from new judge Nicole: “I want some of that cheese.”
6. One act reminded me, for the first time in some years, of Joan Osborne. Like, what if He was one of us?
7. Still nobody doing Fatboy Slim. Zero in nine years is not good enough.
8. Nice sparkly red shoes!

Posted by PRINCE SHCHERBATSKY at 14:49

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