And it's awful. Taking SUPERFICIALITY to the extreme - fake sincerity, fake performances, fake interpretation, a crap song for the final (A Moment Like This? Perleese) and two singers neither of which can sing.

What a farce!

With my schedule, and a night off,( which is cool) we have just got up and are treating the programme as breakfast TV.
Who the heck is going to buy hard copy of this karaoke nonscence for Christmas, and listen to it more than once?
I`m glad the young performers have had a good time is all I can say, they are nice people, but I sadly keep expecting the national lottery numbers to be announced any second.

I completely agree - what a farce! I have watched bits of the shows and the judges' comments have been hilarious. Simon said Leona sang better than Whitney Houston and was the biggest and best female singer this country has and Sharon said she had perfect pitch and never failed to hit a note. She must be completely tone deaf.

All the finalists had agents and had little or no talent. Leona attended the 3 top stage schools from the age of 5 and likewise Ray attended stage schools and was in Brookside.

Why do all these 'reality shows' have to be so crappy and just have on people with agents etc. Worse still they are now advertising for applicants for next year's XFactor and another talent show that Simon is doing. The only problem being that the talent doesn't get on the shows (unless agents actually have talent, which is doubtful).

Very bizarre - some very good regular Tipsters on here are also raving about Leona... apart from the awful imitation of Carey (who herself was simply a glorified backing singer doing scales), Leona kept just missing all the big notes; she was fractionally flat or sharp on all the key notes.
She's a REAL candidate for Auto Tuning in the studio.

Not as much auto tuning as Ray though, and he wasnt even doing vocal acrobatics.
Farcical , farcical, and the daftest thing is we watched it, BUT, for all the wrong reasons.

The biggest selling records arent by 3rd rate Westlifes or z list Shane Wards so why dont they introduce a 4th judge with a live band category....just a thought

If it goes into live bands Designer mag guys, then we go into Battle of the Bands in a youth hostel enviroment, can we all imagine the chaos??

Actually I will elaborate on the live band X-Factor idea further suggested by Designer Magazine as I sit here watching England give the Ashes back.
The first costing element is an added live sound crew.
Auditions would have to be held live in a ,as I said before, "Battle of The Bands", style, not popular with me, but very popular with bands and their followings, and yes with a studio audience.
A 4th judge is required, as you suggested, to represent the live guys and that is a hard name/personality to find to sit on the panel.
I think the key thing here, is that should this happen, by using live music, in its current UK state, the show would move slightly out of it`s "light entertainment" genre.
My nomination for the "4th" judge? Bruce Dickinson.

How about this to really annoy most of the board...

In The City is around the time the X Factor live TV Shows start so Phil Saxe selects his favourite bands of ITC and gets Tony Wilson to front it taking 4 bands into the TV vote offs.

Wilson wont be backward coming forward with opinions and it would certainly make better viewing than Louise Walsh at the same time as bringing 4 live bands to the publics attention

Let the backlash commence

That doesnt annoy me at all Des. Tony Wilson is an excellent candidate for the fourth judge, and much better than my suggestion. Well done. I was trying to think of a character that would cross the board and boundaries between the modes of music we were talking of.

Are you guys mental?
Having four guys picked from In The City?!

In my honest opinion, i think X Factor is tacky, and the idea of a star over night is so , puke inducing...

I think if a band works hard enough, it doesnt need to lower itself as to join the countries biggest talent contest... it could do more damage than good...

I agree and disagree Colin at the same time, with all due respect.
We all have to look at where the industry is going, what the public wants, and try and steer it our way, there will be no overnight revoloution.

looking at it this way, yes, the public want and build over night stars...

longevity...
Will Young, Girls Aloud & Liberty X(although where are they? Apparently back in the new year?)

Soon to be on Reality TV?
Gareth Gates, Darius Danesh*, Michelle McManus, One True Voice, Hear

Time and again I have found that flagrantly artificial attempts at melisma are either a substitute for real fire and passion or a cover-up for not knowing the melody. I have encountered this frequently in the studio and coined the term "oversouling" to bring the offending performer back to reality. Please, learn the song first, and then sing it from the heart.
JERRY WEXLER
Sarasota, Fla.

Very nice Jerry Wexler quote.
I don`t mind an obvious vocal tuning phrase left in by a producer, as a vocalist gets themself ready for a track, but I detest the rehersed ones. Aretha just sang the songs the way she felt them.
If you have to reherse to sing like an artiste as massive and heart-wrenching as the aforementioned, you are a karaoke singer, and it doesn`t matter how many hits you have either. That IS the genre if you do not believe in yourself and what your body enables you to do naturally.Even naturally "bad" singers can raise emotions in a listener by doing what they do naturally.