X Factor

Thank god, sense prevailed and Steve won - stood out to me as the best for weeks now but I thought the student boys might have pulled it off tonight.

I won't be buying his records of course but I reckon he sell loads to the millions of lady 'baby boomers' out there. The new David Essex perhaps?

Matt.

p.s. yes I know it's sad but once you start watching something you have to see it through - that's why I didn't watch ANY of I'm a celebrity.....

 

you saddo muppet

 

Look who's talking - sat in front of his PC on a Saturday evening!

 

I reckon the whole thing was rigged. I mean, Simon Cowell does own the rights to the show and would you trust that man??? Steve will be back driving taxis in 6 months when Simon drops him like a lead balloon.

The music industry is in a very sad, sad state alright!

(my wife made me watch it - honest!)

 

have been sort of watching this show for the last few weeks. I think that Sharon Osborne is a total , snidey, sneaky, stupid cow who should look t her own weird, freaky, disfunctional family beofre she starts dishing the bullshit. Steve looked to be a bit of a Grey man, sure he can sing a whole lot better than me or 98% of the members of this forum, but he didn't eally shine for me. I think he would be a really nice bloke to have a few pints with.
G4, i thouht they really shone tonight, i will freely admit that i thought their versions of Nessum Dorma and Radioheads 'Creep' where pretty good, Mind you I am a really common , working class bloke, who's had one too many Guiness tonight and so am pretty easily pleased.

 

You're right about Sharon - no idea why she was chosen to judge - I mean what does she know about talent? Okay so she manages her husband but surely that's more about making sure the old nutter gets home in one piece and doesn't kill himself.

What's ironic is that her personal attack on Steve probably got him a lot of sympathy votes.

Matt.

 

The Sharon Osbourne outburst was bizzare. For those who didn't see it (shame on you! - it's on ITV2 now) she tore into contestant Steve and called him a 'fake' at the end of the show.

I enjoyed the X-Factor very much. The early shows were great but the middle ones were a bit tedious and I lost interest. But I watched the final, of course. Steve was a very average singer. He may well have a couple of albums of Magic FM dross but I can't see him lasting. G4 are a sort of modern Swingle/King's Singers. They may well have one album of dross that I imagine Richard Stilgoe would like but I can't see them being more than a brief novelty. But they do sing very well.

 

OK, I've been pretty much hooked on this ( ) since catching one of the early progs showing the first round auditions - in a sort of a car-crash voyeur kind of way. But once it got into the finals I was actually really surprised at the standard of the finalists (considering the general crap you hear on the radio and TV nowadays), and I felt all the final four were excellent. Rowetta's huge voice would follow on fine in the line of Aretha Franklin, Gloria Gaynor, Shirley Bassey etc.. Tabby didn't really do anything for me in the first show of the finals, but towards the end I thought he was great - he could rock, perform and most importantly, sing! One of the impressive things for a rocker was that he could do the soft soulful stuff too. I was surprised that no-one made comparisons between him and Bono....the similarity is unmistakeable (although in his last show Tabby probably overdid the intakes of breath through the teeth).

I would have liked to have seen G4 win - and I thought they sang Steve off the stage last night. Obviously their style was closer to my classical preferences, but crossover is often pretty repellent to us classicos, seeming just a cop-out. In their case I was really impressed by how they tried taking different approaches to popular songs, rather than popping up classical pieces (so from the other side of the fence I can well see why Cowell would make the comment that some would hate what they do). It remains to be seen whether they stay like this once a marketing machine gets hold of them. Jonathan's voice is fantastic, although falling inconveniently between the classical and popular genres - it is probably not quite open enough and a bit too nasal to be a genuine operatic tenor (although that may be just a matter of experience at present). Some of the group's harmonies struck me as a bit strange at times, but they were always trying to be different, and risks don't always pay off. Mike and Matt also have pretty good voices, and it would have been good (although possibly too much of a risk in the context of the competition) to hear some more of them - the odd lines they did as duets with Jonathan were really good. I still doubt I'd buy one of their records though. It was interesting that no-one commented that the last line of Nessun Dorma..."vincero!" translates as "I will win!".

Steve's voice was OK, and while I like some soul stuff, it didn't strike me as anything to challenge the big boys. It may be indicative of how little his voice involved me that I spent most of the time listening to him thinking how repetitive the words of all his songs were. I felt he should work a bit on his stage act/presence because it was very samey (particularly his hand movements). Compared to the Sam Cooke stuff that seems to have been flooding the airwaves recently, he's a non-starter.

It would have been interesting to hear how the voting panned out. There were lots of "neck-and-neck" status reports through the first show, but significantly no "the winner, by less than 1%, is...". I suspect that all the middle aged ladies probably piled in with votes for Steve after "Strictly Come Dancing" finished on the other side.

Also, last week there was a fortunate opportunity for comparison between Tabby and Simon Cowell's "favourite" (not) group Busted - and to my ears Tabby was in a completely different league. And last night there was an opportunity for comparison with G4 and "Il Divo" - who apparently are also in Cowell's stable. They actually did that "Holy Night" carol that G4 did last week. No-one in Il Divo has anything like as good a voice as Jonathan, but that group may have melded together rather better - I did feel that Jonathan does need to rein it in a bit from time to time. G4's version of the carol was far more moving - Il Divo were mugging for the camera's and souping it up quite horrendously.

 

I haven't seen the final yet I was going to watch it tonight but this thread has pretty much told me the outcome. From a manc point of view plus the fact I have spoken to her before she X factor even existed I wanted Rowetta to win although she was voted out ages ago. She took a picture that I happen to in as well.

I liked G4 simply because they were very different, however I can't see them selling many records.

Steve to me is too bland, yes he can sing, yes he can dance, yes he has the looks, do you see my point? He is just like all the others out there.

I didn't like Tabby that much either because I thought we was a bit cocky. He was a great performer though.

No doubt tomorrow's Daily Star headline will read "Sharon did the dirty on me"

 

AT - if you like G4 it's probably still worth watching for all three of their performances, and Steve's "Higher and Higher" was really good too. Ther was a load of show-biz background and flummery between the 2nd and 3rd songs that you may like to miss though.

 

I might as well watch it I assuming I get my work finished on time. I won't be buying any of their records though.

The problem I have with Steve in the market place is what is he going to do? Sing a load of covers? At least similar artists such as Mick Hucknall and George Micheal write all their own stuff.

 

Haven't been following the X-Factor at all, but I heard Steve sing 'Against All Odds'. Definately wasn't keen - it sounded terrible IMHO compared to the Phil Collins version. I suspect it will be more 'Pap-Idol' type covers again.....

 

Another thing that i thought was a really cheap shot was a few weeks ago when Sharon Osbourne commented that Rowetta's dress was only rented and had to go back to the hire shop on Monday morning. It was a really shallow, nasty remark that was aimed at Cowell , but you could see that poor old, working class girl , come good , Rowetta just wanted to sink in a hole and die. Sharron Osbourne what a nasty un-talented cow, Perhaps Rowetta should have told 'formerly plain jane ' Osbourne that she only looks as 'fabulous' as she does at her age after having her beer gut stapled up and suffering at the hands of the butchers knife. I Really felt sorry for the Mad Manc and so hit my red button to give her a 30p sympathy vote.

Of all of the final acts I think that Rowetta is probably the only one who i buy a record of. I love female vocalists anyway and I reckon that with that deep , vibrant powerfull voice of hers, she could hold her own with the very, very best of them, she is also clearly slightly un-hinged, which is always very show biz.
I don't know whether it was the song itself ( most probably ) or the way it was being sung but i will freely admit I had goose bumps on the back of my arms during G4's Nessum Dorma. I know that some will look at shows like X-Factor from a snobby, 'it is all rubbish' point of view but when an act can can sing and make my very skin react like that in a sub-concious, un-controlled manner deseve my credit where it is due.

 

I am not really a happy mondays fan but I think the records that she sings on are the best. Even before this competition she has quite a well known figure in the mancunian music industry.

The dress remark must have been quite upsetting for her.

 

it's all pure sh*te man...

 

It's definitely shite...
And not only that, Cowell stands to make £100m out of it!!!!!
But despite that I watched much of it too (like Graham said, it's like watching a car crash)
I would have voted for Tabby too - not because he was a wonderful singer with amazing presence (which he wasn't really, though he looks like Jez from the Utah Saints did years ago..), but because it really made a change to see someone on a TV talent show who wasn't a r'n'b or boy/girl band clone..
I didn't vote though, just so that bloody Cowell bloke wouldn't get even a penny of my money! He'd only spend it on another Maybach, or some more soulless decoration for his ultra-bland house

 

Tabby was terrible. Made every song sound like Bon Jovi.

Rowetta was good, as was Cassie.