The First and Only X-Factor Post.

Tonight I found myself alone, on a sofa, watching X-Factor.

Now as self-abasement and confessional blogging goes, it doesn't get any more harrowing for me to admit that. When i'm done writing this and I hit the 'publish' button, I'm gonna have that slightly nauseous, hollow feeling that usually I only get the morning after a serious drinking session  that somehow turned into an embarrassing, pitiful debacle - one of those ones where you know it'll be a while before you can look certain people in the eye again. I can feel it there now just underneath my diaphragm, waiting to wreak havoc with my self-respect. Like a little monkey with a leather waistcoat and a strap-on.


But I did. I watched X-Factor. Are there any saving graces, any shreds of dignity, however jagged and brittle, that I can cling to? Maybe. I didn't watch it ALL, which is the first major thing. I tuned in about 20 minutes in and back out again with a good 15 minutes left to run. But by then, I'd seen all I needed to see. In truth, my whole reason for watching it in the first place was because I'd read somewhere (I'm guessing a passing Tweet) that it was 'Rock' week. And that the reason it was 'Rock' week was because the whole thing has, up until now, been such a massive and unmitigated clusterfuck that the production team and judges felt that the contestants needed a musical rocket up their arses, so to speak. 


So I switched on. A coffee loaded with whisky and my daughter fast asleep out of harm's way, I prepared to enter the entertainment Twilight Zone and yes, a tiny part of me - the part that used to genuinely enjoy the earlier seasons of shows like American Idol for the bona fide talent it attracted - a part of me wanted to see something awesome. 


You know, for such a cynical, world weary bastard, I can sometimes fall into the trap of optimistic open-mindedness. And I guess all the above elements combined were reasons enough to suspend my usual derision and have a look. Now I'd love to say that I didn't know the first fucking thing about ANY of the contestants, due to not caring two fucks about tabloids or celebrity gossip and having an inbuilt dross filter that switches to a predetermined playlist in my head whenever I'm in range of anyone discussing the show or anyone connected with it. I'd LOVE to say I went in totally blind. But I have this friend, and she...well...the thing is...we get drunk and she plays me YouTube clips of people on the show because she wants to know what I think, and I'm honoured that she seems to find my opinion relevant enough to do that, but honestly - they're not in the same league as the American Idol crowd. I've usually forgotten what I've seen and heard the very moment the next clip comes on. It doesn't help that they all seem to be mildly unpleasant in one way or another.


I think it's her 'guilty pleasure'. In every other respect she's above such mental junk -  thankfully, as well as being very beautiful, said friend is also fiercely smart and opinionated - so we have plenty of mental ammunition to fire at one another. But tonight, I sat there watching in vegetative empathy with millions of other people and oh my fuck, I so wish I hadn't bothered...


See, I have a rock heart. More accurately, I have a punk heart, wired to my nervous system with pulsing, synthesised neon tubes filled with minor chord changes and primal pounding beats. What I saw tonight was less 'rock' - more 'musical putrefaction'. Girl bands singing hip hop songs with guitar overlays is not rock. Some teenage snotbox reliant on his 'cheeky' wideboy antics and stage strutting to mask his piss-poor vocals is not rock. Cher, in ANY universe, is not fucking rock. 


I learnt a few things this evening. Firstly, that one should always listen to ones inner voice in matters of selecting ones' evening entertainment. Also, that curiosity did indeed kill the cat. Or in this case, my will to live. Thirdly, the assemblage of twats that pass for judges (with the exception, albeit grudgingly, of Gary Barlow - a musical craftsman in his own right) need to be subjected to sustained low-level torture until the candy-floss dream palaces they live in shatter and make them cry themselves to sleep at night. 


JH