Simon’s Saturday Night Broken Dreams!

An opinionated piece on mr. Simon cowell...

First broadcast in September 2004, the X Factor has grown from strength to strength. Series 1 attracted an average of 7.4 million viewers but now, at an ageing Series 7, drags in a whopping 14.1 million viewers, pretty much doubling that of 6 years ago. Oh, how things change.

For those who are sensible enough not to care about the X Factor or what it entails, it’s basically a glorified singing competition where aspiring singers sing their little hearts out to win the competition and gain themselves a record label with SYCO Music (Si-mon Co-well, get it?) and receive a nice cash payment.  Then there’s the predictable Christmas No.1 and fame for ever after! Unless you’re Gareth Gates, Steve Brookstein, Bianca Ryan, Leon Jackson, Same Difference, the list goes on, who were conveniently dropped by Mr. Cowell. Ouch.

The show is seen to give ordinary people, like Matt Cardle a painter/decorator, the chance to live the dream, party hard and earn millions. But it doesn’t make those hopefuls aware that the industry is a big, bad monster, a world where Simon Cowell won’t always spoon-feed you and hold your hand, (as the dropped artists promptly found out...)

Yes, we all have a laugh watching the like of ‘Ablisa’ parading around on stage doing what they describe as singing and then... punching your best friend in the face. But they genuinely thought they had a chance at the life they’ve always dreamed of but it was all to be taken away from them and reality would be handed to them – like a smack in the face. Simon Cowell doesn’t care whose heart he breaks or whose dreams he shatters because he’s only in it for the money, and power, of course.

Yes, Leona Lewis was a phenomenal singer and G4 was flawless but even Simon Cowell manages to suck every ounce of individuality from them. (Did I mention that G4 have split?) Auto-tuning; who remembers that from the Series 7 auditions? A sham do I hear? You can guarantee the inevitable Christmas No. 1 will be Glee-standard pitch perfect, contain no ‘real instruments’,(you know – actual guitars and amps) and will have the compulsory key-change towards the end. “When we collide we come togetheeeeeerrrrr.” Here we go... yawn.

What happened to authentic guitar music, grungey clashes of notes and a rugged singer heading an edgy band? Simon Cowell has kidnapped them all and is stashing them in his £15million mansion in Beverly Hills. That’s what.

The X Factor has spiralled out of control and it’s not stopping. All intentions of finding raw talent have been thrown to the dogs and Simon Cowell sits snugly in his throne; driving his manufactured slave-acts into misery and disappointment. Like Just Jack once said, “Why d’you have to go and put stars in their eyes?” But, never mind, there’s always next year.  Maybe Simon Neil will kidnap Matt Cardle, Simon Cowell’s mansion will actually have faulty foundations and it collapses – with him in it and Rage Against The Machine become head of Government.  But probably not.