Has X Factor produced a generation unable to identify mediocrity?
I think kids have always considered the latest chart acts to be exciting and impressive. But I do think there is a slight difference now in that they’re also being told that the singer has an amazing voice or a unique talent by TV producers like Simon Cowell instead of hearing a new act and simply liking them, their image, their songs etc. They’re being sold new acts on the premise that they’re talented, and they’re discerning about the acts that make it through X Factor without any personal critique of how talented the subjects are. They watch an X Factor contestant perform, to a standard predetermined by the show’s producers, most of the time with a backing track so loud that you can hardly hear their lead vocal, and then the TV producer and his mouthpieces tell you if it was good or bad.
Last year’s winner really made me laugh. His selling point was that he’s a “real” musician who writes his own songs, plays an instrument, and having worked the toilet circuit deserves his big chance. There’s thousands of “real” musicians in the country, the very best ones get spotted doing this and get signed, it’s not like every single one of them is consigned to that unless Simon Cowell or Esther Rantzen says they deserve their big break. He’s got hundreds of his own songs, apparently. Great. Give me till the end of the day and I’ll write you a hundred songs. Whether they’re good enough songs people would buy is another matter.
Kids have always been duped into thinking mediocre music is genuinely good. That mindlessness has been taken a step further now by those selling (and profitting from) the act outright telling the public what is good about them (as if they are impartial and qualified to be making such a judgement), and them buying it.
Commercial acts used to be successful because of their image or branding created to sell them. Cowell has created an image for himself* and his TV programmes, and that image tells people what to buy.
*(I laugh at the contestants who say how important is is to hear his opinion of them and get his vote above all others. They clearly know nothing about his career and base it all upon the image he has created for himself.)
Is he evil? Not really. He appears to be unscrupulous, selling things he must know to be bad but there are far worse things you can do to achieve fortune and power, and, as you say, he’s not forcing anybody to do anything. I’m sure half the people who denounce him would, if they were able, do exactly as he has done. The worst thing he does is ridicule people on national TV. Sometimes that’s not such a bad thing, you would think someone could have been ‘cruel to be kind’ before they applied to go on the telly. In the most severe cases, they usually end up coming back to parade themselves in the Final so they can’t be that hurt by the experience (unless that is contractual, perhaps?). But some of them appear to be mentally challenged and vulnerable: it does take bad people to exploit and laugh at that.
