The X-Factor 2011 - It really is love and heartbreak

By Jason Wright (Entertainment Expert)

THIS weekend, the public could respond to the barbaric decisions by the producers to have four acts leave the competition last week.  The second week of live shows on the X-Factor was when the ‘real’ competition began, with the theme songs associated with love or heartbreak.

GROUPS

COLOURFUL: Rhytmix flourished under pressure to perform

NU VIBE kicked off the show on Saturday.  After a downbeat start last week, they were looking to improve with U2’s ‘With or without you.’  It was a lot better than last week but questions were being raised by the judges over the chemistry between the band members.  It would prove to be their ultimate downfall.  Whereas Nu Vibe were struggling, girl group Rhythmix flourished.  They set the bar last week and took it further with Nelly Furtado’s ‘I’m like a Bird.’  After seven years, are they the group to at last break the girlband jinx?  That performance was then backed up by The Risk, with a polished and well tuned version of Bruno Mars’ ‘Just The Way You Are.’  On the early evidence of this year, they could be the next big boyband group.

OVER 25s

FIRST of the Over acts was the act that stood out in this category last week, Sami Brookes.  To give credit, Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love you,’ is a hard songs to conquer but she did just that.  For once, Gary Barlow was out of line by comparing her performance to a “cruise singer.”  What performance was he watching?  Fast becoming the joke act is helium-pitched Johnny Robinson.  The theory is backed up by putting Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ to shame, and that was just being dressed in near-drag.  I sense the equation of: Johnny Robinson + Louis Walsh = THE NEXT WAGNER!  It seemed Kitty Brucknell took tips from Johnny too with her rendition of Bjork’s ‘It’s Oh So Quiet,’ putting a sort of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ twist on it.  The one big difference is of course, Kitty can sing in tune and Johnny can’t!

BOYS

WEAK: A late song change left Frankie in a very vulnerable position

ONE act that has surprised a lot of people already is Craig Colton.  His rendition of Beyoncé’s ‘Best Thing I never had’ wasn’t as strong as last week but still sealed the fact that he is actually a genuine contender.  It was tough week for ladies man Frankie Cocozza, as his song was changed less than 24 hours before the show and it proved to be a genuine mistake.  He slouched his way through a weak version of Coldplay’s ‘The Scientist.’  Louis Walsh rightly said that he lost his “swagger” before Kelly Rowland jumped to Frankie’s defence, by banning Louis from using that word!  Certainly an American way of telling him to shut the hell up!  To complete what was an indifferent night for the Boys was Marcus Collins who did the best he could with Rihanna’s ‘Russian Roulette’ but it was always a song completely out of his vocal range.  Overall, Gary Barlow will look back at this week as disappointing.  However, he made more errors in his selections than his acts did in their performances.

GIRLS

AGAIN, the category kicked off with the leading contender, Janet Devlin.  The Northern Irish teen was coming into the show on a back of a difficult week following the tragic death of her grandfather.  She overcome this, but putting her own unique style of the classic Elvis Presley song ‘ICan’t Help Falling in Love with You.’ It was moving and stunning to listen to and her grandfather would be so proud of it.  Another one hoping to, and did, impress well again was Misha B.  Charles & Eddie song ‘Would I Lie To You?’ is certainly a song suited to her but she well and truly took to another level with, like Janet, putting her own twist on the song.  Finally, Sophie Habibis could have counted herself lucky to have been saved in the big twist.  However, her performance of The Calling’s ‘Wherever You Will Go’ was a big highlight of the evening and may have surprisingly suggested that Kelly actually did make the right decision to save her from going home last week.  Amelia who?

The Result

MISSING: The connection factor was the downfall for Nu Vibe

THE public was finally back in power this week, and ITV used the show to try to reintroduce text voting to its shows, after it was suspended following the infamous phone-in scandal in 2007.  In the end, the two weakest performances of Saturday night proved to be the two acts participating in the ‘Final Showdown.’  For Nu Vibe or Frankie, one was about to be thrown out of the competition by the judges.  It was a tight sing-off which saw both acts giving it their all.  Nu Vibe eventually got eliminated, with only getting the backing of their mentor, Tulisa.  Their performances in the live shows were a major disappointment for an act that had promised so much potential.

     Away from the singing, it was to be a devastating weekend for the show as it lost its three year unbeaten record in the TV ratings. Beaten hands down by rival show Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday, the figures only surged when the overlap with Strictly at the start of the show concluded.   It’s the first time since the fourth week of the live finals back in 2008 that X-Factor has been defeated by Strictly.

     It seems this shock slump in ratings has been down to four factors;

1. The new judging panel is unsettled in the live environment but that’s bound to happen, they’ve only started so I’m sure they would have got used to it by the series end.
2. The quality of acts is poor.  OK, I admit, it’s not as great as 2008 or 2009 but it’s already beating last year’s bunch hands down.
3. A mass boycott with viewers still angry at last week’s elimination procedure; truth hurts but that’s kind of expected.
4. It’s simple, the public misses Simon Cowell but unfortunately there’s nothing anyone can do about it, it was his decision after all to quit in favour of taking part in the US counterpart.

     Regardless, we can still expect fierce competition and rivalry in the eight more weeks to come.  There will be no blog next week, taking a break in line with the school/college half-term so the next blog in a fortnight’s time which will wrap up both weeks three and four of the finals.

TV classics (or rejects!) - The Premiership

IN THE summer of 1999, smooth talking Des Lynam made the shock decision to leave the BBC, to take the role as lead football anchor for ITV Sport.  He would front live FA Cup and UEFA Champions League football, alongside shared coverage of major international tournaments.  Just over two years later, he was back in his traditional role of presenting Saturday evening Premier League highlights.  However, ‘The Premiership’ turned into one of the biggest flops in ITV’s distinguished history.

     There was big surprise when ITV outbid the BBC for Premiership highlights in the summer of 2000.  The three-year contract cost the commercial broadcaster £185million.  The BBC’s MOTD team was left devastated by the news and trundled through the remainder of their Euro 2000 coverage looking depressed and downcast.  In fact, when watching Gary Lineker that summer, it felt like we were about to watch a funeral procession, let alone a major football match!  Always critical of late starts, Des Lynam wanted the new programme to be an early Saturday evening show, rather than the traditional 10.30pm slot, feeling it would appeal to all audiences.  He aimed for 6pm at first, but this idea was scrapped due to Sky’s curfew time lock it had on Premier League rights.  9pm was too late, due to ITV’s compact Saturday evening entertainment line-up, so the decision was taken to screen ‘The Premiership,’ at 7pm every Saturday evening.  It would turn into one of the most horrendous timing misjudgements of all time!

     U2’s Grammy-award winning track ‘Beautiful Day’ was selected as the music theme and although it has no comparison on the Match of the Day theme tune, it was still a brilliant choice of music for football.  Major drinks giant Coca Cola was signed up to sponsor the programme, using ‘Leggsy,’ (its mascot) in some hilarious break bumper parodies.  Alongside lunchtime show On The Ball and the doomed afternoon results show, The Goal Rush – ITV was the new place for Saturday football entertainment.

     On Saturday August 18 2001, ‘The Premiership’ debuted with Middlesbrough v Arsenal, Liverpool v West Ham United and Sunderland v Ipswich Town being chosen as the three featured games.  ITV would send its four main commentators; Clive Tydlesey, Peter Drury, Jon Champion and Guy Mowbray out to featured matches, whilst reporters such as Ned Boulting, Russ Williams and Gabriel Clarke would cover the less featured matches.  Terry Venables and Ally McCoist would be the main pundits alongside Des in the studio, with Robbie Earle and Ron Atkinson also being used on occasion.  ITV decided to pioneer two new technology pieces which failed miserably.  The ProZone programme saw Venables hopelessly being able to keep up with technology and had to rush through key moments of games, struggling to explain what this new data meant.  Also, Andy Townsend, former Chelsea and Aston Villa midfielder would be at a key match from the weekend in a pathetic ‘Tactics Truck!’  If lucky, Andy might be joined by a Premiership player who had nothing else to do on their Saturday evenings to analyse a game in better depth, but this experiment was quickly abandoned.  It worked for Channel 4 with Test Cricket and Channel Five for their live UEFA Europa League coverage, but this format simply didn’t work for highlights.  Townsend’s Tactics Truck was torn to shreds by avid football fans and journalists, calling it “totally inept and excruciatingly painful.”

     Despite getting critical acclaim on the opening weekend from the News of the World, the viewing figures were disappointing.  Only five million watched the opening 7pm show, two million lower than The Weakest Link, which was BBC’s head-to-head competition.  The Daily Mirror was a strong critic of The Premiership’s lack of match action and ITV’s determination to show those annoying commercial breaks whenever they could.  A week later, viewing figures dropped to 3.1million; ITV’s worst Saturday night viewing figures for a decade and although the average slightly picked up, the 7pm experiment was a doomed failure.  Under pressure from the likes of Cilla Black, who was concerned about the later time for her show Blind Date and advertisers, ITV’s controller of sport, now FA chief executive Brian Barwick had little alternative but to shove the show back to a traditional 10.30pm slot from November 2001 onwards. 

    Afterwards, the show never really recovered and in 2003, the BBC won back the highlights rights from the 2004/05 season onwards.  The Goal Rush ended in December 2003, after spectacularly dismal ratings and in May 2004, both On the Ball and ‘The Premiership’ made a quiet and tame exit after three failed seasons.

     You have to give ITV some credit for attempting such a bold move, but this was a gamble that spectacularly backfired.  The Premiership will always be remembered as a ‘Desater!’  

Glastonbury 2010 - Hot Weather And Hot Acts

Last weekend saw the music festival circus move onto Glastonbury, for undoubtedly, one of the biggest music festivals in the world.  Celebrating its 40^th anniversary in 2010, the organisers of the event were hoping to put on a spectacular show.  They weren’t to be disappointed, though the headlining acts weren’t as strong as in recent years.

The festival-goers were treated to the unseasonably warm weather that has hit the UK in recent weeks.  Traditionally, Glastonbury is associated with mud-baths and foul weather conditions.  This time around, it wasn’t anoraks and wellington boots required.  Instead, it was sunglasses, plenty of bottled water and suncream.

The headlining acts on the main Pyramid Stage in 2010 were Gorillaz, Muse and Stevie Wonder.  Gorillaz kicked the entertainment off last Friday, having stepped in as late replacements for U2, after Bono was forced to withdraw, having undergone surgery on a back injury.  It was brave of Gorillaz to step in at the last minute, but as the critics have reported, they failed to win over the expected crowd.  Gorillaz are not the most well-known band and DARE aside, having had many star-studded hits.  Consequently, the attention of the crowd dwindled when they were on stage.  It was always going to be a tough act for them to step into U2’s shoes, and it showed. 

Pop took over on Saturday afternoon, with sparkling performances from the likes of Shakira and the Scissor Sisters.  The Pet Shop Boys rolled back the years, with a fantastic back catalogue of songs that made the crowd go mad.  It was the turn of Muse to headline on the Pyramid Stage, and they got mixed reviews, both from the audience and reviewers.  Muse is a personal favourite band of mine, but they do have the tendency to produce some absolute classics, then some songs that leave you thinking, ‘What on earth was that?’  Once again, the main feeling seemed to be a tinge of disappointment around the place, though it sounds like it was more livery than Friday’s disappointing start.

Last year, Glastonbury was overshadowed by the death of the ‘King of Pop,’ Michael Jackson.  This time around, it was England in the World Cup that gripped the attention of the fans.  A big screen last Sunday was set-up to watch our capitulation at the hands of the Germans in Bloemfontein, and that left everyone lacking the party mood to celebrate the finale.  Stevie Wonder finished things off on the Pyramid Stage, and sadly, the atmosphere seemed to be lacking the edge that Blur had when they signed Glastonbury off in 2009.  Whether that had to be down to the football result is questionable.  Stevie Wonder was always a surprising choice to headline I felt, and the general consensus was it was a performance that improved gradually, after a slow and dreary opening.

On the outset, Saturday seemed to be the better day overall, with Shakira a pleasant surprise and the Scissor Sisters turning out to be the strongest out of all the performers.  The headline performers slightly disappointed in all honesty, but the weather was exceptional and the spirit of Glastonbury remains as strong as ever.  It sounds like it wasn’t the best festival ever in its established history, but it was a respectable showing for its 40^th birthday.  Let’s hope it will be slightly stronger and less dominated by other global events across the world in 2011.    

U2 Out, Gorillaz In At Glastonbury 2010

The organisers of the Glastonbury Festival received a massive blow to their preparations for the 2010 event last Tuesday, when it was announced that Irish rock band, U2 have been forced to pull-out of their headline performance act.  Animated-band the Gorillaz, will step into their shoes for the top billing on Friday 25^th June.

U2’s front singer, charity campaigner Bono has just undergone back surgery for temporary paralysis and consequently, needs to rest for upto two months, meaning performing at Glastonbury was simply never going to happen.  Sixteen tour dates in the US and in Canada – scheduled for July have also been postponed, because of the recovery process.  Bono has admitted his heartbreak, as he was keen to see U2 put on a show for the crowds on opening night.  Behind such classic songs such as ‘Elevation,’ ‘Beautiful Day,’ and ‘Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me,’ U2 were due to share the headlining at the 2010 extraganvanza with Stevie Wonder and Muse. 

Glastonbury boss and founder Michael Eavis disappointment at seeing this dent in his line-up was cleared slightly by the quick announcement of the Gorillaz replacing U2 on the Pyramid Stage on June 25^th.  He said this of the announcement:

"This is going to be Gorilllaz's only UK festival appearance, and it'll be a massive audio visual spectacle which will really ignite the Pyramid on the Friday night, with Muse, then Stevie Wonder to follow.
"I'm very excited about Gorillaz's show coming here because they're so open to guests and collaborations. The alchemy of Friday's show is going to be astonishing, a perfect, contemporary way to kick off the 40th anniversary celebrations."

Despite the adequate replacement, there is no doubt that Glastonbury’s preparation for this celebration year has been badly hit.  Everyone wishes Bono a speedy recovery from his prognosis and hope he and U2 will be back touring soon, and the group’s fans will be devastated by this blow.  Let’s hope Gorillaz can step-up to the mark, because they no doubt have big shoes now to fill.   

Glastonbury 2010 - Promises To Be A Stunning Spectacle

On Thursday morning, the official line-up for the 2010 Glastonbury was revealed and as Michael Eavis, the founder of Glastonbury said: “This is it.  It’s the most staggering line-up to match the 40-year reputation of the Festival.’

On the weekend of Friday 25^th – Sunday 27^th June, hundreds of thousands of festival goers, will no doubt battle the weather elements to see some of the most iconic names in the music industry.  Last year’s festival, headlined by the likes of Blur was overshadowed by the tragic death of the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson.  Hopefully, 2010 will be remembered for the music on stage.

To celebrate its 40^th anniversary, the organisers have booked more than 350 acts to perform over the weekend, ranging from dance DJ’s, circus acts and famous musicians.  Once again, there will be extensive coverage on the twelve stages on the BBC, which has had the UK TV rights to the biggest music festival of the year since 1996.  Headlining the 2010 acts on the main Pyramid Stage are U2 on Friday night, Muse on Saturday and the legendary Stevie Wonder on Sunday evening.  Other performers on the various stages across the weekend include 2010 BRIT Award winners Dizzee Rascal, Ellie Goulding and Florence + the Machine.  They will be joined by the likes of the Scissor Sisters, the PetShop Boys, La Roux, Willie Nelson, The Tempter Trap, Editors, Ash and MGMT.

To many, this announcement was soon than what most had initially anticipated.  This is largely because the final batch of ticket for the annual Somerset festival bash were sold out at the beginning of last week.  If the line-up actually delivers on its promise, Glastonbury 2010 should be a spectacular music spectacle.