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[Blog] THE X FACTOR!

Thu, December 15, 2011

Do you remember?...

Over the last few years the run up to Christmas seems to have got a lot shorter, the anticipation of what you’re going to be opening on the 25th begins a lot later because the nation’s collective anticipation seems to have been focused on something else, who is going to be crowned as winner of everyone’s favourite reality competition, The X Factor.

It’s like an epidemic, it sweeps over the country and dominates the weekend television schedule and fills the tabloid pages every day of the week. Even those people who say they hate it know the name of every contestant and what they got up to at some Mayfair party or other, there is no escape from the clutches of its influence for its entire duration, but what happens afterwards?

Prepare yourself for a bit of a brain racking session, a bit of “oh yeah I remember him” and a lot of “who?” because we’re about to talk about life after the X Factor. What happens to you after you’ve won the show, the lights have gone off, the judges have gone back to their mansions and tabloids have found someone new to hound?

Does anybody out there remember series one? To the 6 of you that answered yes, do you remember the winner Steve Brookstein? Well he did alright for himself at the start when he released his 1st single ‘Against All Odds’ selling 250,000 copies, a bright future you’d think? He failed to release a second one and was dropped after his year contract was up, not the best start for the show was it, let’s see if they could fix it for the next year shall we?

Shayne Ward, the housewives favourite with his 90’s boy band looks and his vests, I think we all remember him don’t we? Maybe that’s because he released 3 top 20 singles and an album that went platinum. In fact the only thing that stopped his rise was nodules on his vocal cords, something that affected Julie Andrews too, could he have been as big as her, we will never know. Well done though X Factor, you’re doing better.

Series 3 was the success story they’d been looking for, Leona Lewis. She broke records when her first single was downloaded 50,000 times in 30 minutes. She’s a household name now and unfortunately for the X Factor machine, she’s no longer known as the woman who won the show, she’s an artist in her own right, but I’m sure Mr Cowell managed to get a few quid out of her before that.

After that they all kind of blur into each other, Leon Jackson, Joe McElderry, Matt Cardle all kind of went the way of Brookstein did, fizzling out after their initial launch single. The exception could be Alexandra Burke who was asked to come back and judge in the place of Kelly Rowland and frankly made a bit of a fool of herself in the process.

Little Mix could be a bit different though, they are the only group to have won, and they were touted as the next big thing by the judges all the way through, also they managed to craft out an ethos for themselves during the show, standing for individuality, self respect and not bowing to the conventional sense of how women should look. They could go far, and good luck to them, they all seem like lovely people and are definitely less bland than some previous winners, I just wish they’d had a better name. Little Mix, really?

1. In case you weren’t one of the 6 who remembered him, here’s Steve Brookstein.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2Tv1e8t7DI

2. I told you Leona had got big!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPGTtyegPJc

3. The housewives favourite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VO0bXcKkGc

4. Big production, big collaboration, but is she really ‘street’ enough to pull this one off? You decide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9iVgw4sv-M

5. And wish the girls luck!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axnuWf8PgdM