Modern life is rubbish
I didn’t have any Internet access at the weekend and was therefore unwillingly subjected to what passes for Saturday night entertainment in this country right now. Here’s what I found…
1) Is the decision to have the winner of this year’s X-Factor sing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah – with it’s line ‘but you don’t really care for music, do you?’ – an act of supremely self-deluding arrogance or a staggeringly idiotic oversight by one of history’s greatest cultural vandals?
2) Who knew so many people guarded their pennies so jealously?
3) Is it just me or does Cheryl Cole look like an ironing board that’s been creosoted? Is that look supposed to be sexy?
On the whole, it makes you remember the years of Russ Abbot’s Madhouse as if they were Renaissance Italy.
Posted on December 16th, 2008 at 2:27pm under Culture, media and sport
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• 25 Comments |
1) I have managed, though not without some effort, not to hear the X-Factor’s Christmas version of Hallelujah yet, so when I describe it as a dog’s abortion of a cover, you can be sure that’s just ignorant cultural snobbery at work. Maybe it’s actually very good.
2) Agreed. You have to have reached a special level of stupidity to repeatedly redial the voting line for a celebrity dancing show and then get upset when you’re told you’ll have to do it all again the following week. It’s almost… it’s almost like they’re just milking people for cash, isn’t it?
3) No, that is just you.
1) Well its quality all depends on whether you think we need another singer with vibrato where her ability to hold a note should be. File under ‘redundant’. And ‘bollocks’ (I’ve heard it).
2) I’ve heard of having one’s finger on the public’s pulse but never having one’s hand on its teats. It’s an excellent metaphor.
3) Aw, c’mon. She’d have your eye with those elbows. Speaking as the father of an eight year-old daughter whose Wii Fit balance board told her she was ’slightly overweight’ the other day, I say down with deckchair figures.
Regarding point 3, I can’t really comment. When I looked at the photo you linked to, my eyes automatically drifted left to rounded curves and slightly pronounced tummy wrapped in a blue dress. The collection of protruding bones and jutting angles bound up in over-tanned skin never really got a look in.
In answer to 1 – Syco (Cowell’s record label) is owned Sony BMG. Who also own Columbia, which is Jeff Buckley’s record label. So not only do they rake it in with the X-Factor version of “Hallelujah” but also all the indie snobs who are buying the Buckley version (and encouraging their friends to do so, if Facebook is anything to go by) to stop the cover being number one. Both ways, Sony BMG win. That’s one of the reasons why that particular song was chosen, and just goes to show how fiendishly
clevergood at making money Cowell & his associates are.Doh, the word “clever”in that was supposed to be struck out like this:
cleverbut your HTML formatter stripped the tags…Edited the comment to sort it. Not sure how to make the HTML formatter more sophisticated.
Anyway, where were we? Oh, yes. Simon Cowell = Satan.
Shouting ’snob!’ seems to be a stock response to anyone criticising The X-Factor, Simon Cowell et al lately. I yield to such superior logic.
For the record I don’t care about the Christmas No.1 (which is nearly always shit anyway) or the fruitless task of trying to get people to buy the Jeff Buckley version.
I think that Simon Cowell thinks because it is called Hallelujah, it is religious and thus suitable for a Christmas single.
Leonard Cohen’s version is one of the greatest songs I know. It gives me shivers every single time I hear it. So, like Mr Eugenides I have been studiously avoiding the new cover. I’m fairly sure the world doesn’t need a SyCo version.
Thing is, I find reality TV inherently offensive (on several levels). Which no doubt makes me a terrible cultural snob. I watched about a half hour of the first series of Big Brother (as an exercise in knowing thine enemy) and since have gone out of my way to ensure I never watched a single minute of BB, I’m a Celeb, Strictly Come Dancing, Survivor, etc etc etc.
The smug satisfaction I feel is significantly outweighed by the horror that overwhelmes me each time I’m reminded of just how popular these things are.
Simon Cowell was on Top Gear some time ago as the Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car, and the amazing thing is that anyone could sit in that chair and actually make me look upon Jeremy Clarkson as a sympathetic, likeable character.
For comparison, Boris Johnson was in the same chair and, with Clarkson in the other, Boris practically came across as some sort of wild-eyed environmentalist. I’d have voted for him in a heartbeat.
I actually think X-Factor is decent Saturday night fodder.
Burke’s version of Hallelujah is average, but I don’t accept it’s an aberration. JLS’s version was fine too – maybe better.
Yeah, we all know Buckley’s version is Epic, magical and awesome, but great songs can be reworked again and again.
Cowell is an evil hobgoblin, though.
I actually think X-Factor is decent Saturday night fodder.
Oh, Aaron. And now you’ve made me feel like Chief at the end of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. I’ll be round with my pillow later.
I’ve just listened to that version of Hallelujah for the first time and in my not-very-considered opinion (being a touch on the tone deaf side) I don’t think it’s up to much. Great song though – once had to explain to a surprisingly naive friend of mine (and father of two) that it wasn’t a lovely religious song but, in fact, all about sex and castration fear. Bless.
As to Cheryl Cole, I’m usually of the opinion that she’s extremely hot, but the colleague and I were looking at that picture yesterday and came to the shared opinion that there’s something very wrong with her neck in that shot which seems, in proportion to the rest of her body, rather large as if somebody has photoshopped Mr T’s in instead and stuck her head on the top.
I’d still give a kidney to look like that though, naturally.
I’d still give a kidney to look like that though, naturally.
Aw, no, don’t say that. I find it deeply ironic that (as Clive points out above) Dannii Minogue looks less artificial and she’s the one who had all the work done.
Imagine an evening on the sofa with Cheryl. It must be like cuddling a xylophone.
You’re dead right about Cheryl, Justin. Sadie – if the picture on your blog is remotely accurate, she should give a kidney to look like you.
But there is indie snobbery about the Jeff Buckley version. It’s not as great as Lennie’s or Kathryn Williams IMHO. I’ve always thought Buckley appeals to the same people as Johnny Cash – those unaware that he’s a diluted version of Hank or Porter Wagoner.
And why does Simon Cowell get such a hard press compared to Louis Walsh, who’s just a pig-ignorant shyster who got lucky?
Hallelujah is a fine piece, but it’s nothing compared to Cohen’s really great songs. Still, best not let the X-factor people loose on So Long Marianne, eh?
I have a nightmare that I’ll switch on the TV one evening and see some talent-show git whose balls have yet to drop murdering Anthem in an R’n'B stylee, while Simon Cowell grins and announces that the new cover version has sold more copies than all of Cohen’s records combined.
On the whole, it makes you remember the years of Russ Abbot’s Madhouse as if they were Renaissance Italy.
Characterised as they were by periodic outbreaks of plague, and imperial and papal factions hiring small foreign armies to burn each others’ cities out on a regular basis.
Remember Little and Large? Worse than the Medicis.
Little and Large?
Fuck off Just. No one needed that memory.
Hey mate, being born in Blackpool, I used to get dragged to see them on the end of the pier in the summer. Them or Cannon and Ball. It’s a miracle I’m sane.
It’s not a miracle, it’s a claim.
My Napoleon outfit proves otherwise.
It’s better than the poor blonde lad. I’m sure that he’s very nice, but listening to High School Musical is like injecting the plague into one’s ear…
Ben
Oh What An Atmosphere was a majestic song and would make an excellent Christmas #1!