X Factor 2010 (UK)

Starts this Saturday (21st August). Guest judges! (unless you live in or near London) Pregnancy! Malaria! Geri Haliwell telling Glaswegians that they're not talented enough! Louis Walsh!

i am mainly interested in this because nicole scherzinger will be one of the judges.

also i want to join in any cheryl cole backlash that may happen over the course of the series. surely.

At Scherzinger's suggestion the age limit for both the Boys and Girls categories was raised to 27, which will either be a great move or a total disaster.

well she's like 32 and still trying to break it.

the guest judges look awful btw.

these two scherzinger tracks from her ever-doomed-to-failure solo career are two of the past decade's great lost gems imo. the "whatever u like " video is so amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX-1q_Lpzp8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pvsexk-YzU

Nearly Christmas already eh? I expect Geri Haliwell to take a lot of flack.

At Scherzinger's suggestion the age limit for both the Boys and Girls categories was raised to 27

Girls (16-27)
Boys (16-27)
28 & Overs
Groups

According to a leak, Cowell is supposedly mentoring the Girls, Louis the Boys, Dannii the 28 & Overs, leaving Cheryl with the Groups.

Is there some sort of live autotuning going on with some of these contestants?

I've had my ear against the TV. Definite autotuning going on. Weirdly they used it to separate the shit/ok aspects of the gay/straight act and then not for when she was allowed to sing solo. Interesting technique, make you think the shit ones are shit and then the good one are good. Wonder if this will carry through to the end. tsk tsk

oh. my. actual. days.

jahm on the nototune there

thought i detected some autotuning. didn't even know it was possible to autotune a live performance. the girl with the flower in her hair was very likeable and cute.

Watching this on analogue ITV1 and the sounds so lousy that I can't tell. But there's certainly a lot more effort this year to edit the show so that the people who don't get through are obviously obviously terrible fingers-in-the-ears performers. Presumably so as not to make Cowell and co. look bad.

also, lol at 80's loving hipster who a) was born after the decade ended and b) can't remember 'We Are The Champions'. If only the same thing had happened to Daniel last year. Oh wait, I don't care about people butchering Queen songs.

yeah totally possible to autotune live. That 80's girl was either quintessentially hipster/camden/daslton (i tend not to talk to these people) or a complete parody of them. ugh. Love the woman who was just on, fucking mad. She'd be right at home in some french themed disco track from the 70s.

what's the point of autotuning it?! bizarre.

dermot just keeps on getting hotter though.

really?

oh yes!

i find him a tad too cheery/upbeat and positive. Not mysterious enough for me.

I have a feeling that some of these people ("there's so much negativity in the room") are actors paid to go on and be crap. Got that feeling a little bit with Jahm - no-one is that badly out of tune, they weren't even in tune with each other.

sneaking suspicions. I thought that when I first started watching x factor (circa 2008) but now I'm just a fucking believer. They won.

are the auditions still being held in front of an audience? If so I don't know if I'll bother until we reach boot camp.

yeah they're in front of an audience.

ah I decided to watch anyway. God this autotuning is painful, it's verging on T-Pain Factor at points.

auto-tune headline/front page hype-o-rama will probably kick in tomorrow depending on each paper's agenda. can't recall if say, The Sun love or hate Simon Cowell atm but either way the Daily Mail is getting in early:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1305115/X-Factor-2010-Outraged-viewers-Twitter-complain-auto-tune-technology-used-episode.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Never mind the autotune thing, what about the totally rubbish bloke with that girl?

Was that not the whole intention, to get her into the next round?

"You have a great friend there", yeah, prepared to make himself look thick, purely to get her noticed, etc.

Still, fairplay to her/them, it worked, and now nobody else can use that particular scam.

xp since it's ITV not BBC, the Big Rupe owned papers might probably leave off.

The Big Rupe papers should be all over it since they're trying to sell their own talent show http://sky1.sky.com/must-be-the-music (unless they're using autotune as well).

I have been suckered into this now, against my better judgement.

G & S were astoundingly odd and the whole thing seemed so false, like it's all engineered so that the annoying bloke can hang around and become a "personality" even though he can't sing. I hope I'm wrong. I think Simon was right in saying no to her - she was better than him, but she wasn't that good. Autotune very obvious to distinguish between then, even though it really wasn't necessary to make extra effort make him look bad.

X Factor announces auto-tune ban

'ban' is an odd way to put it, as if people were turning up with their own autotune boxes.

That could be a thing next year. Like those people who smuggled computers into casinos, except instead of computing gambling odds it pitch corrects your singing.

G from &S enjoying his 15 minutes in front of a bunch of weans in Linwood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V1n172KJSA

oh dear, "so much negativity in the room" guy is an MJ impersonator

Saw a bit of this tonite, needed more Autotune imo

oh dear, "so much negativity in the room" guy is an MJ impersonator.

He was on the Michael Jackson Live Seance show that Derek Acorah did.

No-one watching this any more then? Just turned over to see Storm (invented to give Simon a chance to be Mean Simon and Cheryl the chance to be Nice Cheryl and Louis the chance to just sit there being Louis) and the orangest girl in the world go through.

i forgot it was on but i just switched over. i kinda hate this audition in front of a big audience thing, so pointless and you actually hardly get to see anyone.

that was really good though - i was expecting justin timberlake's Cry me a river.

I remember this guy from the last time, he was the guy who liked like he was going to burst into tears all the time (I can't find the X Factor 2008 thread),

diet j beeber

This Coleen Rooney Stepford Boot Camp advert is very very freaky.

OW MY EARS

Birmingham's answer to Maria Pracatan!

Magarita Pracatan

I sure that some of these auditionees realise that they have no chance, and just come along because they want to sing in front of thousands of people.

16 year old Cher looks older than me!

xpost, yes, undoubtedly.

Oh, she has some bad moves. This had better not go through. I liked daft Brenda better, tbh.

weird voice and tics

cher lowest on week 7(when paije went out) and week 9 (when mary went out).

oh, i didn't notice the vote freezes. so wand were on 20% on the final freeze.

cant look it up right now..

was mary the lowest when they had the semifinal singoff that no-one expected?

no, cher was lowest.

the most baffling stat to me is where the hell aiden's fanbase went in the week he came last - prior to that he'd been very consistently midtable and then suddenly boom, last.

would be v interested to see the itunes download stats! suspect cher will have done better there.

how come Katie wasn't automatically eliminated in week 1, with 1.55% of the vote versus 1.71% for FYD?

because Nicola was lowest then there was a sing off from the next two lowest.

o right cheers

i'm surprised by how small the gap between cher and wand erection was last night. like everyone (including her, it seemed) i assumed her going first was a formality.

yeah that's true. rebecca's elimination seemed like a formality too though.

rebecca's "sweet dreams" not available on itunes?!

:(

'In 2004 Simon Cowell said, "Only the winner will get a record deal" now, 16 acts in 6 years had deals. Winning means nothing. Don't Vote.'

Steve Brookstein otm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9VsrHQlqQU

"Think of how much pussy you're going to get"

Looking at that .pdf, Cher continued to get votes after she was eliminated!

Like, the next day!

it just tells how how much she had as a % at the freezing point, then how much her total constituted a % of the vote at the next freezing stage then as a % of the total votes polled for the entire final.

Ah, that explains.

I'd assume a bunch of people probably dialled the wrong number, amazed it was4 out of a hundred...

Saddened that I wasn't on here with you lot for the final. But I did drive past the headquarters of YEO VALLEY this morning, which was nice. I wonder if their adverts will find another home in this crazy post-X-Factor world?

YEO VALLEY was a favourite on our previous ATP trip laugh-at-all-the-funny-place-names kicks, kinda disappointed that they went so mainstream. At least I can trust that Ham Street will never sell out.

I have missed Ham Street, obv, but Wibble Farm is the clear winner in the Somerset silly named places stakes.

Ham Street is a train station a couple of stops from Rye, and beautiful reward for those of us who slog it all the way there using public transportation. It's a street, made of ham, Ham Street, Ham Street.

Wookey Hole, there's somewhere I'll have to visit sometime.

We nearly went to Wookey Hole this morning. Instead we went to Bristol.

I'm watching Saturday night's show just now. Everything has been almost unbearably awful. (I did watch Sunday's final final in my chalet, for shame)

oh right, I misread what you said about Ham Street, I think. If Pontins dies I'm going to have to start visiting Rye just for Rye's sake. Miss u Appledore.

I get the impression from A Glastonbury Romance that Wookey Hole is a legit magic place but I think it's all dinosaur tours for children now.

I think we're getting interference from another thread here...

Wookey Hole used to do big Doctor Who days (I once met a guy whose daughter was, no kidding, called Romana), haven't been since they stopped. The caves aren't as good as the middle set in Cheddar.

AKA Romanadvoratrelundar, Gallifrey's best known Bjork impersonator.

i grew up 5 minutes' drive from wookey hole.

chew magna is probably my favourite ludicrous somerset place name.

My favourite place name is probably in Dorset - Ryme Intrinseca.

Oh yes, we drove past a sign for Chew Magna as well.

Cher's doing a gig with Wagner not too far from me on the 27th. Seriously thinking of going!

Chew Magna -> Cher Wagner.

Their collaboration project should be called 'Chagner'.

Then they could collaborate with Jedward and call that 'Jagner Chedward' (available on tap in independent pubs).

Mattchagner Chedwardtie

Flax Bourton ftw

Isn't he the boss of Viglen?

X Factor's Matt Cardle grabs UK Christmas number one

bah (no humbug, just bah)

"I mean with Miley Cyrus' The Climb, you can kind of s**t on a Miley Cyrus song and not many people are going to care because fans of The Climb by Miley Cyrus are children."

"They are not going to be like 'Oh god, I can't believe they've done a cover', but when it comes to Biffy Clyro, they have a hardcore, die-hard fanbase and are a hugely credible band. You can't f*** around with one of their songs."

http://www.mtv.co.uk/artists/matt-cardle/news/250531-x-factor-matt-cardle-single-biffy-clyro-miley-cyrus

... is Biffy Clyro more popular than I think they are

nope

he's such a tosser

but doesn't matter! because loooolll despite matt's desperate rockist bid for credibility (and btw in what world are biffy clyro "hugely credible"?), the deputy editor of the NME has just trashed him:

Matt Cardle is literally nobody’s idea of a good pop star. Bland and personality-bereft, he’s less a singer, more of a sort of vapour. Pretend you haven’t seen the photo above. Now close your eyes and try and picture his face. It’s impossible. Cardle’s so forgettable, he could commando roll through your bedroom window on Christmas morning and blast a vuvuzela in your face, and you’d still labour to pick him out of a police line-up the next day.

Oh wow, he's got a face that's fairly normal.

The Popjustice critique of his comments is pretty OTM

He's kind of like the UK version of Chris Daughtry, right?

not really Nicole although i understand what yr getting at.

shame that matt's looks aren't up to the stunners usually featured in the NME.

Curdle reminds me of something Lester Bangs said about Bowie: 'moving his hands in arcs that might have been sensual if you couldn't see him thinking about how sensual they were'. When Curdle is singing I can see him thinking about how awesome he looks.

Matt Curdle = young Steve Guttenberg?
http://www.inquisitr.com/wp-content/steveguttenburg.jpg

When Curdle is singing I can see him thinking about how awesome he looks.

I think this is what's really changed in him over the course of the series - when he started he looked really shy and vulnerable and now he looks like a bloke who knows half the internet fancies him.

Any truth in the Cher Lloyd signing to Roc Nation stories?

Not sure but it would keep Cher away from will.i.am.
Meanwhile, it's 2011 so can Curdle please fuck off already?