Who's gonna win 'Pop Idol' ?

I think Zoe will win but I think Gareth is the best. He has that 'non- threatening boy' aura/look of all the great pop stars.

William's seems a decent bloke but his singing reminds me of Simply Red meets Jamiroqui.

Results are back in a few minutes but I think Rosie has gone. Shame I liked her too.

Its a fantastic programme though innit? I'm hooked. Its a perfect example of why pop music is great. Come to think of it why hasn't it turned up on here before? Its perfect for analysing on all sorts of levels.

Anyone dislike the show? Or rather, does anyone who likes pop music dislike the show? If so why?

Well its not going to be Zoe then is it?

I think I had her pegged as the mum's n dad's candidate, little girl with the big voice in some sort of generational Lena Zaveroni on Op Knocks kinda thing.

Pretty amazed Darius is still there, presumably people like him? Why?

Gareth is easily the ideal pop idol though. Its a shame he probably won't get to do material quite as interesting / damaged as he is. He could make fantastic pop music with the right collaborators.

Pop Idol is good, bit over-extended but then I got on late (no TV see). I like Darius, he's the only one who strikes me as at all unusual. Really hugely dislike Will for reasons I can't quite pin down (I just dont like his face). Gareth's a bit dull, no?

Darius is probably a perfect Pop Idol, being a smug, irritating twat. Gareth is too dull, yeah, and William looks like somebody who used to bully me at school.

Gareth should drop out, claiming he can't go on without Zoe, and then they could embark on some torrid, headline-grabbing sex'n'booze rumpus. Then release a single together, it'd go to number 1.

I reckon it'll be Darius cos he's already a (minor) celebrity and everyone already knows he's a bit of a mentalist.

Well it'll be Gareth who wins whatever cos the audience of Pop Idol include the Saturday TV teatime audience who like the idea of a baby- faced lad being a proper entertainer, like. Whether this is a good thing, a bad thing or a nothing for pop remains to be seen - the problem I think the producers will face is that the people who voted for Gareth might well want Gordon Haskell style material.

Come on Darius! That fucker Gareth will win. I think he faked the stutter.

Well there we go, I though Gareth was a bit weak on the night which swung the vote, my wife thinks I'm insane if I think that people were voting based on the song performance on the actual show.

The specially written songs are a bit second rate though. Only evergreen has anything resembling a hook and it has a set of annoying lyrics... where the meaning of the word evergreen is tortured to fit the songs smary conceit - thats going to annoy me in the same way that wondering how you could go down a hall slowly and faster than a cannonball, or how a series of merely annoying things are 'ironic' was annoying.

Pretty sure evergreen will be the side everyone plays though, and that it'll be number one for a while.

I was however glued to my chair watching this stuff.

Darius was fantastic on the Walker Brothers, somebody get him a copy of Scott 1 - 4 (ooh and chancing our arm, 'tilt') and then start his career proper.

Gareth was great on Mac the Knife but terrible on Unchained Melody. I'd like to hear him do You've Lost that Loving Feelin though. But most of all I'd like him to work with somebody surprising, I dunno, Chris and Cosey or Kohn or.. well just somebody totally unsuited to him and see what happens.

Will seems to be a sound bloke and I still think of SImply Red when I hear him so I'm not buying his records.

One of the contestants (minor one, fine enough voice, way too fond of US Power Ballads) said something like shows like this were a godsend because otherwise they wouldn't have known how to start a career in pop music. Is the pop music business really that such of a stage school auditions closed shop?. Can't aspiring pop stars just do what rock wannabes do? (uh, which is...?)

Tilt heh. It was suggested at an ILE meet that Pop Idol should expand to embrace the full-on variety required to be a performer these days and that the prepared material should cover the entire range of music sold eg one week the contestents must interpret say a Burzum or Carass number, then the next a Trance Anthem etc etc.