On a snowy winter evening…
Dec 2nd
…I find myself comparing Alexandra Burke’s and JLS’ versions of Hallelujah, from the 2008 X Factor Final. Read the rest of this entry »
How To Be More Like Jake Gyllenhaal
Jul 1st
If my first choice career of being approached by my Literary Agent Flatmate to write exciting novels on, err, Popular Culture somehow falls through, I do have a Plan B. Dream career Plan B involves establishing the World’s First School For Reality TV Stars. In this Academy, I’d train potential contestants on crucial elements such as how to create the strongest back story in a VT, how to perform a song so that people say you’ve made it your own, and, finally – but most importantly - how to react to your victory/getting voted out.
In fact, there will be a whole semester on the latter.
I was reminded of the importance of this by Wimbledon. Yesterday, lovely Federer was beaten by Berdych. On first watch, I thought Berdych’s reacted to this shock victory by, well, seemingly pointing and laughing at Federer. This is not good. If Wimbledon was decided by phone votes, Berdych would be out immediately in the next round.*
Lucky for Berdych, Tennis isn’t decided by phone votes. Yet. But for when it is, here’s a taster of my masterclass on How To Win And Lose In Reality TV.
[EDIT: It may have been pointed out that Berdych is not actually pointing and laughing at Federer but at the crowd instead. So he's not horrible after all. But if he had, that would have been horrible, and therefore it would have been the perfect analogy to start my blog with. Nevermind.]
Rule Number 1: If you get voted out, don’t get angry.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s greatest innovation has been taking the ”isn’t it sad you’ve been voted out” moment of TV talent shows to a new, shocking level, by forcing devastated voted-out contestants to sing a mocking musical number all about the fact they’ve been voted out. Fascinating and hideous.
Back in 2007, Andrew was hunting for the West End’s new Joseph in “Any Dream Will Do”. Seamus, the oldest contestant, was voted out in week three. Over-confident Seamus goes into meltdown at this result: firstly he looks like he wants to kill everybody. Secondly, he declares it’s all “a conspiracy theory” (i.e. “my mum tried to vote 19 times but kept getting the engaged tone”). Thirdly, he fights a bit with his fellow Josephs when they try to take his Technicolour Dreamcoat off him. And to top that all off, he even changes the lyrics of his eviction song, which would have come across as quite witty if he hadn’t proceeded to hit several notes that definitely weren’t meant to be in the song. Truly painful and yet amazing viewing. Just watch this clip.
Rule Number 2: If you win, blub like a trooper
Alexandra Burke’s reaction to winning the X Factor divides opinion, but I say collapsing on Cheryl Cole whilst blubbing like a maniac is an amazing way to do it. I’ve discussed the clip below before, but I’m not above rehashing old material so it’s worth me enumerating why it’s so great all over again:
1. Her crying is genuine, slightly ugly, proper fall on your knees wailing.
2. After losing, one of JLS misunderstands and thinks he is Obama and says something like “because of this moment, others have hope. Victory after Victory”.
3. When Dermot offers to show her her single Alex says “yes please” like a baby.
4. Despite breaking down mid song with overwhelming emotion she recovers like a trouper and belts out enormous, epic notes. The other contestants are practically holding her up in the final notes.
5. Diana Vickers STILL has no shoes on.
Rule Number 3: Don’t react until you’re definitely sure you’ve won
Surely it could never happen that a Reality TV Host would ever get it wrong and announce the wrong person as the winner, could it? (Yes, it’s happened. So always count for 5 seconds before reacting).
Rule Number 4: If one of your friends gets voted out ,don’t run on stage at the end and steal their thunder.
I’m sure my house created the nickname “Eggnog” for Eoghan from X Factor. Either way, Eggnog made a major faux pas when he got through to the X Factor final and his bessie mate Diana Vickers got voted out. Diana Vickers is trying to finish her goodbye song with a bit of dignity. She’s barely finishing her last note before Eggnog’s running on stage shoving his face in the camera and trying to snog her. This is Diana’s moment, Eggnog. Move over. (Although I do find it sort of sweet. Sort of).
Rule Number 5: Be more like Jake Gyllenhaal
Jake Gyllenhaal’s reaction to his Best Supporting Actor BAFTA win back in 2006 is just the way to do it, on all counts. So if all else fails, try being more like Jake Gyllenhaal.
Rule Number 6: No matter how bad it feels when you lose, think about how yours fans are taking it.
I think this is my favourite reaction to, well, anything ever. Two girls react to Adam Lambert (wrongfully) losing in the final to American Idol. Why were they filming themselves? I have no idea, but it’s absolutely brilliant.
I’m still laughing.
*And Andy Roddick would be voted back in, mainly because he has amazing eyes.
Statistics – Christmas Number Ones
Dec 20th
I’m going to admit something that I’m slightly ashamed of. I love statistics. And inspired by Joe Mcelderry’s slightly unnecessary revelation of heterosexuality this week, I’ve decided that I should proudly put it out there.
Today, against all odds, Joe was beaten to Christmas number 1 by Rage Against The Machine. It’s actually the second time an X Factor winner hasn’t claimed the Christmas number 1: Steve Brookstein didn’t either back in 2004, although that was because Simon Cowell delayed the release by a week so that Band Aid 20 could secure the number 1. (I hope this kind of knowledge is establishing me as a credible expert when it comes to popular culture, Literary Agent Flatmate? Even if I fear the deep statistical analysis that is to come will excite only myself).
What’s interesting this year are Joe’s sales compared to not only RATM but also previous winners*:
1 Rage Against The Machine 503k
2 Joe McElderry 451k
Previous winner’s first week sales:
2005: Shayne Ward: 742k
2008: Alexandra Burke: 576k
2006: Leona Lewis: 571k (and the most downloaded song of 2006)
2007: Leon Jackson: 275k
2004: Steve Brookstein: 250k
So, Leona, Alex and Shayne would’ve all beaten RATM whilst the other three boys wouldn’t have**. Interesting. It’s the first indication that Joe’s probably not going to have the success Alex and Leona did; however, some consolation for him, he might do better than Leon.
Shayne’s massive sales reveal that these stats aren’t a definitive guide to future success. I still maintain, however, that Shayne’s success is underplayed: his sophomore album Breathless reached number 2, beating Kylie’s big comeback album “X”, and selling over 450k. The campaign was only stopped short when they didn’t bother to release a third single, for no real reason (or because Syco were fixated on Leona).
Here are two other interesting Reality TV first week sales:
Will Young: “Evergreen/Anything Is Possible” (week one sales of 1.1 million):
No-one since has got anywhere close to Will Young’s week one sales of his first single (he outsold Leon, Steve and Joe’s week one sales in his first day). Even more, this wasn’t even at Christmas. It seems the magic of the first Pop Idol, where enormous viewing figures translated directly into unprecidented sales, will never quite be recreated.
Girls Aloud: “Sound of the Underground” (week one sales of 213k)
The other extreme: the lowest sales of the lot and yet they are the act (along with Will) who have had longevity. The figures are possibly low as there were two singles out from the show that year, Girls Aloud and their rival boyband One True Voice, splitting sales. Also, the song is as unchristmassy as they come. But it was an important and inspired choice as it set the group up as releasing slightly edgy, credible pop songs as opposed to, say, Hear’say. Incidentally, will I ever forgive Girls Aloud for this? A song about how the internet and texting is killing us?
Considering this year the X Factor final got more viewers than ever before, with 6 million votes registered for Joe, his sales are surprisingly low. In fact, approximately 0.75% of those who voted for him bought the single this week. Two other fascinating things: his download sales are much lower than Alex’s, suggesting his fanbase are a significantly older/younger demographic who don’t normally buy singles. Which may cause him to struggle in the long term. Secondly, even during the biggest Christmas number one battle, he’s still not trended on Twitter.
Possibly it’s the song choice: though is the Climb much worse than It’s My Goal? Joe’s PR machine this week has also been wildly misjudged: the first day Cowell came out with a vicious attack on RATM (annoying people more), the next day he wheeled out Cheryl Cole. When that didn’t work, he made Alexandra say something. And then Joe announces that he has finally bothered to listen to his rival’s song and that he thinks it’s so bad that Rage Against The Machine wouldn’t have made it to bootcamp. Oh god.
Whilst I’m here, the X Factor weekly voting stats have been released again this year which makes me tragically happy. Apart from the hilarious jokes that you can make about different acts topping each other in various weeks, what it mainly reveals is that the British public is almost entirely mad. More to come on this later…
*I’ve tried to be objective in my comments on Joe this week, as a loving gesture to the Boyfriend (Joe McElderry caused two arguments between us this weekend. I hope you’re proud Joe).
**Popular consensus is that it’s easier for a boy to win these shows over girls, due to the theory that it’s mainly women that vote and that they tend to vote for male acts they fancy, whilst hating other successful women (I’m looking at you, Housemate Who Voted For Calvin On Strictly 15 times This Weekend). What’s interesting is that the four most successful winners of these shows – arguably Leona, Alexandra, Girls Aloud and Will Young - include just one man. And a gay one at that. Maybe this is a whole blog piece in itself?
X Factor: The Final (Sunday’s Show)
Dec 14th
Disclaimer: writen at midnight after “Christmas Day”. Much food and alcohol consumed.
- So, we’re essentially back in 2002 right and it’s the final of Pop Idol: Will Young vs. Gareth Gates, when Simon thought that Gareth Gates was the next big superstar. However, the public defied Simon and decided that the much more interesting and relevant Will Young, who could inteligently interpret songs, was the winner. An important victory. Back to 2009 and the winner was the other way round. We’ve regressed. Even now, Joe isn’t trending on Twitter. It’ll be interesting to see how much his debut single sells this week: whether it’s Leona(571k)/Alex (576k) amounts or Leon (275k) amounts. This will be the first clue to how popular he might be…
- Whilst Olly sang “The Climb” almost entirely out of tune (as it was the Final, the Judges had to ignore the flat notes and convince us it was an incredible-never-heard-before-vocal), I sort of preferred his desperate, broken man version to Joe’s strangely soulless performance. As a contestant, Olly was interesting as it’s unusual to get someone good at the up tempo numbers but not so good at traditional ballads on the show. Literary Agent housemate also made a interesting comment that unlike the other contestants he actually leads the dancers. No mean feat.
- However, it seemed more likely that the Gospel Choir on “The Climb” would lead the contestants away: why were they dressed like hospital workers? They were here last year too, looking equally creepy. And that combined with the crazy cartoon silhouettes on the background of the weird house in the George Michael song? Fascinating: the X Factor entered a dark, intriguing place.
- Is it wrong to dislike Cheryl and Simon’s constant hugging of each other, like they’re a little gang against Dannii and Louis? It’s like playground bullies.
- Do we think they didn’t do the traditional “bring back the rubbish acts from the auditions” performance as this year one of the rubbish acts that would have normally been included actually got through and were lauded up as the best entertainment we’ve had in years?
-JLS and Alexandra: where to start. They smashed it. Why couldn’t it have been a three way thing with Leona joining in? Why can’t we just ignore the current contestants? Let’s go merrily into denial and remember last year instead. The clip below is amazing for so many reasons, which I will enumerate below (look, Guardian Editor and Literary Agent Housemate, I can use long words like enumerate and am therefore definitely worth approaching. This is my last X Factor blog post so I am not above desperate self-promotion):
1. Her crying is genuine, slightly ugly, proper fall on your knees wailing.
2. After losing, one of JLS misunderstands and thinks he is Obama and says something like “because of this moment, others have hope. Victory after Victory”.
3. When Dermot offers to show her her single Alex says “yes please” like a baby.
4. Despite breaking down mid song with perfect overwhelming emotion she recovers like a trouper and belts out enormous, epic notes. The other contestants are practically holding her up in the final notes.
5. Diana Vickers STILL has no shoes on.
- Oh my god, the voting stats are out. I’m fascinated. Worthy of a blog post in themselves I feel…
- And now, what on earth do I blog about now? Please do suggest!
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