Thex Factor – Auditions 1 – ‘When did you become Robocop?’

These are the salient facts before we begin…

1. Simon, Louis and Cheryl are rich
And get a large-fonted montage listing all their achievements. Simon has had 100 number ones. How exciting. And only one of them is Say Eh Oh. In America, you can have about ten number ones with the same song though. Cheryl is a gutter thug who the nation loves, even before she tried to help them with their limp, lifeless, strawlike hair. Louis is also there.

2. Dannii Minogue is too pregnant to sit and say very little
It must be a massive baby. She’s given birth to it now though. Hopefully it did’t hurt too much. They’re replacing her with guest judges every week who’ve all sold more records than her. Well, except Pixie Lott. Cheryl Cole will steal Dannii’s thunder soon and have malaria and be replaced by guest judges too.

3. The producers haven’t heard “Death of Autotune”
Yes, the sound mixers have decided to autotune the contestants we’re meant to like. This is step up from having Stacey and Jedward mime along most weeks. And giving Danyl a children’s choir. The problem with autotune though is it sounds really obvious, unnatural and shit. And it made the contestants sound the latter. There is a reason we all made fun of Believe by Cher. There is a reason JLS’s The Club is Alive is so awful. It is called autotune. I hope the producers stop using it next week. It’s bad enough I have to put up with the live audience giving everyone a standing ovation. I will struggle to write this blog every week.

On with the rankings…

1. KATIE – ‘I love your friends, they're all so arty’
Katie dresses like 80s Madonna and talks like a recently bereaved receptionist. Self-consciously soft. Eerily calm but wet. Katie loves the 80s and says her idols are Freddie Mercury and Etta James. Etta James isn’t 80s though. Even the Diet Coke ad was 9s. You’re confusing me Casey.
Simon bans her from singing At Last and she rambles and messes up the lyrics to her back up. It’s We Are The Champions. Couldn’t she have cut to the chorus? That bit's easy. She wins top ranking this week because she says to Louis ‘Please Sir, can I sing At Last?’ I doubt even bathroom attendants call Louis Sir. She sings At Last and it’s very breathy and cutesy but at least they haven’t autotuned her to hell. I don’t remember the audience being bothered which helps me like her.

2. SHIRLENA – ‘Does that make me crazy?’
Shirlena is instantly fabulous because she has the same vocal coach as Shirley Bassey and kind of the same speaking voice as Makosi from Big Brother. She’s doing her own version of Mercy and my is it her own version.
She says Release You, Release Me a lot in a breathy, quaky voice. Note the verb here: she says it, she does not sing it. She growls and squeaks and writhes around on the floor. I know I say that about all the quirky singers but I must stress how literal I am being. She makes noises, not notes. The whole process lasts for about five minutes and the audience are baffled. It could be that they don’t think it’s appropriate to laugh at someone this unhinged. Or maybe it’s only funny to them when the people are fat? I think this is the funniest audition I have seen since Althea 'Lotty' Gaye. The boys put Shirlena through after she admits she came up with new lyrics last night then forgot them. I think producers want a new Jedward.


3. GAMU – ‘This is just violent, death of autotune, moment of silence’
Gamu is from Africa and has a Mum wearing a nice jumper. Gamu herself wears a flower in her hair. She’s very Vickers isn’t she? Scratch that – Vickers probably had straw in her hair.
Gamu tells us she's singing Katrina & The Waves and Simon groans because that song is awful. She says she’s doing her own version. Said version involves removing all the lyrics about Walking on Sunshine and instead singing about how the man’s got to go. She scowls and yelps and shimmies. It’s ok but the autotune makes her sound less like a girl with a flower in her hair and more like a girl with a clam made out of metal.

4. G&S – ‘I don’t really care that you are queer’
She’s a fat female fast food operative. He’s a gay social worker. Conflict, you bet! G&S (or Gay & Straight) are an unusual match in that they are both ugly in such strong, different ways.
They sing Don’t Stop Believin’ and it is a game of two halves. The gay man cannot sing and gets heckles. He looks a bit like a ravaged Chuckle Brother. The straight lady cannot sing but is heavily autotuned and the audience whoop and holler every time she sings a line. I think the moral is straight people are better and people like them more.
Straight is encouraged to audition alone and it takes her less than a second to agree and dump Gay. Gay then goes running off and you would think he’s doing it in a big diva strop but no – he’s going to set up a new backing track for Straight. It’s very sweet but very staged. Straight is so pub singer awful that parts of me shrivel. She goes through and Gay is congratulated by the judges for being a nice chap. Invite him for tea then, Cowell. Put your money where your mouth is. Or set him up with McElderry because they're bound to get along.

5. STEPHEN – ‘I don’t belong here’
I had to look up who the others were so I don’t think they deserve a full recap. Stephen is fat and loves Tina Turner. He is a Househusband but based on accent, face, need to please and personality, it seems far more likely he is a Housecivilpartner. I loathe him. He sings Disco Inferno which I learn was a Tina Turner hit in the mid 90s. He is out of tune and shouts. He is put through and I struggle to understand why. Until I remember last year when they were all out of tune and prone to shouting.
God, do you remember last year? Why are doing this again?

6. JAHM – ‘Ra ra, up pa pa’
Jahm met on the Internet to work on their auditions and are all different races. If they met on the Internet to work on a bomb, they’d be a Daily Mail wet dream. Sadly, this was not to be. They do Bad Romance and are not autotuned because we’re not meant to like them. They can’t even do the spoken word bits convincingly or tunefully. It is very bad. Cheryl even calls them shocking. I would give her money to call them weak, limp and lifeless. And then to sing live.

Kisses
Thex Factor

#36 With A Bullet

The X Factor restarts on Saturday and I cannot wait. I am deliberately abstaining from all alcohol, fun and social contact until this point so that I can best experience the highs and lows of the show. I might even stop bowel movements to fully eliminate any pleasure. Come Saturday, I will laugh at the sob stories and weep at the sob stories so much I will snot.

And for the successful contestants, it will be good too. They can see themselves on screen and think they will be big stars like Diana Vickers, Alexander Burke and JLS, some of the most acclaimed acts ever on the show. They too can chart at #36 with their second single, rerelease their album twice and sample Julie Andrews in desperate search of a chorus.