Lopez Blogs

(New holiday diaries post up here. It made me titter, which is incredibly sad really isn't it?)

The X Factor:

Sigh. The "live audience auditions" format of Britain's Got The X Factor aren't really working for me, which is possibly why the latest series feels a little bit flat. I couldn't be arsed to blog about it last week because a) Elouise put most of this year's contestants to shame and b) there were only 2 potentially good auditions among the filler crap that dominates this year's format (to make up for the loss of "The Sob Story"). These were a welsh girl called Lucie who sang quite a nice version of I Will Always Love You and a young lad called Lloyd. Lloyd looks like a popstar so will get Louis' vote even though he butchered Jason Mraz's I'm Yours. He got yesses from everyone, but will be a miracle if he gets past boot camp.

This week wasn't much better. Cheryl was at her most patronising ever with an older (80-something) contestant which made me want to throw things at the screen. Dannii looked effortlessly gorgeous, and Dermot, annoying as he can be, doled out macho hugs to young dudes making me ever so slightly jealous, though I have no idea why. The show spent far far far too long on some woman who auditioned as a duo with her dog (highlighting again that the producers are intent on making this Britain's Got Talent - The Singing Only Show) and not enough time on the good auditions (though I was marginally amused by a bad contestant who blamed her bad audition on flying to Glasgow from Bristol and therefore HAVING JET LAG!)There was the obligatory "auditioned last year but didn't make it" person WHO HAS GROWN because of the show - this was Ricky who still hasn't managed to sort out his overly hairy eyebrows and despite the audience loving him, I thought he was only ok. And in a not very set up at all, his mom didn't know he was auditioning yet was on the front row and able to get very easily onto the stage. Amazing. Oh, and just as I thought the sob stories were gone, some girl gets Leona Lewis' Run played and whines about having to share a room. WITH HER SISTER. How bleeding (love) tragic. Still she had quite a good voice, didn't know she had a good voice and will shed more snot than Alexandra singing with Beyonce if she gets through so viva Shanna Goodhead and her version of songbird.

Three more auditions of note then I'm done with this bit, which is already infinitely longer than you and I would like. A girl group called Yellow Brick Road have an ace name but do a very dodgy version of Poker Face. Miraculously they get through. The cutest thing you have ever seen, Demi (17) from Walsall, does an ok version of Whitney (in retrospect, it was pretty dire) that is obviously the wrong song choice for her. I honestly thought the judges would make her choose another song, but instead they say no. They have put through, well not worse than her, but as mediocre as she was. And she was a lovely bubbly little thing too. She should have auditioned with Breaking Free or something. It was all quite sad, particularly when she collapsed in tears off stage :( Then finally, there was Olly (above) who seemed quite a charming "lad", was a little bit attractive in an "ooo you wouldn't normally, but go on then" sort of way and clearly wants to be the next Justin Timberlake but is more Gary Barlow. This is not an insult. I quite liked him. His dancing was embarrassing though and Cheryl annoyed me once more by having the camera going to her saying "wow" as if Michael Jackson had come back from the dead and danced on stage. It was not that good. Stupid Cheryl.

So that is my X Factor rant for the (2) week(s). Shockingly next week it is on twice. I may die. Although at least it is boot camp after that. On the plus side The Bitch Factor blog is back and far wittier about these sorts of things than I could ever hope to be.

Abba (Proms In The Park)

Abba are quite categorically my favourite musical group of all time. And rather cleverly in a week where it was meant to be all about The Beatles, they go and one up them by having Benny and Bjorn put on a concert with lots of today's top pop stars in lovely Hyde Park in London. There is nothing more thrilling than hearing Abba hits belted out with a lovely orchestral backing, and having some of my favourite modern stars sing some of my favourite older songs was quite quite delightful. So I settled down, gazed at the looming orange sunset and turned on radio 2 (because for tragical reasons to lengthy to go into here, I was not there, but lived vicariously through texts from Bobby and Elouise. Phew). There were many acts performing (including a horrible version of Winner Takes It All that was lyrically incorrect and very shrieky by Chaka Khant - be interesting to see how all this compares to the inevitable X Factor Abba Week later this year) but here were the highlights of the night (in no particular order)...

• The Feeling ~Dan and the boys are clearly the kings of 70s covers, seeing as that is how they came to existance anyway, but I was quite delighted with their choice of songs and how they came across live. Knowing Me Knowing You was great, some lovely piano work and the BBC Orchestra sounding quite magnificent backing the boys. It was Does Your Mother Know that really rocked though - some great drumming, and Dan doing some trademark cymbal kicking along with leaping all over the stage. Took an exuberant song and made it sound quite Feeling-y. Brillo pants.
• Nerina Pallot ~Nerina stood in at the last minute for Sharleen Spiteri who was due to do SOS and absolutely nailed the performance. Again, the strings from the orchestra really added to the performance (and reminded me a little bit of the Everybody's Going To War Orchestral version) and her voice sounded just lovely. Name of The Game was also great, and I'm so glad that she got to do two songs :)
• Kylie Minogue ~ Bobby has already written from his first hand experience of how marvelous When All Is Said and Done was. And he is rather right. It's rare for the magic of a live experience to transfer to radio listening, but it was just a spell binding performance and everything just seemed to stop while she was singing it. If this was released as a single, it would top the charts for approximately 100 years (or 2 weeks at least). Super Trooper was also very good, and got me thinking, imagine, just imagine if Kylie worked with Benny and Bjorn on her new album. Think what it would be like if Story of A Heart and Second Best To None were actually kylie songs. I'm palpitating at the very idea :) Anyway, Kylie gave new meaning to the definition of EPIC last night.

MTV VMA 2009:

There is not really much to be said about this that isn't already being globally discussed around, well, the globe. D'Luv has some good insight into things here, if you have a quick clicky clicky. Basically, this happened ~ Madonna was actually quite sincere and touching in her tribute to MJ; Janet was quite brilliant in her dancing tribute to Michael and made me re-like her again; Lady Cuckoo was more cuckoo than ever in coming up with tasteless ways to top her previous and tasteless cunning stunts; Kanye was a twat; Taylor was gracious; and Beyonce was brilliant. Oh and talking of twats, VV Brown tweeted last night that the Abba concert backstage was quite bitchy and fake and she couldn't stand it. Uh, she sounds shocked that the music industry is like that. Get a grip love and have some grace. How annoying she can be. The end.