Take That Come To Town

The Take That documentary they showed a Christmas or two ago was a successful little slice of television. It managed to turn around the flailing careers of all ex-Take That stars whose surnames weren’t Williams whilst simltaneously banging the final nail into Robbie’s career-coffin.

Fundamentally, the doc demonstrated, these four blokes were always nice, professional chaps. The public were finally persuaded that Robbie’s distortions of the truth were only his version of events and bought into the TT reunion package.

Robbie might also have been a nice bloke, once-upon-a-time, but he lost it in a stupendously big way. His neurosis made him leave the band and embark on a solo career curve which he now languishes at the bottom of, in a pile of money but without the critical acclaim he needs to keep his egocentric personality turning out his trademark cheeky-chappie gurns.

So the public were persuaded to finally wave ta-ta to Robbie and, through endless four-nice-bloke branding, they accepted Take That back into their ears. Barlow wasted no time. He immediately set about writing those songs he used to create. The ones where you hear them and think:

‘Hang on, I know this! Isn’t this that George Michael song? Or is it Elton John? That bit sounds like Abba playing the Beatles.’

And then the hook is in your head like a parasitic worm. And it won’t leave. And it’s laying eggs which’ll hatch when you least expect it. You’ll be waiting for a lift (or walking up some stairs, for those in the north) and all of a sudden…

LET IT SHIIIIIIIINE! Let it SHINE!

And then, instantaneously, the lads are a visual memory – all dressed up in M&S urchin chic, and you wish death on them, slow lingering death, whether they’re nice blokes or not.

So Take That Came To Town last night, and they bought half of Cirque De Soleil with ’em. They also bought clowns, dancing girls and their middle-aged fans who screamed violently at every word they uttered.

I lasted 25 minutes and here’s what happened in that time:

• Gary sang an opener in which he promised that this could be the greatest night of our lives. I’ll leave you to wrestle with the use of the word ‘could’.
• Mark sang the aforementioned Shine, a serious virus of a song, whilst ladies dangled from wires. A huge jackinthebox also sprang out of nowhere.
• They did that ‘Rule The World’ song and I noted that, despite Howard having the ‘we can rule the wooooorld’ line, his voice was so low in the mix it sounded like autotuned interference.
• Jason, looking for all the world like an awkward gay teenager roped into organising an overpriced kid’s party, led a chatty bit where all involved mocked Barlow. They’re allowed to now, it seems.
• They all said they were ‘enjoying getting to know Robbie again’ – which is good, as without him the next stage of the comeback will be redundant. The Take That Reunion Mark2 is reliant on Robbie’s desperation, after all.

And then I switched over.

Temporarily swept up by the glitz and those nagging, incessant tunes, my right mind suddenly dragged me back to sensibility and I returned to the land of the living just about intact.

It’s going to take weeks to shift those bloody songs from my brain.

NewsGush – Is this news?

Well?

Is this news?

On a slow news day, and when I’m in the middle of an article it has to be. Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams have been civil to one another. Which is great news if you’re a female or homosexual human being who was born in the 80s and who appreciates the music of Take That. The rest of us can just shrug.

They highlighted this cosy reunion in the coverage of the Arsenal vs Manchester United match on Sky Sports on Saturday morning, but I was too busy bricking it to actually notice it properly. Presumably they both wanted United to win.

Thankfully, United lost.

Ha.

The X Factor

My how things change with time. If I had reviewed this programme even a few months ago I would have condemned it as a crime against television – as a soulless and heartless exploitation of people’s gullibility, as a shameless rewriting of the talent show format and populated by the arrogant and egotistical who are involved solely to further their already bottomless bank accounts.

However, age has mellowed me, and when you compare it to the bottom-scraping conceptual rip-offs that followed, it now seems like a bastion of moral programming…

With the start of this, the fourth series, I have realised that it is actually a work of a genius. This 180º switch came with a simple and seemingly innocuous statement made by my girlfriend as we watched yet another wide shot of thousands of people claiming to have the requistite factor.

“My God” she said. “I can’t believe that there are still this many people who think they have talent.” And then it came to me. The X-Factor is a public service helping to rid us of the torrent of talentless fucktards who believe that they are destined to be famous.

Cowell, Osbourne, that Irish one – they’ve all seen the light. They’ve realised that the show they innocently kickstarted has spawned a monster, a deadly and all-consuming notion that anybody and everybody should have their shot at fame. The hundreds and thousands of guiless, tone-deaf, monosyllabic cock-juggling thundercunts who turn up to each audition are the direct result of the success of these talent shows.

Far from giving those with genuine ability a chance to shine, they have become a celebration of mediocrity and have helped cultivate this concept of amateur celebrity that is threatening to engulf us all.

Thus, the new series of X Factor has become about atonement; about apologising for what came in the original’s wake and helping to stem the tide before it’s too late. Sure, the occasional person with talent slips through and I gather that there is some sort of competition after the auditions that helps nuture them – but that is no longer the point. Now it is about the mission of four people to rid the ignorant fools of their delusions and to save us from their witless dreams. And they’re doing it one person at a time.

For each arrogant gimp who claims to be the next Robbie, or Madonna, or Boyzone, or Shane Ward, there is a tailor-made put down to stop them in their tracks. Each snidey comment by Simon Cowell is not about crushing the hopes and dreams of ordinary people like you and me, it’s about stopping these morons before they become pub-singers, or cover bands, or novelty acts. If just one of these witheringly sarcastic statements or honest criticisms get through to their intended targets then we could well be saved from another Cheeky Girl…

The X Factor is like killing Hitler before he has a chance to come to power. It’s about bitch-slapping the shelf-stackers and keeping them in their place, it’s about grabbing hold of those twats who stagger home from the Nags Head singing ‘Wonderwall’ and saying “shut up, you fucking dick”.

We should be thankful to Cowell et al for this form of artistic vigilantism, for doing us all a favour and severing any chance of these karaoke-insulting prickfucks trying any harder.

Sure the format hasn’t changed – it’s the same emotion-wringing montages, the same mix of staged confrontations, the same sad stories of self belief – but now it’s about cutting off the surge of socially inept optimists and halting any further damage that they might inflict upon our already fragile culture.

The most heartbreaking moments are when the rejected vow to carry on regardless, as if being told that singing like a diseased warthog is akin to overcoming some form of horrific disability. They should heed the advice of the ‘experts’ and quietly roll over and never threaten to darken our doorsteps again.

This series has the added bonus of a fourth ‘irrelevant’ judge in the form of Danni Minogue, a woman who is surely only still in the public eye because she shares a surname with the worlds most famous antipodean. On the offchance she gains some credibility from this reappearance on our screens I’d like to print the following picture. Just look at those half-moon tits, like Morph and his grey friend have curled up and died on them, and remember that she is now considered an authority on talent.

 

X Factor, I salute your noble intentions.