X Factor – The Final

[Miguel]

So there are three contestants left, but tonight was the performance finale?

MJs has a recap: http://www.mjsbigblog.com/x-factor-1-%E2...-recap.htm

I skimmed over the recap and then turned it on in time to hear Melanie's final performance. Like usual, I found the crowd noise while she was performing to be too loud.

The judges loved her performance. So much so it seemed like a setup to me. LA Reid said it wasn't a $5M performance, but a $50M one, etc.

At the end, they showed brief clips of the other performances and they sounded bad.

Oh, and if I'm understanding the comments correctly, the songs they sang tonight were the songs they performed when auditioning.

There's much to not like about this show. I only invested about an hour of my time to it this season and it annoyed me to no end.

[My Alter Ego]

Miguel, the posters on Michael Slezak's TVLine live blog seem to be leaning Chris Rene's way and have interpreted some of the judges comments to be going the same direction.

[Miguel]

Melanie won.

Slezak's recap

[midnightblues]

Good for all three, but i thought Josh had this one in the bag. Ever since his audition He was a strong contender after he sang Etta James(AT Last). You can bet one thing though he won't be slinging burritos anymore. I'm sure there's is A record company out there that will pick him up and sign him. I heard in an interview that he does have his own band, he will do well. I like his voice. It's kind of a mix between Joe Cocker, and Michael Bolton. More so the Joe Cocker.

[john]

The final three turned out like I guessed it would. I think Josh suffered from some lousy song choices including the duet yesterday with Alanis. Forcing the contestants to sing a duet as one of the two final songs is one of many dumb ideas that make up this X factor show. Josh has had some major exposure and I believe he can have some success going forward. Melanie has the big voice, which doesn't guarantee success, but I wish her well.

[Miguel]

Big, soaring ballads brought the first "X Factor" crown to Melanie Amaro, but the young singer says she cannot be pigeonholed so easily.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," Amaro said of her vision for her debut album. "I think I'm going to surprise. Humongous ballads -- everyone knows I can do that. I want to show people there is more to me."

...Cowell concurred with her assessment of the type of album she should make. "She's a different kind of singer so you don't want to be what's going on already -- there's a lot of dance (music) at the moment. A lot of people who voted for her want a different kind of record and we have to do her justice.

...Once they reunited, Amaro came to be known as a singer who stood her ground. "I had to be able to stand up for myself," she said, just minutes after Cowell complimented her -- out of earshot -- on her confidence . "Many times we had gone back and forth on a song -- I'm not doing this, this doesn't sound bad, oh, I'm going to do this. Wow, it's a process."

...Cowell said in closing that his advice to her was "remember that it was the fans who got you here . Some of the people who win these shows forget that. I told the same thing to Kelly Clarkson. One minute you're thanking fans, the next you're not signing autographs. I don't buy that kind of behavior. If they've made you, you have a debt with them."

http://www.billboard.com/news/x-factor-w...7752.story

Summary:

Melanie: I don't want to do an album full of ballads.

Simon: The people who voted for her want a record that's not dance music. They voted for ballads.

Melanie: I often stood my ground during the X-Factor and said I'm not going to do that song...I'm going to do this ballad.

Simon: My closing advice to her is that it doesn't matter what she wants. She is indebted to her fans and they want ballads.

[John Brown]

I just finished watching the X-Factor finale on the X-Factor youtube channel, and every time I watch it either on my big screen or on my computer, I always feel like I'm sitting in the cheap seats, as like Miguel says you can't hear it over all the damn noise and the camera shots are from so for away half the time you can't even make out the performers. In other words, there is plenty of room for improvement in the production of that show.

Not to mention that the productions are all way over blown as well. They need to seriously consider rethinking how they present the show, as the way they have it setup now is almost impossible to watch without getting frustrated.

Nevertheless, there is one thing that they pioneered that I wish American Idol would copy cat and adapt. Indeed, they have an excellent youtube channel that makes watching or re-watching the entire episodes again or otherwise the individual performances a snap.

Well, well, well Melanie Amaro won. No surprise there.

[buzzenator]

Looking back a few weeks, from MJs blog 11/30...X Factor: Can Any of These Contestants Sell Records:

"Ever since I started watching these televised talent competitions, I’ve noticed a glaring flaw in the system. A majority of the time, contestants who win over America on TV are not the same contestants who win over America’s record-buying public. Sure, every once in a while, America will strike gold with a delightfully loveable Carrie Underwood, who endears herself to the voters and goes platinum many times over once the show is done with. With all of the pyrotechnics, backup dancers, and futuristic technology (i.e. Steve Jones) that X Factor USA brings, it’s sometimes hard to tell what these contestants will be like after the show.

Josh Krajcik: I know I may light the comments section up with this remark, but I stand behind it: Josh Krajcik won’t sell records, no matter what place he lands in this season. He just won’t- and I say that despite him being one of my favorites left in the competition. The type of music he makes is no longer relevant in the mainstream. People like Lee DeWyze and AGT winner Michael Grimm have already tried and failed.

Melanie Amaro: Melanie is extremely talented, but I’m very torn about what her future holds. Part of me used to think that maybe America was danced out, and might embrace a little bit of old school balladry, but Pia Toscano’s single being DOA gave pause to that theory. If Melanie can modernize her style, she might have a shot. Women are ruling the charts these days, and she’s young, attractive, and has an exotic (new) accent to boot...It all depends on what kind of material the producers give her moving forward.

Chris Rene: If anyone has chart success in the bag, it’s Chris Rene. I have found almost all of his performances verging on terrible, but it’s clear that there’s a place in the market for someone like him. He sings and raps, and whatever pitch problems he has can be fixed in the studio. Additionally, he manages to straddle the line between having street credibility and mainstream appeal, something very rare. His combo of singing and rapping has been very successful lately, with acts like LMFAO and Drake having similar sounds and tremendous success.

Summing up, this season of X Factor is honestly a disappointment when it comes to long term prospects for the artists. On the season running concurrently in the UK, the top 5 all have great commercial appeal and seem poised for chart success. In America, there’s barely one contestant who seems like a total slam-dunk when it comes to commercial viability. We’ll see how the rest of the season goes, but I’d advise you folks to savor every minute of the performances, because I don’t think we’ll be hearing from most of these contestants again."

RealityTV Overdone Singing Competition Organization (ROSCO for short) deals with fan fatigue and the eventual migration of the masses. With all the singing/talent competitions flooding the airwaves it makes it that much harder for any former contestant to build a career and sell records.

Enter Haley into this musical punch bowl that is becoming so diluted with former contestants, is it possible to escape the watered down concoction Hollywood has made? I'm really concerned that the very format which gave us Haley will shackle her to the ROSCO image and stigma.

A hit single can make it all go away...very tough to do though.

[Miguel]

A good observation here by Richard Huff of The New York Daily News:

Sure, each one of the finalists has a story — none stronger than Chris Rene’s drug addiction tale — but when the show starts out on a big stage, in a big studio, the intimacy with these folks was lost from the start.

By the time the finale rolled around, the contestants were overshadowed by huge production numbers, back-up singers, and superstar duets.

It was like attending a wedding and focusing on the banquet hall was decorated nicely rather than noticing the bride was super hot.

...make the show more inviting, more intimate. History indicates viewers don’t really care about the winners, but rather the journey taken during a season.

Look at it this way, does it matter if the bachelorette gets married in the end? Heck, no. What matters is how entertaining the series was along the way.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment...z1hTIQRLIp

I said this earlier: "It's like they tried to give the show the X-Factor."

But in trying to differentiate themselves from American Idol, they broke the formula.

[My Alter Ego]

I said this earlier: "It's like they tried to give the show the X-Factor."

But in trying to differentiate themselves from American Idol, they broke the formula.

Good observation, Miguel. So the X Factor = over the top???

I'm am glad that Melanie won, but as many others have noted, her future success is not a given.