The X-Factor and other talent shows......

[Papaumau]

Yes, I know that such shows DO bring out talent that has previously been overlooked and while the wife and I avidly watch out for such talent and certainly enjoy the ones that DO have talent, I really wish they would stop mucking about by putting silly fools on that obviously have no talent just so that they can make bigger fools of them while they rip them apart in the name of "good television".

The amount of screen-time that is wasted on such silliness could be much better spent showing us the ones that are good contenders that are given the "fly-by" while they are auditioned off air.

After all, there are hundreds if not thousands of talented people in those queues before the show starts and yet once actually on the stage they only get very short periods of time to show what they can do while many minutes of stage-time seems to be reserved for freaks and no-hopers who want to just "showoff" and make us cringe while watching them.

As I am lucky enough to have Sky-Plus in my HD Sky box I now don't watch the programmes live and I can then fast-forward the stoopid bits so that we can both see the real talent.

What do you good peeps think about these so-called "Talent" shows ?

[Thesheriff]

We never watch any of them -  the trailers are enough - the singers  of the past who could really sing  - will still be played and remembered  after the winners of these so called Talent shows have been long forgotten - apart from the occasional one who turns out to be exceptional - most of them are talented singers in their own minds.  

I see Doris Day is back in the Top ten Albums this week  -  see what I mean !!

Another thing why cannot today's so called singers - just stand in front of a microphone and sing - instead of having to make a video showing them prancing all over the place - but then again the video is a distraction from the awful sounds some of them make.

[Dottie1943]

Fred, as you say there are a few exceptions, Will Young is a prime example and his latest Jelousy is brilliant.

Liona Lewis started off well but she has gone off the boil lately so in my eyes another one has bitten the dust, it's true what you say they need to do videos to sell their songs and selves, maybe we are all getting old but the likes of Tom Jones, Engleburt, Frank Sinantra, are long gone all you get these days are groups made up in a studio, people who never knew each other till they went along to a recording session, groups that will not last long like the Stones and the Beatles.

Shame really because there are people like them out there but they are considered to be old hat and not being given a chance!

[Angelo]

Mein Got Sherrif ! ! I actualy agree with you  100%

[Papaumau]

Sorry Sheriff but I cannot agree completely, ( that's like me, I am told  ).

I think that while us "oldies" ARE driven to hold on to the "good ole days" and are happy to reminisce about what went before, I think that we still need to keep an open mind so as to be able to enjoy the new talent that is coming along all of the time. ( Some via talent shows and some via pure chance ).

I won't bore you by starting to list them but one certainly DOES come to mind that is quite new but as good as has ever been in the "crooning" stakes. Of course I am talking about Michael Buble who could easily have been one of the "rat-pack" if he had been of that, or from that, age.

I can also think of one young woman that has come up of late that is up there and will be for many years to come and that is a lady called Adele

Oh yes mate, the standards of the future are being laid down right now if we are open-minded enough to look for them and to listen to them.

[Rita Postlethwaite]

I think there has to be something seriously wrong with anyone who "enjoys" watching someone humiliate themselves in the name of a tv show.

[Lisa]

 I agreee with you Rita 100%

[Papaumau]

I think there has to be something seriously wrong with anyone who "enjoys" watching someone humiliate themselves in the name of a tv show.

I totally agree with you on that one Rita and that is why - as I already said - I never watch such programmes live as I always record them using Sky+ and when I come to watch them I simply fast-forward the "good telly", ( YUK ! ), bits and only watch the real performers.

[Thesheriff]

I wonder what the response will be in 60 years from now if the question is asked -

' Have you any Will Young or Lady Gaga   DvD's '

It will probably be      Who

Whereas I and many others I know  have still recording of our Idols of the 1960's  etc.   I still have  albeit in DvD form now - not the original records - every track Elvis recorded - every track Sinatra recorded  along with many others from those times ?

[Dottie1943]

So does my daughter and Son in Law Fred which is even more important, and guess what my Granddaughter sings along to Frank Sinatra, she is nearly 9!

[Angelo]

I'm trying to get my grandaughter to sing along with Enrico Caruso. or Maria Callas. In Italian of course.

[Dottie1943]

Talented child if she can do either, I take it her voice has not broken yet big difference between to two!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fZRssq7UlM

I love this one!

[Angelo]

And rich if she can manage it !!

[caminito]

Perhaps if they had some talent like the Nicholas Brothers on the show I might watch it 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBb9hTyLjfM

[Papaumau]

TALENT....like ART is "in the eye of the beholder" they say !

And while I can easily support that Maria Callas and The Nicolas Brothers are - or were - amazingly talented I do not have my mind closed to the supporting of "up-and-coming" or today's talent.

It will only be future history....( now I am starting to sound Like Marty McFly )  that will define who will become standard greats and who will not. All the rest is up to the "eye - and ear -of-the-beholder".

Being an oldie myself I too am tempted to throw back to the good-ole-days but while I DO remember the greats of the past I can still enjoy the talent of today, including Will Young, Lady Ga-ga, Bublé and Adele.....can't you ?