The post you are reporting:
Sorry guys but Pete Waterman and his type ruined the music industry back in the 1980s and it has been crap ever since. I can not think of a single interesting or important movement in music since punk in the 1970s. Look at it this way, the pop charts of the 50s and 60s featured all manner of styles. There was pure pop, rock music, blues, soul, funk, it was all there and it all mattered. Progressive rock during the early part of the 1970s started to make it all go a bit stale, then the rise of glam rock injected a bit of novelty into the industry but punk music (originating in New York and "purifying" in London thanks to the Sex Pistols) gave the wilting industry a shot in the arm. And then the 1980s happened, and the industry became a haven for engineered, manufactured disposable entertainment and high-fashion junk pop and, in my view, it has never recovered since. The Brit Pop movement of the 1990s was at least an attempt to imbue the industry with a bit of real talent led by singers and musicians who could at least play live, but they were hopelessly drowned-out by the manufactured pop which was mass-produced for the lowest common demoninator.
The X-Factor is simply putting the manufacturing process into a gameshow format and trying to bring a bit of contemporary thinking into the mix by making it interactive with the viewers. But it is still manufactured pop, the very lowest of the low in musical terms, and asking if the show is harming the music industry is like worrying about getting a scratch on an already wrecked car. It's a nonsense question. Simon Cowell is absolutely NOT hurting the industry - on the contrary, he is steering it where he wants it to go, pandering to the public's worship of celebrity culture and maintaining the industry's business arm with aggressive effectiveness. He is also stifling genuine creativity and leaving the real talent out in the cold to struggle on the web, or through obscure labels, to find its audience.
You might have gathered that I feel pretty strong about this. Music has been around for thousands of years, and the music industry has been around for approx. 60 years. Music doesn't really need an industry to control the flow and output. All the best, most talented artists generally have to be hunted down either via their independent struggles to get noticed online or through more obscure labels which are not terribly chart (or radio) friendly.
To generalise, I'm a big believer that any group or artists that regularly appears in the pop charts is not worthy of being classed as a genuine musical talent because they're clearly only in it for fame and fortune and often care little for the crap they spew out via industry channels.
The X-Factor is keeping the industry bouyant in many ways and keeping it trapped in its current stale, anti-progressive, anti-creative business model which is in dire need of something exciting. When will we get another Rolling Stones, another Sex Pistols, another Jimi Hendrix, another Tom Waits, another Jim Morrison, another Joni Mitchell, another Bob Dylan, another Dan le Sac, another Elbow, another Nick Drake, another Led Zeppelin, another Jeff Buckley? All the time people like Simon Cowell are in charge and running shows like the X-Factor I'm afraid the answer will be a resounding "NEVER", at least not through the highly accessible channels that is the music industry or the X-Factor.
The industry is so crap that the X-Factor can never do it any harm. Hopefully the constant rise of the MP3 format and downloadable music will take care of the industry and shake it out of its apathy.
