Music Blogs

"X-Factor" is back, back, back and everywhere you look there is drama. While some might argue the show brings out the best in people - the lobotomised loser, dreaming wannabe etc - I think it's actually the opposite. This is probably why professional music snob Famethrowa refuses to watch the show, generally. But I like to make an exception in the audition rounds, when fully grown adults and tragically deluded kids climb over each other at the door of the lion's den in a desperate bid to be minted 24ct knobheads by music industry Hitler Simon Cowell.

There is additional intrigue in 2008 with the addition of Cheryl Cole to the judging panel. She's still looking pretty stunning, if rather thin, following Ashley Cole's best efforts to serve up a nervous breakdown on the front-page of the red tops with her morning coffee. Already there is talk that Dannii Minogue has got the hump because Cowell's turned his brick-headed attentions towards the Girls Aloud star rather than Kylie's pneumatically altered sister. But there are more sinister powers at play here, should you care.

One contestant, Alexandra Davies, has accused producers of exploiting her background in the opening episode of the new series. She claims to have been manipulated into talking about the deeply unsettling spate of suicides in Brigend during her interview. There's little doubt "X-Factor" relies on the hard luck back stories of contestants to cynically propel the show, but they needed no amount of spin from Barnsley's Alan Turner, who told the panel he was adopted, much to the surprise of his parents. "I was a bit confused", he pleaded to reporters after being threatened with the boot.

Back in the real world though and the contestants really only have to open their mouths to make "X-Factor" unmissable. It helps when you have a gob the science-defying size of that belonging to holiday camp terminator Holly Jervis, who threatened to eat the programme whole on Saturday night. Her attitude before ‘singing' - "IT'S MY TIME", "THIS IS WHAT I AM MADE TO DO AND I'M HERE TO PROVE IT", "I HAVE TO HAVE THIS" - could best be described as bullish. But when she told the judges "You've not heard anything like this" while loosening that jaw, you could almost smell the fear in the room...