X-Factor Case Study

We had to get into the mindset of and X-Factor judge and thinking about what makes a star and what the 'X-Factor' is.
Our first task was to define the X-Factor in a sentence and our response was that it was a commercial singing competition.
We then had to say what we wanted to see this year from the contestants. Our response was a unique recording artist.
We were asked what group we would like to have and we said we would want the girls because they are more likely to win and have a Christmas No 1 after the show.
We watched a few auditions from the first shows and had to say what feedback we would give them as they were standing on the stage and would we be thinking from a professional point of view that we wouldn't really tell them on stage.
The people who auditioned were Janet Devlin, Frankie Cocozza, Goldie Cheung, 2 Shoes, The Keys, Jade Richards, Luke Lucas, Craig Colton, Amelia Lily, John Wilding, Terry Winstanley and Misha Bryan.

One of the contestants were 2Shoes. From their audition we thought their audition was really good, they had good recording voice and they would fit into the pop genre.
From a professional point of view we thought that they needed to change their overall image and their fake tans needed to go if they were going to progress in the show because they were a bit too much to take in. Their harmony needed to be in sync. but overall, it was very promising.

The Keys were also contestants. We thought their audition was good and gave a lasting impression and they also had a good image so their audience would be teenage girls.
From a professional point of view we thought that they didn't fit a genre because they had everything going on from RnB to hip hop so they would need to focus on one genre.

We then had to think if the contestants had anything special and if they were just singing they same thing we as audiences wanted to hear even if they sounded a bit different. We started talking about the culture industry and we looked at a theory by two men called Adorno and Horkheimer and their theory was taken from the book called Production of Culture/Cultures of Production Paul Du Gay, Sage 1997. Adorno and Horkheimer adopted the term 'culture industry' to argue that the cultural items were produced was the similarlyto how other industries manufactured vast quantities of consumer goods.

They linked the idea of the 'culture industry' to the model of 'mass culture' in which cultural production had become a routine, standardized, repetitive operation that produced undemanding cultural commodities, which in turn resulted in a type of consumption that was also standardized and passive. They argued that the form of music, art and literature produced today were the same thing and nothing was different and it had been corrupted by the production methods and regimes of industrial capitalism. This is because most record labels are privately owned and they will tell an artists or group like JLS who did not win X-Factor (but are signed Epic records) change their image in order to fit the image of what the record company wants to sell.

This video shows JLS in their first audition and the genre of music they sang was soulful, melodic and they harmonized frequently which made them look more original and gave them an aura of individuality.




This video is one of JLS' most popular videos and after going through the X-Factor machine their main purpose has now been making music for the record company they are signed to. They have stripped away of what makes them individuals and made them into a group that teenage girls will like. The repetitive chorus of this JLS song and frequently recurring refrains makes each song more commercial and the more people hear it everywhere, the more they want to buy an album or download the song. Adorno and Horkheimer concluded that it is all done for calculated commercial reasons so that the song will be marked on the listeners mind and provoke a purchase or download.
Adorno and Horkheimer said that the songs produced today are not spontaneous and there is nothing special or different as everything we hear on the radio is the same, as is what we watch on TV. Our brains as an audience is meant to reject anything that isn't familiar and listen to the things they want us to listen to.