I decided a year ago not to bother recapping X Factor this year. Last year was such a joyless, predictable drudge, and the decision to add Robbie Williams and his wife to the judging panel utterly VALIDATES my decision. It's no longer 1996 and I cannot get excited about the idea of Robbie Williams. As for Louis Tomlinson, HE'S NOT EVEN THE BEST ONE IN ONE DIRECTION, so yeah, HARD PASS I'm afraid.
But I cannot bid X Factor farewell without a retrospective. Normally, I look at where last year's contestants are now, but I genuinely can't remember any of them except that boyband wot won it, so instead, let's look at ALL the winners:
2004
WINNER: Steve Brookstein
Was Simon Cowell just trying to make him in his own image? The stubble? The open neck shirt? Urgh. Steve Brookstein got to number one in the immediate aftermath of his win, and then fell rapidly downhill. He performed on the Bilbao car ferry for some time, which is sub-Butlins levels of fame. Steve became bitter. So bitter. He wrote a book about his bitterness and can be found these days carping on Twitter. At the time of writing, he's become an expert on the state of Israel *eyeroll*.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: G4! Rowetta! TABBY!
2005
WINNER: Shayne Ward
Shayne also suffered musical ignominy after his initial number one hit off the back of the show. His homage to the perils of using a landline (No U Hang Up) afflicted the charts and then he seemed likely to disappear into the same bleak hole as Steve. BUT WAIT! Shayne was only a callow youth of 21 when he won X Factor, and still had plenty in him. He went on stage for a bit and on Dancing On Ice, and then got cast in Corrie. His character's just died.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: Chico, for whom it was always Chico Time.
2006
WINNER: Leona Lewis
Leona is arguably the best solo artist ever produced by X Factor. Bleeding Love is a stone cold classic. She's been on Broadway, she's had several decent songs out, and she stomped all over Ray Quinn, for which she should be fondly remembered.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: Dreadful homunculus Ray Quinn,
2007
WINNER: Leon Jackson
Lol, who? Poor Leon Jackson, they done him wrong. But he's
making up for it now...
NOTABLE ALUMNI: Rhydian, and the weirdly incestuous Same Difference.
2008
WINNER: Alexandra Burke
What a GOLDEN year for X Factor 2008 ended up being. Alexandra managed to HAUL IN BEYONCE for her duet in the final, released several good songs (Broken Heels is a TUNE), came back to X Factor to be a SASSY TEMPORARY JUDGE, went to the West End and then got cast in Strictly where she was basically robbed by Joe bloody McFadden, the broken puppet. Not that I'm bitter.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: JLS!
EOGHAN QUIGG! DIANA VICKERRRS! Eurovision's own
Ruth Lorenzo!
WINNER: Joe McElderry
Another classic year, unless you're Wee Joe McElderry. Sold throughout his run as the nice, safe lad you'd take home to your mam, he came out six months later and was promptly thrown under a bus. He was kept off number one by Killing In The Name Of (lol), won Popstar to Operastar, DEFEATING THE POWER OF CHERYL BAKER, then won The Jump without dying. Nowadays, he's getting glowing reviews in the Lynn News for his musical roles, so that's nice for him...
NOTABLE ALUMNI: Jedward! Olly Murs! Stacey Solomon (my fave contestant possibly ever)! Jamie Afro! Rachel ADEDEJI! Future Eurovisioner
Lucie Jones. And bitter Danyl! What a year!
WINNER: Matt Cardle
Personally, I preferred him with a flat cap. Matt Cardle, the laziest decorator in Essex, never seemed particularly arsed about X Factor. His biggest achievement in his whole run was taking a Biffy Clyro song and thoroughly balladising it. I would like to see this done in future with...Animal Style. Oh, and being told about all the pussy he would get on winning by Harry Styles. Such a nice boy.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: Rebecca Ferguson, who can still be found annually honking away on Strictly, Cher Lloyd (inexplicably popular in America) and Tesco Mary. Oh, and that band One Direction had some minor success.
WINNER: Little Mix
Cor that's a STRONG LEWK. Anyway, remember Tulisa? The girl out of NDubz who advertised her perfume with a weird arm salute at the top of every show, and called Little Mix her 'little muffin's, despite being three whole years older than most of them? What happened to her? Anyway, Little Mix were her shining success, and remain so. The first group to win, the only girl group to have any real success, since Louis Walsh liked to bus them as soon as humanly possible, and the only girl band in some time to successfully transition from cutesy teenpop to ACTUAL WOMEN. Yes, we had to sit through Jesy wailing about being the fat one for far too many weeks, but it was all worth it to see them
do this in last year's final.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: Marcus Collins! Amelia LILY! Frankie Cockface.
WINNER: James Arthur
Urghhh, y tho? He was probably the best one IN THAT PARTICULAR YEAR, despite looking like Sloth and Ed Sheeran had a beautiful baby boy, but what a monstrous bellend homophobe he ended up being. He got dropped by SyCo, then re-signed, and now spends his time alternating between having panic attacks on stage, and not.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: Tiny Jahmene, who has gone full AMBASSADOR OF CHRIST on us, Phoney Maloney, who still makes patently
phoney claims about
everything every six
seconds (all those stories are golden), RYLAN, and Lucy Spraggan, who was supposed to transform X Factor forever and instead just highlighted that a lot of singer-songwriters are shite.
WINNER: Sam Bailey
Sam Bailey won off the back of her cruise ship foghorning of popular ballads, IMMEDIATELY got pregnant and has barely been seen since outside of Butlins. God bless her and all who sail in her.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: Luke Friend's hair
WINNER: Ben Haenow
Haenow, Haenow, don't dream it's over!
Oh wait. It is.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: Fleur East! Ernly The Yung! The most delusional man since Christopher Maloney, Stevi Ritchi (who is somehow STILL GOING OUT with Chloe Jasmine) (he says).
WINNER: Louisa Johnson
I think this probably marks the point when everyone stopped caring about X Factor. Louisa was incredibly young (but looked weirdly old), incredibly blonde, incredibly bland and has literally been seen twice since. SyCo dropped her this year. She's only 20.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: The only other notable act was Reggie and Bollie, who were last seen playing a school in Furness.
WINNER: Matt Terry
I had to stop and think for a full minute to remember who Matt Terry was, such is his fame and reknown. He looked like the cover of an Animorph book in the wrong light. He managed to get guest vocals on Subeme la Radio and that was the end of Matt Terry.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: Saara Aalto
was robbed. Also, the ungodly experiment that was Honey G. Don't google. Nobody needs to see that.
WINNER: Rak-Su
They released a new single two months ago. It didn't chart. C'est la vie.
NOTABLE ALUMNI: NONE. BECAUSE IT WAS AWFUL. ENOUGH TO PUT YOU OFF YOUR DINNER.
Goodbye X Factor. Thank you, loyal readership of three. My husband will be delighted he no longer has to sit through this, and frankly, so will I.
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