Mark Steel attacca X Factor UK: "There is still hope for the planet", scrive sul quotidiano "The Independent", "the odds are against us but we have 10 days left to save the world and stop X Factor from creating another putrid Christmas number one". Qual è il problema? "These people are not only trying to destroy music, they're trying to make us surrender to their unstoppable naked power. We watch them package an act until their entire identity has been moulded into a corporate Cowellite auto-crooner, then let them sell the resulting warble back to us as if it's in some way natural". Tutto quello che dà forza alla musica, continua il columnist, viene rimosso da X Factor: "Anything dirty, painful, eccentric, scary, in other words individual, is scrubbed away, so if Janis Joplin or Kurt Cobain or Eminem had ever applied, they'd have been chortled off in the first audition". Insomma, la tv e i talent uccidono la musica: grazie a Dio, sono rimasti in pochi a pensarla così.
