[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1387184552' post='2308991']
X-Factor for musicians ?! Why not extend that to X-Factor for watchmakers, X-Factor for kitchen fitters, X-Factor for rock climbers ? Because no-one would watch it.
Despite us musicians thinking we are very, very important, and overlooked and undervalued, it's the singer in popular music that the audience identifies with. The audience knows what makes them feel good, they can identify with the singer. They understand words and the voice expressing them. They connect with the look and movements and facial expressions of the singer. Instrumental music confuses the average listener, they don't understand what makes a good drummer, a good guitarist, a good keyboard player, a good bassist. It's backing for the singer and if it sounds good and it makes the singer sound good, that's the extent of their interest. You may think that's unfair, but that's the way it is. That is why Edward Van Halen hardly got recognised in the street, and why David Lee Roth could silence any restaurant when he walked in.
I've said it before but so many posts on here about X-Factor indicate the poster has no idea what the programme is. They think it is about music. It isn't, music is simply a conduit for the competition and the associated entertainment. Singers generate reaction and opinion even if those reactions and opinions are from the clueless, they generate in the audience a passionate sense of good and bad, right and wrong, justice and injustice. So they watch and vote and help create the hysteria. Show me an instrumentalist who can generate that kind of reaction.
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Exactly.