Does anyone else get sick or reading comments and hearing from the judges about how a contestant lacks versatility?

Versatility is completely irrelevant in the real music world. Artists tend to stick to what they are good at and what they like sure they sometimes cross genres but to me being versatile means they don't really excell anywhere.

My fave bands and singers aren't what I would call particularly versatile - they are mostly very much in the rock or indie genres if they started crossing to R n B or opera i'd be utterly horrified.

Sorry just needed to get that rant out

Louis Walsh spent most of Leona's series criticising her for not being versatile.

As we all know her lack of versatility has really hampered her popularity & no way will she ever make it in the U.S.

er hold on

First of all, thank you Tigerpaws, a thread about something other than you know who and you know who, AND one that has a great topic for discussion as well!

The judges use "lacks versatility" almost as a mantra! I agree with what you have said, once they release material they tend to stick to the area they are great at, and so they should. If Meatloaf were to attempt JLS it would be pretty awful! LOL.

Having said that, in The X Factor, in my opinion, it is slightly different. The single/album that the winner will release is always very "generic pop" whereas the singers that end up in the final 12 are not always geared to that. I think that the reason that Simon especially is so married to the idea that they have to be verstatile, is so that he can gear the winner release to what HE wants, not necessarily what THEIR strengths are.

This is one of the reasons I believe, that if you are really good, runner up is actually the winning position nine times out of ten. You get your contract but you don't have to be made over in another image.

I completely agree and have posted to this effect before several times.

They tout versatility as an excuse for the theme weeks which are probably put in to see how badly the acts can f*** up to prolong the pantomime.

It's not a singing contest anymore, hasn't been for a while now. It's a popularity contest fuelled by the ego's of the judges and the phone vote £$£'s, the contestants are relatively superfluous and disposable.

I would add that I think versitilty is good as often if you can show this , you may win new fans in the competion for example I was luke warm over Lucie till this week when I thought she did really wee

I also think if you just sing in one style ,if you dont happen to like that style then you will never be won over by that contestant

On a lighter note , if we didn't have versatlity there would be no chance of the glorious to be wished for sight of Jedward attempting a soft and romantic ballad !

The people who excel each week are the ones who are versatile......it doesn't necessarily mean different genres of music but whether they consistently do ballads or uptempos. It is the reason I agreed with Louis about Leona, I felt that doing similar styled ballads week in week out did not make her a versatile artist. It is the reason I hate her music. But I can't deny she can sing bloody well and she has become very successful!

I know it seems that he does this to many of them; he is certainly doing so this year and it is not constructive.

I don't think a singer needs to be versatile, but it certainly does help give them a longer career as they can crossover in to different styles.

You're welcome Lizzy

I do agree with you about the XF being different however Simon goes on and on about finding a recording artist blah blah blah so in honesty it shouldn't be that different.

As for being able to sing uptempo and ballads well I guess thats a fair point but given the contestants get no choice in the songs they sing it does annoy the crap out of me that they get slammed every week for not being versatile or for their song choices.

OP is spot on. Versatility is a huge advantage on the X Factor, especially with occasional and dumb outdated themes such as big band and disco, but in the real world, it hardly matters. You stick to your strengths at what you're good at, and most importantly, at what you enjoy. If contestant A has a stellar big band week, does that mean he should record a big band song for his album just for the heck of it, even though he hates the genre?

You'd expect artists to progress musically over the years in an effort to avoid becoming stale and samey, but no one really expects them to radically change music styles (barring exceptions, of course; Nelly Furtado springs to mind).

Versatility isn't something that's necessary for most artists but I'd say it certainly helps if they can master different types of songs each week.

Couldn't agree more.

The contestants do their audition with a song they feel comfortable singing and performing, and are chosen on the strength of that.

Then the most annoying phrase of the lives crops up - "You're staying in your comfort zone". Well der..

So they are given songs to show this 'versatility' and some give crap performances to be insulted by the judges and ridiculed by viewers - makes no sense, except in the context of choosing contestants they know will fall on their arses and get stick for not doing what they are good at.

See heres the thing if we look at say David Cook or even Kris Allen or Adam Lambert from AI all of them had the ability to use any of the themes and re-arrange the songs to fit their style which in turn gave you a very good sense of who they were as an artist and what they would be like in the real world - I for one would much rather this approach than someone being able to sing the diff themes with no creativity.

I agree - many of the most successful artists are popular for their originality or strength within their style/range/capabilities. What they look for on this show falls somewhere between singer and cabaret entertainer, thus the success of people like Steve Brookstein (for the run of the show at least), John & Edward, even Daniel Pearce. Leona doesn't fall into that category but she was exceptional.

But that, for me, is the stumbling block of XF over AI - you get someone truely creative and musically gifted on AI and they can use the themes to their own strengths, work with the musical director etc. On XF the contestants are stuck with at least 3 out of 4 judges (I'll accept Louis is actually a huge music fan and does go and see people) who have very limited taste and seemingly very limited knowledge outside their own comfort zones - plus no band and no musical director, so the already limiting 'theme' becomes even more limiting because the contestants are so controlled in what they can do.

Precisely OP. I'm fed up of people insisting Stacey does up-tempo and J&E do ballads.

And Jamie only does Rock songs. Im fed up with all of this versatility talk.

Looking at the previous winners, I'd say the only one who can truly be described as versatile is Alexandra; the rest very much fit into a particular niche (although Shayne did show some suggestion of versatility).

The only thing that gets me this series though is that I remember Simon last year criticising Cheryl and Alexandra (in week 2) for being predictable with regard to song choices and that they needed to shake things up a bit, so she came out the next week and did Candyman.

I'd like to see some of the contestants try to shake it up a bit (especially Danyl - he's done 4 very similar performances so far) just to see how they cope with the change of pace. Olly with a ballad, Danyl with something a bit faster (and maybe without the money-note at the end), that sort of thing. I reckon they missed a trick with Danyl last week and should have given him The Darkness to sing.

Very good point.
I am not sure about runners-up being better off though, but that's beside the point.

Wonderful thread tigerpaw, i have always thought versatility was irrelevant. I mean artists usually stick to 2-3 genres MAX. It's usally RnB\Pop\Soul, or Rock\Pop, or Country\Pop, but never Disco\Rock\BigBand so i don't know why they throw all these theme weeks and start calling contestants "you're versatile, or you're not versatile".

I agree OP, I mean you wouldn't ask a rock singer to sing opera. I think ALL the contenst should sing what they feel comforable with.