.......... actually do something original. Here are a few examples from some real musicians.

https://youtu.be/m3lF2qEA2cw

https://youtu.be/aLnZ1NQm2uk

I think Cowell's trying to appeal to the school kids out there. If the song styles go too mature, a lot of kids will likely get bored. Emily's version of Creep came across very good. I thought, even though it sounded weird, that Emily also sang One Direction's, That's What Makes You Beautiful, great. I think the producers maybe slowed it down because they knew that maybe she would hit flat notes if she went too fast.

Thanks for those links - I've just booked tickets to see Scott Bradley's Postmodern Jukebox after watching the second one.

I absolutely loved Casey Abrams and Haley Reinhard on AI. But Casey was a seriously good musician even for AI and Haley is an effortless singer. To imagine that any of the dross on XF could even dream of doing anything like that is ridiculous..

It might be that the musos who work with them Monday - Friday might be able to do this sort of work for them, but what would be the point? It would only work if they had an idea of who they are musically, what they want to sound like and where they are going.

The contestants here are just chancers - more than happy to do karaoke or to be moulded in any way that the producers choose. And that includes Saara, who is arguably the best singer. The rest are barely singers, let alone artists.

My favourite song lyric of all time applies here. Cue The Jam...

"the public wants what the public gets"

35 years later and those lyrics are still true.

What would be interesting and rare on the x factor would be for them to take a slow ballad type song and make it rocky or have a danceable vibe.

It might be funny to hear Honey G turn the drugs don't work by The Verve into a fast rap.

No leave good songs alone from this twisted changes in style, especially Honey G taking them on.

I am so glad that they're not doing something like this. Quite intensely dislike this and find it obvious and not at all original. I think they do a good job sometimes. Say You'll Be There by 5AM was good.

Great.

The second one fabulous. Original and sounds great too.