"The X Factor" U.S. returned for its second season with sob stories galore, lots of heavy editing and viewer manipulation. On September 12, 2012, Fox televised Part 1 of the season premiere. Part 2 will be televised on September 13, 2012, at 8 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time.
First, the good news: "The X Factor" U.S. has greatly improved by spending more time on good auditions and less time showing bad/freaky contestants who appear to be mentally ill. The bad auditions that they did show at length were from people who were portrayed as arrogant, but not necessarily crazy. I've always said that those types of "crazy" auditions are better off seen in small doses, and it looks like "The X Factor" has finally realized that people don't want to see a 10-minute segment on the type of "crazy" contestant who is difficult to watch. There was also a lot more backstage footage of the contestants and the judges. Most of this backstage footage was entertaining, even if it was obviously edited to portray certain contestants as "villains." But what I like about "The X Factor" is that there are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, compared to "The Voice," which at times takes itself way too seriously.
(Click here to watch some of the backstage footage.)
Now, the bad news: The episode was heavily edited to present a distorted view of what really happened. (Manipulative editing is not too surprising for "reality" TV.) And there were just a few too many sob stories that made the episode really over-the-top with its corniness, especially at the end of the episode. It's pretty obvious which contestants the show wants people to vote for, even before voting has even started.
Despite Simon Cowell claiming in recent interviews that Britney Spears is the "meanest" and "toughest" judge on the panel, Cowell can still hold that title, as he let it rip with several put-downs and insults directed at bad singers.
The episode began with an introduction from "X Factor" U.K. boy band One Direction, the biggest act to emerge from "The X Factor." No mention was made of any of "The X Factor" U.S. contestants from 2011, probably because all of them who have released music so far (Melanie Amaro, Chris Rene, Marcus Canty and Rachel Crow) have all been flopping on the U.S. charts.
(Click here to watch One Direction's introduction.)
Auditions in Austin, Texas
First up were auditions in Austin, Texas. Not surprisingly, Spears' notorious walkout during those auditions was not mentioned or shown.
Instead, we got a heavily edited set-up that portrayed contestant Kaci Newton (a 22-year-old bank teller) and her look-alike older sister Kaycee as "mean girls" who sneered jealously behind contestant Paige Thomas' back. Thomas is a 21-year-old single mother of a 3-year-old daughter whom she brought to the audition, and Thomas was clearly set up as the "Cinderella" in this scenario. Even before she sang a note, you knew that Thomas would be better a much singer who would triumph over the evil stepsisters ... oops, I mean the Newton sisters.
Thomas sang Mary J. Blige's "I'm Going Down" that was pretty close to perfect, and of course all four judges (Cowell, Spears, Demi Lovato and L.A. Reid) voted "yes."
When it was Kaci Newton's turn to sing, it was also pretty obvious that she was going to bomb. She sang an off-key version of Katy Perry's "Firework."
Cowell said to her. "It sounded like you were dying." When she claimed to be nervous and asked to sing another song and was told no, she sang another song anyway. She launched into Duffy's "Mercy" that wasn't much better than how she performed "Firework."
Cowell sniped: "Now I feel like dying ... You are quite annoying, so I'm going to have to say no."
Cue the edited shot of the audience roaring loudly in approval. Of course, the audience at the arena didn't know how Kaci Newton was acting backstage, and the audience reaction shown on TV looked like was edited it in to seem as if the audience all wanted to get rid of Kaci Newton.
(Click here to watch Kaci Newton's "mean girl" talking about Paige Thomas.)
(Click here to watch Paige Thomas' audition.)
(Click here to watch Kaci Newton's audition.)
Reed Deming, a 13-year-old who looks and sounds like a younger Justin Bieber, performed two songs from Bruno Mars: "It Will Rain" and "Grenade." Although he got put through to the next round, it was with a little bit of reluctance from Reid, who gave Bieber his first major record deal when Reid was chairman of Island Def Jam Music Group. The world already has one Justin Bieber, so after the novelty of Deming wears off, he probably won't make it to the "X Factor" finals, which should be for contestants who are more original than a Bieber look-alike/sound-alike.
(Click here to watch Reed Deming's audition.)
In every audition city, there's at least one obnoxious/weird contestant shown who is an awful singer. For the Austin segment, it was Shawn Arementa, 50, who pathetically performed an original song called "Candy Girl" that was nothing like the New Edition classic.
Cowell remarked, "You're like a mouse trying to be an elephant ... It's just wrong."
Armenta got angry when Lovato tried to give him constructive criticism, and he told her that she had no right to judge him because she uses "auto-tune" in her songs. Needless to say, Armenta did not get put through to the next round.
(Click here to watch Shawn Armenta's audition.)
Another heavily edited segment was a montage of Spears giving negative comments, as if to "prove" she is a "mean" judge. What you didn't see on TV is that Spears gives negative comments after someone like Cowell and Reid says something similar, but Reid and Cowell do it in a much wittier way than Spears does. A bunch of negative comments that are isolated and strung together can be made to look like Spears is always that way, but she really isn't. Just wait until the live episodes happen, when things can't be edited in a "cut and paste" manner.
(Click here to watch the montage.)
Auditions in San Francisco/Oakland, California
Next were auditions in Oakland, California (labeled as San Francisco in the show, for people who don't know that Oakland is near San Francisco). I was at all the auditions that happened there in June 2012, and there were quite a few things that were left out of the televised show.
First, Quatrele Da'an Smith (the 21-year-old drag queen/cake decorator dressed in a wedding veil, women's panties and high heels) was a walking stereotype (he even sang Lady Gaga's "Born This Way") who was clearly put on the show for people to laugh at, not because he has any real chance of winning. What was shown on TV was Cowell's hilarious comment: "If Madonna, Bobby Brown and Dracula had a child, it would be you ... In a weird way, I liked it." All of the judges except for Reid voted "yes" to Smith. What you didn't see on TV was that Smith really wailed and begged to be put through to the next round.
(Click here to watch Quatrele Da'an Smith's audition.)
Second, Spears' former duet partner Don Philip, a vocal coach who had an emotional breakdown when he saw her again during his audition, had confessed on stage that he is gay, after he spent several minutes rambling about how he wanted to say something that he couldn't tell Spears when they worked together in the late 1990s. But Philip's "coming out" confession was completely edited out of the show, and so were all the boos that he got from the audience for his annoying rambling. The real reason why he was shown sobbing backstage, saying he had embarrassed Spears, was because Philip chose an "X Factor" audition to come out of the closet to Spears, and Cowell gave Philip harsh criticism for it (in front of the audience) during the audition.
Apparently, people who are gay are not allowed to be seen talking about being gay on "The X Factor" U.S., because the show has never televised any gay people talking about their sexuality or significant others, as if the show wants to keep them in the closet. By contrast, "The Voice" treats gay/lesbian contestants just like any other contestant, and doesn't edit out any comments they might make about their love lives.
What was shown on TV was all four "X Factor" judges rejecting Philip. What you didn't see on TV was Cowell angrily lecturing Philip about how unprofessional he was during the audition. Cowell even yelled at Philip, "I don't give a sh*t if you're gay or not!"
(Click here for a full description of what really happened on stage during Don Philip's audition.)
(Click here to watch Don Philip's audition.)
As I mentioned in my recap of the auditions in California, Emblem 3 (a trio of male teenagers) was one of the standout performers. I couldn't name the group at the time I wrote the recap, since "The X Factor" publicists asked journalists covering these auditions to not reveal the contestant's names, hometowns and voting outcomes before the episodes are televised. Emblem 3 performed an original song called "Sunset Boulevard" that got a standing ovation from the audience. I said at the time that I was absolutely convinced that after seeing this audition, Cowell had already decided to sign this hip-hop-influenced rock group to a record deal, based on his reaction to Emblem 3 in the audition. I still feel that way.
After Emblem 3's audition was televised, the group's name immediately began trending on Twitter, which is a good sign that they have attracted a huge amount of attention because of "The X Factor." Cowell is mentoring the Groups category this year, so expect to hear about Emblem 3 getting signed to Cowell's Syco Music sometime in January 2013.
We in the audience at the auditions didn't see what was happening backstage during these auditions. And in this audition city, the backstage "villain" was 22-year-old Vincent Thomas, a former boy band member who bragged to Emblem 3 backstage about how he has already toured Europe and played to crowds of 60,000 people. He also gave unsolicited advice to the group and wrongly assumed that Emblem 3 was a lightweight pop boy band.
You know where this is headed. When it was time to perform on stage, overconfident Thomas ended up being rejected by all of the judges, who thought that his version of Elton John's "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word" was too bland. Before he performed the song, Thomas showed his musical ignorance by saying it was a "blues" song. Backstage, Emblem 3 got the last laugh, as one of the group's members muttered that Thomas's audition was "lame."
(Click here to watch Vincent Thomas' and Emblem 3's auditions.)
Auditions in Providence, Rhode Island
The last audition city to be shown in this episode was Providence, Rhode Island. This segment could be called the "girl power" segment, since it focused on two young female singers who got unanimous "yes" votes from the judges.
First was 18-year-old Jennel Garcia, who says she wants to be like a modern-day Pat Benatar. All of the judges loved her performance of Grace Potter’s “Paris (Ooh La La),†which Garcia belted out with the plenty of gusto.
(Click here to watch Jennel Garcia's audition.)
Next was Jillian Jensen, 19, who made an obvious play for Lovato's vote by telling her that she was a fan who happens to also have the same "Stay Strong" tattoo as Lovato. Jensen then launched into a sob story about how, just like Lovato, she was also bullied when she was younger. Lovato naturally teared up and hugged Jensen at the end of her audition. Spears also had tears in her eyes, and Cowell admitted that he almost started to cry. And a small army of Jensen's family and friends (about 25 of them) rushed on stage to hug her as she sobbed after her audition.
Between the sob story, the sentimental background music played at an overpowering volume, the corny group hug, and the long segment devoted to Jensen at the end of the episode, it's clear that the show wants the target teenage female demographic to embrace Jensen as a favorite contestant.
(Click here to watch Jillian Jensen's audition.)
Maybe Garcia and Jensen sounded better at the concert venue, because on TV, their vocals sounded slightly off-key. I'll have to see other performances from these two singers to get a better idea of how good they really are, but for now, I think they're overrated. Garcia is a better stage performer than Jensen, who would be well-advised to stop leaning too heavily on her sob story to get votes, because that "poor me" attitude can get annoying very quickly. There's enough "corn and cheese" on reality TV. "The X Factor" just served up enough in this episode to last for an entire season, but that won't stop the show from piling on some more in future episodes.
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