So who got the boot last night then, for those of us that don't watch but like to keep up to date?

Yes...also she loves to portray the I am hard inside, and I will say it as it is persona, the woman's an embarrassing hypocrite!, she makes me cringe. She annoys me when she gives it 'this is a representation of all the women in the UK' line....No it really is not!

Peter Kay

No not really, nothing would surprise me about X Factor and that genre of programme any more, its not a real program for spotting new talent at all to me, if they were any good they'd have emerged via the other methods that similar young new artists use, ie just go out there and start performing and banging on doors, its not easy, its certainly not as easy as standing outside Manchester Arena for four hours one sunday morning but none of them seem to understand that.

And yet, I watch the fekking thing every week

I disagree I think it does attract some raw talent, I have heard some wonderful voices who would sound awesome singing blues, soul, and rock, the problem is all the program makers are interested in is selling records to the masses, hence the singers churn out cr@p!

An odd POV. There are a thousand methods that similar young new artists can use - and X-Factor is just one of 'em!! Who knows who would or wouldn't "emerge"? What is "emerging" anyway? I have plenty of stuff in my collection which probably never actually "emerged" in the sense I think you mean. There must be tens of thousands of artists over the years who have just never been in the right place at the right time. I bet a fair proportion of them are "better" than many of those who "made it". Getting some brief screen time on the X-Factor (or any TV prog) must be a decent leg up for anyone who is any good.

And as for spotting new talent, what about this year's clear winner, Johnny? He looks like he's been around for decades without being discovered but now I expect he'll make a shedload as the next Dale Winton.

And I watch the fekking thing every week too, though I confess I could never do it without Sky+ Fast Forward facilities

No, you are right, hence my comment about them using the "traditional" methods of getting out there and just playing or singing to get recognised.

Ultimately they all want wealth and "fame" rather than an amateur or semi-professional income and the love of playing and singing music, Matt Cardle from last year for instance was doing the rounds fronting bands and was probably pocketing some tax-free cash most weekends (and then spending it in music shops), ultimately he wanted more, ultimately he'll go back to the pub circuit soon and then he'll probably admit that churning out chart music wasn't really what he wanted to do anyway.

Personally I would prefer "serious" music programmes like Jules Hollands output to be given more prominence on TV with a mandate to introduce at least two unknown bands per week mixed in with the regular professionals - the fact that at least three of the judges (and probably all of the producers) on the X Factor panel last night didn't understand the description of the theme "rock music" told the whole story to me.

Kitty is better than a bottom two place and the cruise ship singer deserved to go. Having said that the skanky one should go. It irritates me how he scratches his head as if it is full of lice. And if his private life is owt to go by he should be called frankie cock oozer

I would also prefer serious music programmes however I doubt that would produce bags of money for people like Cowell.
I remember the Housemartins saying they were not in it for the money, then Heaton formed The Beautiful South, and Norman Cook as we know went his own way, tbf though they did not initially do mainstream. I think it is a fine line because if the artist is good enough they will attract fame and fortune but what annoys me is they seem to sell their souls to mainstream pop, there are markets for blues, soul etc is it greed by the artist or the record company's or both..I think I am getting old because all I see on MTV is boobs hanging out and the same monotonous sounds

At the age of 55 I am fortunate enough to have been weaned on the sounds of the 60s, on Motown, Stax, The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, my dad was a club singer who's era was the 40's and 50's, of Sinatra, Bennett, etc, the radio was never off in our house, his music, our music, when I was 15 the year was 1971 and the music charts were a cornucopia of British Prog Rock, American Soul, British Rock, Glam Rock and the Motown and Stax that we had been prevented from listening to in the 60s thanks to import restrictions and tarriffs, in that year my dads era was 30 years behind us and seemed like a million miles hence from what was going on in a 15 year olds world.

Fast forward to today and I've just spent this evening painting away to Quadrophenia and an assortment of Stones output from the 60s and 70s, I'm still listening to that music, loud, as loud as the headphones will allow and tonight my 23 year old daughter came in and asked me to turn my music down - my dad used to tell me to do that 30 years ago, I should be stone deaf by now instead of just partly.

The main point is that my two daughters will happily listen to "my" music in the car and despite me complaining constantly I will listen to most of the stuff they like, there are some very talented singers and songwriters out there at the moment, I use Spotify to follow a lot of new released material and there is a lot of good young talent that has been "discovered" via the traditional route of working hard at their art and having some editorial control over it by writing their own material.

Occasionally X Factor will give them a platform, but more often than not they churn out another succession of what blokes of my age (I'm looking at you Walsh) think their own kids want to listen to and now, after ten to fifteen years of the conveyor belt running we can all see right through it and most of the 20 year olds that I speak to can too, the likes of Cowell and Walsh have done their best to stifle the chart market into accepting their view of what "Kids" want and this year at least it seems to be business as usual.