Musical "Talent" Shows.

I made the mistake of commiting half an hour of my life to watching Must Be The Music.
You know; Sky1's "The X-Factor" rip off with Dizzee Rascal, who appeared capable of giving two judgements throughout the night: "Yeah man, that was tight" and "Nah man, I wasn't feelin' it".

No disrespect intended towards Mr. Rascal of course. He is a phonomenally successful artist in his own right, and I don't doubt for a second his talent in writing catchy pop songs with archaic words our grandparents used.

It is a good example, though, (should we have needed any more than Charlotte Church) that just because you're good at one thing, doesn't remotely gain you skill at another. Dizzee Rascal is not a skilled judge of talent.

I'm not surprised, the judges appeared to have been selected utterly at random based on their accents. It was as if the producers had landed the London street accent of Dizzee, and chose to quickly counter balance it with the generic semi-posh of Jamie Cullum. Suddenly, though, they realised they had two judges representing the two sides of London, but had nothing from the rest of the UK.
In order to counterbalance this they employed Sharleen Spiteri, presumably on the basis that she came from as far away as possible from London whilst still being intelligable to the easily-confused British public.

Perhaps earlier, I was too quick to blame Dizzee for his lack of ability to judge ability.
The "talent" on display were like an assortment of good kareoke singers and instantly-forgettable pub bands, with the odd bit of classical music thrown in to break up the drone. Tack a little sad-story on top ala X-Factor and you've got yourself a TV show.

Now, at this point, it does become apparent that what you are now reading is someone of miniscule talent sitting in front of a screen, slagging off some people with talent enough to impress some highly successful recording artists. Certainly, that is true, but the problem I had was that the acts just weren't that good. Sure they were in tune, or full of energy, or passionate about their music, but there was nothing that stood out. I barely remember them, and it all just seemed really forced, like the judges had to put through pretty much anything that was half decent in the knowlegde that they were the best they were gonna get.

I was also annoyed by the fact that the show was just one long advert for Apple. During the selection process the judges gleefully scrolled through their iPhones and iPads and iDontGiveAFucks, as if somehow seeing them on an Apple product improved the musical experience in some way.

Don't watch it. Turn it off and listen to something decent.