Television that is.
The singer takes it all is the latest talent show on British television. It is more openly a karaoke show than other shows and a lot cheesier than other shows on offer. It is never going to have the ratings of the X Factor or The Voice, it is on a Friday night and the first half of the show is directly in competition with Coronation Street, so even taking +1 channels and TV on demand services into account it will never have the greatest ratings.
While Channel 4 may have missed a trick with the scheduling I think they may have got it right with the format. People like cheesy music shows. The popularity of the Eurovision Song Contest shows that, and Alan Carr’s presenting style ups the cheese factor and makes the show better.
But my gripe is this: Why are most of the talent shows about music and why are all the music talent shows about singers? ITV’s Pop Stars, Pop Idol and The X Factor, BBC;s The Voice and now Channel 4 has The Singer Takes It All. The thing is that I beleive that with all the attention on the singers music is poorer.
What happened to the instrumentalists?
The dys of the superstar guitarist, keyboard player or drummer have gone. The ones that remain made their reputations years ago. No new instrumentalist superstars have emerged.
There will always be room for the solo singer and the vocal band. The boy/girl bands have a long history going back through the Motown groups of the 60s. Supremes, Temptations, Four Tops and the like, back to do-wop. Probably back before that.
Singers are great. They deserve their place in music. But other musicians have their place too.
Let Eric Clapton and Lars Ulrich have some young competition.
