Opinion: Technology Killed The Reality Star

It’s Saturday night. People are crowding around their television sets listening to Gary Barlow destroying another hopeful’s chance of being the next ‘big name’ in the music charts. As I watch despair wash over this poor woman’s face, my sad mind questions the impact these contestants feel they could have in the world of music and, slightly more tragically, the impact they will have.

Upon listening to the twenty-thousandth rendition of ‘Hero’, it is difficult to see how this is going to have any chance of surviving the cut-throat music business today. It is fabulous if you are talented, have an image and can sing in tune (although the latter seems to not be a deciding factor these days), but you have to have something different, edgy, noticeable.
In an age where self-advertising is quite accessible due to the wonders of the internet, one questions why these reality shows hold a sense of importance in our music culture. From 2002, before people started to get ever-so-slightly cynical, the winners of said TV shows were guaranteed the prestigious Christmas number 1 spot, something that other artists before them would have campaign for months to achieve. Is this due to the musical value? Does everyone love to hear Alexandra Burke blasting out Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ more so than Jeff Buckley?

This new phenomenon has created huge names in the music industry. However, it is not the winners we recall. Who remembers Michelle McManus, winner of the second series of Pop Idol? Not many. Yet I am sure that many more remember the time when Sharon Osborne poured a glass of water over Louis Walsh. The focus on the judges and all of their squabbles is great publicity for the programme, but really doesn’t achieve anything for the music industry now. In the years of X-factor: the first generation, Simon Cowell and his high-waisted trousers completely dominated the top 10. His publicity on the X factor meant that all artists associated with him had a boom, restricting other artists and producers influence. However, now that music is far more accessible through technology, the show’s only real gimmick is its entertainment value. This distracts from the music…doesn’t that defeat the whole object?

The music industry today is dominated by technology through downloads, Facebook advertising, YouTube views. The stunt of appearing on these shows now doesn’t guarantee publicity, but fuel for the judges to make their point in a brutal and slightly hilarious manner. Music is not important anymore, its entertainment that counts.