Alexandra Burke is just like milk, pasteurised, standardised and homogenised!

By Lorne Jackson on Dec 19, 08 12:35 PM

I MADE two huge mistakes last week.
Huge Mistake Number One - I bought a carton of milk.
Huge Mistake Number Two - I bought a train ticket home.

That ticket happened to be for a Virgin train. Which meant my ride didn't depart for a good long while, at least three quarters of an ice-age after it was meant to, leaving me with plenty of time to twiddle my thumbs, and various other knobbly parts of my body.

No wonder I was so annoyed that I'd initially bought the milk - I should have purchased a newspaper instead.

Or a puzzle book; or some watercolours and a blank canvas; or an annotated edition of War And Peace.

Instead, I was forced to browse my milk carton for entertainment and edification.

And here's what my milk carton had to say for itself. It said: PASTEURISED. STANDARDISED. HOMOGENISED.

At which point I forgot all about my Two Huge Mistakes, and revelled in a major eureka moment, instead.

Could it be, I mused, that Simon Cowell is actually in the wrong business? Should he quit pop Svengalidom and open a dairy?
It all made perfect sense.

There can be no better description of the X-Factor pop product than what I discovered on the side of my milk.

Pasteurised. Standardised. Homogenised.
Isn't that Alexandra Burke, this year's X-Factor winner, to a tee?

Sure, she's a pretty girl. Also pretty darned dull. Especially when she gets into warp-factor warble.

Her singing is technically impressive, but that's equally true of the architectural know-how that went into building Birmingham's Central Library.

When Alexandra sings, there are high notes and low notes and in-betweeny notes. Yet a lifeless piano in an empty room also has an impressive range of notes at his disposal - though only an artist can shape them into melody.
Alexandra is no artist.

When the really great singers belt out a tune, they don't merely show off their vocal range. They reveal their emotions, share their weaknesses, tell their story.
X-Factor winners only have naked ambition; not the ability to strip themselves naked in song.

That includes the over-hyped Leona Lewis, who remains as bland as bus stop chit-chat with a perfect stranger about when the Number 11 is due.

Usually I wouldn't mind this victory of the brazenly bland. After all, Simon Cowell's trite show is just a slice of Saturday night hokum, hyperbole and hoo-ha.

But what really exasperates me is that Alexandra has been given a genuinely beautiful song to ruin for Christmas.

Hallelujah for that? I don't think so.