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"FacebookPinterest\n\nIn the first eight hours of The X Factor, Simon Cowell gave us banality, tropes, and pre-teens. It was a dark and depraved marathon, two hours a night, spanning four nights across two weeks. Cowell swore that viewership fewer than 20 million people would be a massive disappointment. The X Factor debuted to little more than 12 million viewers. But it held strong to that number on night two and even flashed a keening sense of quality in the final of the four audition episodes. These are a classic form, familiar to any American Idol fan. The buffoonish, the bedraggled, and the oblivious are herded into a large room, then, one at a time, a small room. They sing in front of wealthy people and are, more than likely, humiliated while being filmed. It's a cruel convention and also one that has become stultifying in recent years. The X Factor altered that style by opening the audition up to a massive theater setting, filling it up with fans of singers they had never seen or heard before. This is dangerous stuff, allowing popular consensus, or witless charm from a far-off stage, to influence the potential candidates list for what has been touted as \"a $5 million recording contract.\" Considering the already nefarious and ever-bottoming standards of the music industry, that $5 million could be a penalty figure as much as a prize.\n\nBut Cowell is too smart to be swayed by a loud room\u2014his imperious rejection of popular opinion is what made him the very best thing about American Idol for so long. For nine seasons, he reveled in defying the saccharine taste of the common folk, and then compelled you to believe his touch was somehow more common than yours. A clever trick. Cowell did salvage one remnant from his Idol days, in the form of deposed judge Paula Abdul, a reality show performer so loopy she is now officially post-loopsarian. But rather than fill his out roster with a surrogate Randy Jackson or Kara DioGuardi, he went another way. Foremost with L.A. Reid, until recently the Chairman and CEO of Island Def Jam and a legendary figure in the music industry\u2014Reid was a member of the '80s R&amp;amp;B act The Deele, then became an acclaimed songwriter and record mogul alongside his friend and collaborator Babyface. Reid has modeled his career after his mentor Clive Davis, discovering stars (TLC, OutKast, Usher, and Justin Bieber) and helping to rehabilitate old ones (Mariah Carey, Bon Jovi, Lionel Richie). He's a star man and always has been. That's the word he seems to say most from his judge's chair, too. As in, \"You're a star.\" \"You have star quality.\" \"I hear a star's voice.\"\n\nI have been fortunate enough to watch Reid judge dewy-eyed talent in person. A handful of years ago, I visited his Island Def Jam office, and rather than wait in an adjacent room, Reid invited me in to observe the audition process\u2014a young woman in her teens sang a verse before him, not unlike the way she might have on The X Factor. Reid was incisive and straightforward, but kind to the girl. (She wasn't terribly good.) It was a real Outliers moment, watching a man in action who'd been judging talent, accruing experience, and trusting his gut for years. His warmly stern quality promises a developing power struggle on the show. I am almost always as interested in what Reid has to say, and his placement on the panel\u2014to the far left, as far from Cowell as possible\u2014is telling. It doesn't hurt that Reid is among the best-dressed people on the planet. There's a quiet treat in searching for his distressed longwing brogues (sockless, naturally) or the ever-present white pocket square. Sometimes he goes double Windsor knot on the tie, projecting old world might. Other times, Hamptons beach house open collar. His authority is radiant.\n\nBeside Reid sits Nicole Scherzinger, she of the Pussycat Dolls and several failed attempts at a solo career. Scherzinger was initially tabbed as a co-host with Steve Jones, the Welsh television presenter who has been a Non-Factor thus far. Cheryl Cole, a judge on Cowell's original UK version of The X Factor infamously didn't work out after a few tapings, and so Scherzinger was slotted in her place. It's an odd fit\u2014her utter lack of qualification and inability to communicate thoughtfully, makes Paula seem not just cogent and sympathetic, but also sort of wise. Scherzinger doesn't exactly reek of good taste, either. At one point last week, during an instructive moment with a contestant, she began braying Whitney Houston in a grating copycat style, like some drunk horse. She also makes one of the strangest \"I like what I'm hearing faces\" in recent history: She scrunches up hard, as if she's smelled something that at first offends, but then, suddenly, delights. One of the very best moments of the first two weeks came when Scherzinger hemmed and hawed over a decision on whether to push a contestant through. \"Yes or Bloody No?\" Cowell bellowed, as he had at Paula so many times before. Scherzinger stretched her moment of indecision out excruciatingly long, and ultimately, predictably, said yes. It was an instant replay of so many Paula moments, only this time, there was no sympathy for the victim. Nicole Scherzinger never gave us a \"Straight Up\" and she has no sway with me.\n\nThat moment of contention was a bit unusual, though. What The X Factor did in Britain, and appears to be doing here, is quietly introducing us to Happy Nurturing Simon. When someone impresses him on this show\u2014because it is his, and if the singers fail, he fails\u2014he flashes that toothy, smoothie-sucking smile and delivers an oversold bit of hyperbole: \"You are the reason I created this show.\" Thing is, an inspiring Simon defeats the purpose of Simon. Despite accusations, he isn't just about bitchiness and Pepsi-sipping. He's about standards. And how one approaches the world. Cowell's value system may differ from yours, but damn if he doesn't have one. Which is why, when imploring the other three judges to take a chance on the vampy, gap-toothed diva-in-training Tiah Tolliver, a little part of my soul died. \"L.A., this girl has got something in her, I promise you.\" \"Paula, I am begging you.\" Tiah's drama felt manufactured, climaxing in another begrudging yes from Nicole, and cutting to commercial with Adele's \"Rolling in the Deep.\" The notion of Simon needing to convince Nicole Scherzinger of anything aside, it was a metatextual moment on a show that wants to exploit the backstage contretemps more than any of its forbearers. At one point during the audition round, a middle-aged man sang a song about being naked, and then dropped his pants onstage. Paula nearly vomited on sight, then departed the judges' table for the bathroom. The cameras followed her all the way there, never flinching, even as a producer discovered that the women's bathroom was occupied, forcing her into an empty men's room. Nudity. Vomit. Behind-the-scenes camerawork. This was a definitively anti-Idol set piece.\n\nOne of the biggest differentiators between The X Factor and its competitors is the toppling of the age barrier. Singers as young as 12 and as old as 85 tried out. And vocal groups\u2014most of them truly dreadful\u2014are eligible, too. It's a quirk that often favors narrative over talent, but in some cases, as with 59-year-old (but seemingly ageless) Leroy Bell, it's an affecting wrinkle. During last night's Boot Camp episode, Bell talked about last chances and then impressively turned the Eagles's \"Desperado\" into a blues spiritual. It was a genuinely human moment amidst a lot of shrieking and preening. Likewise 12-year-old Emily Michalak, a young girl who probably shouldn't be on TV\u2014she looks like she may float away like a feather\u2014but has got a voice like bulldozer, ripping up everything in front of her. This is less true of 13-year-old winking factory Rachel Crow.\n\nThe X Factor has also welcomed rap into its fold, most prominently with 14-year-old Brian Bradley, a sneering teenager already too familiar with the disaffected rapper stance. He doesn't dance, he forgets lyrics, and he barks without affection. As Reid noted last night, if only he weren't 14, he'd have something. But what was so painful and goofy and dragged-out about those first two weeks, was mostly righted by last night's Boot Camp. Though, there wasn't much change from Idol's group singing Hollywood day, aside from the added responsibility of choreography. One hundred and sixty-two contestants and groups were broken into clans and asked to sing a particular song, some likely (Snow Patrol's \"Light Up,\" Five For Fighting's \"Superman\") and others, well, not so much (Radiohead's \"Creep,\" U2's \"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.\") Some missed the point (Hello, Caitlin Koch!), while others tapped into something interesting. Tomorrow promises the continued thinning of the ranks, down from 100 to some smaller number. It also promises the return of Chris Rene, the singer-rapper-father-recovering addict who, with a rasp in his voice and smile on his grill, sang an original song (typically a death knell), \"Young Homie\" and immediately became the feel-good, sing-good story of the young season. How Simon reacts to Rene after the novelty of his narrative fades will say more about the future of this show than any singer's voice ever could."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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