Tom: It’s TIME.
Tim: What.
Tom: To FACE.
Tim: Surely not?
Tom: The MUSIC.
Tim: BRILLIANT.
Tom: In AUSTRALIA.
Tim: Ooh.
Tom: The 2012 season for the Australian X Factor has just drawn to a close, and let me tell you – it’s almost exactly the same as the UK version. There’s a few more adverts. There’s a bit more product placement. Most importantly, they have a different cast: no Dermot, no Voiceover Man, and Gary Barlow has been replaced by Ronan Keating.
So let me round out my Australian tour with the winner of last year’s, the Scunthorpe-born and irritatingly-young (he’s 18 today) Reece Mastin.
He’s already on album number two, and while his most recent single didn’t get into the top 10, the first one most definitely did. And unlike the UK version, this isn’t a cover: the single was written for whoever won the show.
Tom: Yes, he’s got a bit of the Olly Murs about him with the prancing about, but that clearly ties into the stage presence – and I can’t let that take away from the fact that this is a CHOON.
Tim: It really is. And that’s not so much prancing around as just jumping around entertaining your audience. Which is a good thing, surely?
Tom: That final chorus is just stunning – and the message is ‘shut up and dance’. If this came on in a British club? I would shut up and dance.
Tim: I wouldn’t. I’d dance AND SHOUT.
Tom: Of course, that may just be because I like Pink, and this is startlingly close to ‘Raise Your Glass’ – only without all the slowdown and spoken bits that I didn’t like.
Tim: Part of me thinks we should have original songs. Then the rest of me remembers that That’s My Goal was an original song. And then all of me listens to that and realise that I actually quite like it. Hmm. What a quandary.