This is a soft focus, X-Factor-filterised version of a great song by Biffy Clyro, whose own version of the song should have triumphed in the charts and didn't. Actually it's one of Biffy Clyro's less amazing songs, so let me take this opportunity to recommend that you listen to their other music. I've seen them play live, and they blew me away.
Getting back to Matt Cardle. For the first time, the X Factor has produced a winner who was, before signing up to the Cowell sausage machine, an independent singer-songwriter with his own unsigned band, Seven Summers, and an album by the same name. Seventeen years of struggling in the wilderness led Matt to sign up for a shot at X Factor glory and despite all the odds he made it to the final and won the thing. Who would have thought it! A guy with not the slightest interest in projecting a mainstream pop image, or in singing cheesy pop songs. Every single song that he's sung in the contest was a great original that deserved promotion and rediscovery.
So what do you do when a talented singer-songwriter who's spent many years being ignored tries to use a channel like the X Factor just to get some attention and success for both themselves and the music they love. Well you can either turn your back on them, and sneer like a true elitist, or you can cheer them on. Personally I'm taking the latter option. It's not the fault of musicians like Matt that the X Factor has such a toxic hold on popular taste. Matt himself has done nothing whatsoever to promote bad music during his X Factor run. He's stayed true to himself and has produced some lovely work, which looked very out of place on the show. In my opinion, Matt is the beginning of an answer to the X Factor problem. He can write songs, he can play a guitar, and he has a remarkable voice.
This is probably the worst track that Matt has ever been involved with, thanks to the horrible X factor production, but he is still a talented singer and he deserves a listen. If you want X Factor to lose in the Christmas singles race, fair enough, but go and have a listen to Seven Summers' album Seven Summers. That's the one that I bought, and I love it.
Well done Matt. Hope you escape from the Syco machine quickly.
