Pet Shop’s Tennant takes on Cowell

Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant is the latest musician to attack the The X Factor. The 54-year-old accused Simon Cowell’s ITV talent show of being too narrow in its tastes, telling the Radio Times that the show is “basically people singing Whitney, Mariah and maybe Elton”.

Tennant, who is set to be honored with an outstanding achievement award at the Brits on February 18 along with bandmate Chris Lowe, said: “What bugs me is that Simon Cowell’s idea of pop music is so narrow. If it’s not power ballads then it was a narrower version of disco. Why don’t they have, say, a new-wave week? Or an 80s electro week?”
 
The singer songwriter joins a long line of musicians who have had their penny’s worth with The X Factor. Last year, Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher lambasted the programme for having “absolutely nothing to do with music” and even Andrew Lloyd Webber has said that he feels the talent contest uses too many “tricks”.

Tennant will come face to face at the Brits with the product of Cowell’s devilish work: all the year’s finalists in the recent series of The X Factor have been nominated for best British single award for their version of Hero.
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