Manics on X Factor NZ - thoughts?

[Bathtub]

Originally Posted by Porco

The lyric is 'if you tolerate this then your children will be next' and the context of its performance here was a show well known for featuring children on

Is it?

Children aren't the first thing that comes to mind when I think of The XFactor. Children are on the XFactor, but I wouldn't say that that is what it's well known for.

Also how many under 18s have won the XFactor (UK)? I can think of possibly one, the blonde one off Little Mix.

I would wager that there are as many entrants over, and well over, the age of 18 as there are below, so the irony in that seems tenuous at best.

Originally Posted by Porco

Additionally, to Dancing Kirby's point, if there are parents who wouldn't mind / would quite like their kids being on it it's all the more ironic to be listening to a performance of a song called 'If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next' when the vast majority of their children will almost certainly not be next. That part is just maths.

Ditto, tenuous. The irony there relies on what? Hypothetical parents with delusions of grandeur on behalf of their hypothetical children

Originally Posted by Porco

As for the "statement" element… well, they are on a show that is regularly accused of being a shallow, industry-leeching impediment to 'serious' music with meaningful 'real' roots, of being manufactured to create empty pop hits with very little to say.

Yeah, but that accusation is demonstrably not true and nobody gives it any credence. The careers of Cher Lloyd and The Dolly Rockers haven't noticeably impeded those of Godspeed You Black Emperor or Radiohead all that much. Unfortunately it's still The Mumford and Sons headlining Glastonbury not Girls Aloud.

Originally Posted by Porco

Ironic in signifying the opposite route to success, subversive in undermining the X Factor TV show as an established route to success in the music industry, by appearing upon it.

I don't think that the Manics or any "real" or "serious" (whatever those terms mean) band by the very act of appearing on the XFactor are undermining it.

The XFactor is undermined to a far greater extent by the watching public who tune in, vote, attend the live shows, but for the most part show little to no interest in the long term in the contestants/winners.

The XFactor as a process does a more effective job of undermining itself than Manic Street Preachers do. Do they even care about undermining it? I imagine they saw a chance to sell some records/tickets and took it, and people are reading things into it that aren't there. Unlike with Strictly, Wire, to his credit, hasn't tried to present this as some sort of art piece.

Originally Posted by Porco

all the more by doing so whilst singing lyrics that can be thought of as ironic and subversive themselves.

They're apparently ironic in the context of this performance, although we've already established I think that's spurious.

They also aren't really that subversive. They're about a conflict that happened almost 80 years ago on an the other side of the world to the performance on the XFactor NZ.

And if they are so insurrectionary, it relies upon a fair bit prior knowledge of their context and meaning. If you have to work that hard to find the subversion, I'd say there's nothing all that subversive going on.