Is the X Factor era finally over?

Does the name Dalton Harris ring any bells? How about Rak-Su? or Matt Terry. Ok you could probably guess given the subject of this post, but they are the last 3 X Factor winners. None are exactly household names, and their Top 40 careers consist of 5 hits between them. There was the winners song for each of them, which doesn't get Christmas number one anymore, an Enrique Iglesias remix that Matt Terry featured on and the 2nd hit for Rak-Su which scraped into the Top 40 at 39.

Of course we know it's not always the winners that go on to have a successful pop career, One Direction weren't winners, nor was Olly Murs, so maybe instead we should look at the Top 40 hits of all the other contestants of the last 3 series. Ok well there's, um, none.

Is the X Factor era finally over then?

If we look at the charts so far in 2019, the only X Factor contestants to have had a Top 40 hit are Little Mix and James Arthur. Even if we go back to when Matt Terry won in 2016, the only other song to feature from an X Factor act aside from those 3 winners, Little Mix and James Arthur, was a minor hit (reached 32) for Olly Murs and 2015 winner Louisa Johnson.

The X Factor has never been cool amongst music fans. Since day one many people have said it's everything wrong with music, the contestants will never have a proper music career etc. I have personally never sat down and watched an episode and sometimes the one and only time I've heard the winners song is on Christmas Top of the Pops.

Whether you had any interest or not though, most people had at least heard of Leona Lewis or One Direction, even if they couldn't name you a record they've done. That's no longer the case. Even though he still has a Top 40 career, I'd say James Arthur is still quite an obscure X Factor winner. Little Mix is a name known to many, but they won in 2011, 8 years ago. I looked through the list of X Factor finalists since then and none of them are particularly well known names.

It looks like the way they're addressing this issue this year is by having a celebrity version. That way whoever the winner is can have their hits having already made a name for themselves.

But will this really work? The reality is the charts these days are full of rap music and Ed Sheeran, ok maybe a bit of an exaggeration but seriously not too far from the truth. Such little attention is paid to the charts these days though that maybe people assume the charts are still full of Simon Cowells puppets because the X Factor is still around.

It has done well to last for 15 years though. Think of how different the charts were in 2004 compared to 1989, not to mentioned all the pop music that came and went in-between. Perhaps the fact the X Factor is still around is the reason why some of us will still refer to 15 year old music as being modern. I never heard anyone say 1989 music was modern in 2004.

Of course there's more to the music world than the charts, look at the bands who still sell out stadiums who haven't had a hit for years. For the X Factor though, it's for the pop charts, if there isn't any chart success then is there any point?