The Agenda Setter: It’s a no from us, Simon

WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD BE TALKING ABOUT THIS WEEK

As Simon Cowell’s latest pop telly project reportedly pivots from talent search to pop parody, it’s clear how much culture has changed since the ‘glory’ days of The X Factor, if those days were ever that glorious at all.

Words: Dan Harrison.

In the grand hall of pop 21st-century culture figures, few have achieved the iconic (or indeed ironic) status of Simon Cowell. With his trademark high-waisted trousers and a sneer that could curdle milk, Cowell once bestrode the narrow worlds of reality TV and the mainstream’s caricature of the music industry like a colossus, his perfectly veneered smile beaming across television screens worldwide. Every utterance from his lips seemed to have the power to crush dreams or mint pop stars faster than you could say, “I’m taking it to deadlock”.

But oh, how the mighty have fallen. And how deliciously schadenfreude-inducing it is to watch.

The latest blow to Cowell’s rapidly diminishing empire? The reported inglorious implosion of his grand scheme to manufacture the Next Big Boyband™ for Netflix. It’s a tale so ripe with irony, so perfectly constructed in its hubris and eventual downfall, that if it were pitched as a script, it would be rejected for being far too on-the-nose. Life, it seems, is determined to imitate art, even if that art is a particularly ham-fisted and specific episode of Black Mirror.

Simon Cowell, once the self-proclaimed emperor of pop, reduced to hawking his tried-and-tested boyband formula to Netflix like a desperate door-to-door salesman flogging vacuum cleaners to a family that’s just invested in a Roomba. “It’ll be just like One Direction!” you can almost hear him cry, eyes wild with the desperation of a man watching his relevance slip away. “The kids will love it!”

Narrator voice: The kids did not, in fact, love it.

See, you can’t just conjure up another One Direction by throwing together whoever turns up at an audition. That lightning-in-a-bottle moment was a one-time deal, a perfect storm of talent, timing, and teenage hormones that can’t be replicated on demand. For the man behind a show called The X Factor not to understand that’s exactly what Harry, Liam, Louis, Niall, and Zayn had in spades feels beyond parody. To suggest otherwise does a disservice not only to the band but to the very concept of musical authenticity that today’s audiences crave.

Cowell is attempting to reanimate the corpse of pop music’s past with all the finesse of a toddler playing Operation. Because here’s the thing – the Western boy band, much like Cowell’s relevance, is basically an extinct species.

Cast your mind back, if you will, to those halcyon days of yore (read: a couple of years ago) when we were all wringing our hands over where the next wave of successful girl bands would come from in a post-Little Mix world. Well, acts like FLO and Say Now have at least shown signs of life, even if they’re still to realise their potential fully. It’s like watching a plant slowly grow in a post-apocalyptic wasteland – not entirely thriving yet, but hey, something’s happening. Plus, Girls Aloud came back. You can solve any problem with a Girls Aloud.

But boy bands? It’s been a long, long time since a contemporary band of any stripe topped the UK Official Singles Chart. While that’s not so much of a problem for, say, Fontaines D.C. – they’re an album act, a band who find their big moment on the festival stage, and that’s a different game – it’s a significant issue if your entire point of being is mass appeal and choreographed finger-pointing.

Go on, dare you – try to name a decent new UK boy band from the last couple of years. If you managed anything, you came up with No Guidnce, didn’t you? Potential, sure, but one harmonising swallow doesn’t make a summer. Try another. These days, you’d struggle to muster a new Union J.

In this landscape, Cowell’s attempts to recreate his past glories feel less like a triumphant return and more like watching your dad wear his old football kit – including shin pads – to the pub. It’s not just embarrassing; it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the current state of things that’s so profound it’s actually impressive.

The reported details of the Netflix debacle are almost too delicious to be true. Auditions cancelled due to lack of interest, as if the youth of today had collectively looked at the opportunity to be moulded into the next SYCO interchangeable automaton and said, “Nah, I’d rather watch paint dry while listening to my gran’s audiobook of Fifty Shades of Grey, as read by Rita Ora.” The few brave souls who did show up apparently lacked the raw star power needed to form the next world-conquering quintet, which is a bit like saying the Titanic lacked the buoyancy required to complete its maiden voyage.

One can only imagine the looks of panic on the faces of the suits as they realised they’d hitched their wagon to a falling star. It must have been akin to the moment the dinosaurs looked up and saw that funny bright light in the sky, only with more panic about quarterly earnings reports and fewer extinction-level events. Although, given the state of Cowell’s career trajectory at this point, the distinction might be academic.

In a twist worthy of the best (worst?) reality TV, the producers have, allegedly, decided to pivot. Instead of watching Cowell work his “magic”, viewers will now be treated to the spectacle of pop’s most famous kingmaker coming to terms with his own irrelevance. It’s The Truman Show for the pop industry; only Cowell is both Truman and the creator, trapped in a reality of his own making as it crumbles around him.

The man who made his name by publicly humiliating aspiring singers may now have his own fall from grace broadcast for our viewing pleasure. It’s enough to make even the most jaded critic shed a tear of joy or at least smirk with the satisfaction of a particularly vindictive karma finally coming home to roost.

As you might expect, Cowell’s team has come out swinging, declaring these reports to be “entirely fabricated”. A spokesperson for the music mogul stated, “The journalist failed to adhere to basic journalism standards by neglecting to verify facts or seek comments from anyone involved. The claims made are false, and the quoted source appears to be completely invented.”

They went on to clarify that the project is “primarily a search for a boy band, which is being documented” and that the article, which appeared in the Mail on Sunday, “completely misrepresents how the music and documentary team views the audition process and the overall situation as far as the level of talent that the music team have found.”

So, what’s the truth? Is this just another case of the tabloid rumour mill churning out clickbait, or is there fire to this smoke? The reality, as ever in the world of showbiz, likely could lie somewhere in between, nowhere near, or on another distant planet. But before we get too carried away with our glee at Cowell’s potential downfall, it’s worth taking a step back and considering how we got here. After all, this is a man who once had the power to make or break careers with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a caustic comment. Or did he? Does it actually matter if the reports are real or not – or is it academic, given just how far off the current pop culture pulse Cowell finds himself?

The truth is, those success stories aren’t quite as numerous as his position in the pantheon of public discourse would have you believe. Yes, One Direction were a global phenomenon, and acts like Little Mix, Fifth Harmony and Leona Lewis could hardly be accused of being anything but massive wins. We even can give him credit(?) for a lot of Westlife’s success. But for every win, there are dozens of forgotten contestants whose dreams were crushed. And Steve Brookstein. Cowell’s real talent wasn’t in creating stars, but in creating the illusion that he was the only one who could.

The reality is that Cowell has always been more of a TV personality than a music guru. His true genius lay not in his ability to nurture talent but in his knack for creating compelling television. He understood that the public’s appetite for watching dreams be made or broken was insatiable, and he served up that spectacle with a side of withering put-downs and crocodile tears. He’s a man who probably saw Nasty Nick on Big Brother 1 and decided that infamy still counted as fame – that the anti-hero still can be a hero in the right light. But in truth, those who made it had something special despite him, and he provided a platform to set themselves up. Harry Styles was an icon from the minute he appeared on stage. If you weren’t a singular, charismatic talent off your own back, the fame never lasted long.

Still, for a while there, it seemed like the sun would never set on Cowell’s empire. He was the puppetmaster, pulling the strings of the music industry with a smirk and a raised eyebrow that spoke volumes about his disdain for the acts he created and the public who consumed them. The world was his karaoke machine; we were all just living in it, belting out cover versions of our own lives while Cowell collected the royalties.

But as any fan of Greek tragedy (or, indeed, The X Factor) knows, hubris comes before a fall. And fall Cowell did, with all the grace of a finalist hitting a bum note during the winner’s single – which is to say, spectacularly and with millions watching.

The first signs of trouble came as the ratings for his once-unassailable shows began to slip. Turns out, even the British public, a group famously tolerant of mediocrity, can get tired of watching people be mean for entertainment. Especially when it’s increasingly clear that said people are increasingly out of touch with what the zeitgeist demands.

The very format of shows like The X Factor now seems quaint, if not actively harmful. The idea that musical talent can be discovered and nurtured through a high-pressure, highly public competition now feels about as progressive as a Victorian freak show. In an era of increased awareness about mental health and the toxic nature of fame, subjecting aspiring artists to public humiliation and manufactured drama for the sake of entertainment feels less like a path to stardom and more like a form of psychological torture with a backing track.

Then came the twin horsemen of the apocalypse for Cowell’s carefully controlled star-making machine. The rise of streaming platforms and social media has democratised the music industry in ways that would have been unthinkable in the heyday of The X Factor. Artists can now build fanbases, release music, and even tour without ever having to kowtow to the industry’s traditional gatekeepers. 

Suddenly, they didn’t need a scowling svengali to connect with fans or top the charts. They could do it themselves, armed with only a smartphone and a catchy hook. It was as if the prisoners had not only escaped the dungeon but had also set up their own much cooler dungeon next door, complete with a better cafeteria and weekends off.

This shift has laid bare the fundamental flaw in Cowell’s approach: its inherent inauthenticity. In a world where Gen Z can spot a fake from a mile away and values genuineness above all else, the carefully constructed personas and sanitised backstories of Cowell’s creations feel hopelessly out of touch. It’s like trying to sell a Backstreet Boys tribute act to a generation raised on Frank Ocean and Billie Eilish – they can appreciate the craftsmanship, but they’re not buying what you’re selling.

But perhaps the most damning indictment of Cowell’s fading relevance is the simple fact that the music he championed – slick, sanitised pop designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience – is no longer the dominant force it once was. In a fractured, niche-driven market, the idea of a one-size-fits-all pop star feels hopelessly outdated. Today’s music landscape is a vibrant, chaotic tapestry of genres and subgenres, each with its own passionate fanbase. Trying to appeal to everyone often means appealing to no one, a lesson Cowell seems to have learned too late.

This is not to say that pop music is dead; far from it. But the pop stars of today – your Charlis, your Chappells, even your former Disney types like Olivia Rodrigo or Sabrina Carpenter – have a specificity and an edge that would have been sanded off in the Cowell hit factory. They’re weird, they’re political, they’re unabashedly themselves in a way that feels utterly alien to the Cowell model of stardom. And the kids? They want none of what he’s selling. Today’s youth are looking for artists who speak to their experiences. They’re streaming bedroom pop on Spotify, discovering new artists with a swipe, and engaging with musicians who feel like peers rather than products.

Of course, no discussion of Cowell’s declining empire would be complete without hearing from some of the very stars he created. And oh, how the tables have turned.

Take Jade Thirlwall, once one-quarter, then one-third, of Little Mix, now a solo artist with a point to prove sharper than Cowell’s incisors. Her debut single, ‘Angel of My Dreams’, is a masterclass in not-so-subtle shade-throwing, the musical equivalent of a stiletto between the ribs delivered with a sweet smile.

“When the camera flashy, I act so happy,” she croons, before delivering the killer blow: “Care that I’m mad, care that I’m sad, it’s so bad it’s funny. Care if I cry, care if I die, you only care about money.” And if there was any doubt, there’s the immediate ‘psycho’/SYCO wordplay that comes directly after. It’s the kind of lyric that makes you want to call the burn unit. One imagines Cowell reaching for the aloe vera after that one, or at least checking his offshore accounts for comfort.

But Jade’s not alone in her less-than-fond reminiscences of life under the Cowell regime. Former One Direction members Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson – two of the nicest men in pop – recently unfollowed their one-time mentor on social media, a move that in 2024 is tantamount to a declaration of war, or at least a strongly worded letter delivered by a particularly passive-aggressive messenger pigeon.

Even Will Young, winner of the original Pop Idol and thus the proto-Cowell creation, has had things to say. Young recalls standing up to Cowell on live television, driven by discomfort with the way contestants were treated. It’s a damning indictment from the very first product of the Cowell star-making machine – and a national treasure at that.

But as we revel in Cowell’s decline, it’s crucial to remember that the empire he built was not just about music. It was a kingdom built on the backs of countless hopefuls, many of whom have come forward with stories that are far from entertaining. And here, Dear Reader, is where we must put aside our snark and confront some uncomfortable truths.

In recent years, the dark underbelly of Cowell’s pop empire has been laid bare, with allegations of abuse, exploitation, and neglect casting a long shadow over the glittering facade of shows like The X Factor. Former contestants have spoken out about experiences that go far beyond the typical reality TV drama, painting a picture of an industry that often prioritised ratings over the well-being of its participants.

In 2021, Katie Waissel, a contestant from the 2010 series of The X Factor, revealed allegations of a horrifying account of sexual assault by a member of the show’s team. The incident, which Waissel claimed occurred in a Los Angeles hotel, went unreported for years due to fears of industry retaliation. It’s a stark reminder of the power imbalances in these talent shows – and the music industry as a whole – where young, vulnerable contestants are often at the mercy of industry powerbrokers.

Lucy Spraggan, another former contestant, shared her own harrowing experience in 2023. Spraggan disclosed that she was raped by a hotel porter while participating in the show in 2012. Her account is particularly damning in its critique of the show’s aftercare, or lack thereof.

These are not isolated incidents. Other former contestants, like Rebecca Ferguson and Rylan Clark, have been vocal about the emotional manipulation and psychological toll of participating in The X Factor. Ferguson has gone so far as to advocate for a parliamentary inquiry into the music industry, seeking to prevent similar experiences for future artists.

It’s a far cry from the glossy, feel-good narratives that Cowell’s shows peddled to the public. The rags-to-riches stories and tearful victories that once captivated audiences feel hollow in the face of these revelations. The dream factory, it seems, was more of a nightmare for many of those who passed through its gates.

To be clear, Cowell himself has not been directly implicated in these specific incidents. However, as the figurehead and driving force behind these shows, he cannot escape responsibility for the culture they fostered. The allegations paint a picture of an industry more concerned with creating compelling television than protecting the well-being of its participants.

In response to these allegations, Syco Entertainment and ITV have generally denied wrongdoing, emphasising that contestant welfare was a priority. However, the sheer volume and consistency of the complaints suggest a systemic issue that goes beyond a few isolated incidents.

To his credit, Cowell has acknowledged past mistakes and expressed a commitment to learning from these incidents to ensure better care for participants in the future. But for many, these apologies and promises ring hollow in the face of years of alleged mistreatment. It’s a bit like the big bad wolf promising to invest in brick houses for the three little pigs – a nice gesture, perhaps, but it doesn’t undo the damage already done.

So – Netflix issues or not – as we watch Simon Cowell’s empire crumble like a poorly constructed sandcastle at high tide, what are we to make of his legacy? On one hand, he undeniably changed the face of television, creating formats that dominated pop culture for over a decade. He launched the careers of some genuinely talented artists who might otherwise never have found their spotlight. Or certainly not in the way they did.

On the other hand, the allegations of abuse and exploitation that have emerged from his shows cast a long, dark shadow over these achievements. The human cost of Cowell’s empire, in terms of contestants’ mental health and well-being, is only now beginning to be fully understood.

Perhaps the most fitting epitaph for Cowell’s career comes from the very industry he once dominated. As the streams dry up, the ratings dwindle, and the next generation of pop stars emerge from their TikTok cocoons, fully formed and utterly uninterested in his brand of stardom, one can almost hear the ghost of a million rejected X Factor contestants whispering on the wind:

“It’s a no from me, Simon. It’s a no from me.”

In the end, Cowell’s decline serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of building an empire on quicksand. It’s a reminder that in the ever-evolving world of pop culture, today’s kingmaker can easily become tomorrow’s court jester. As we bid what should be a final farewell to the era of Cowell, we’re left to wonder: what will rise from the ashes of his fallen empire?

One thing’s for certain – whatever comes next, it probably won’t be wearing such high-waisted trousers. And for that, at least, we can all be thankful.