What is x factor

Image source, Getty Images. Simon Cowell's show The X Factor ran from but has not been seen since. X Factor success stories. One Direction finished third in series seven of the show in , and subsequently signed to Cowell's label Syco.

After dominating the charts with four number one singles and albums, all five former members of the boyband - Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik who left the band in have gone on to enjoy solo careers. Leona Lewis is the second best-selling act to come out of the show after 1D.

The Bleeding Love singer has sold more than 30 million records worldwide and been nominated for several Brit and Grammy awards. Little Mix rose to fame in as the first girl group to win the UK version of the show.

They have gone on to score a plethora of hit singles including five number ones. They won a raft of Brit Awards, including best group at this year's ceremony. They split from Syco records in , days before the release of their album LM5, with Cowell saying it was down to him having fallen out with their management company.

Jesy Nelson left the band in December. Word lists shared by our community of dictionary fans. Sign up now or Log in. Definitions Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English. Click on the arrows to change the translation direction. Follow us. Choose a dictionary. Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English.

Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English. Grammar Thesaurus. Word Lists. This proved compulsive viewing for almost two decades, but familiarity can always breed contempt. The X Factor showed that pop music can be a conservative as well as a disruptive cultural force. The show was a skillful contrivance, but it was lucky in its timing, coinciding with the growing crisis of the recording industry, and the rise of social media. The recording industry dominated the wider music industry from the s onwards.

In the UK this was initially attributed to the huge impact of the Beatles and then by the Beatles-inspired switch from the recorded single to the far more lucrative recorded album as the main music commodity. It is unquestionable that The X Factor produced stars, but the increasing popularity of social media helped their star power skyrocket.

With social media, it gave ordinary people the chance to become visible, and attract and influence followers.

The signing policy of the major record companies — their decisions about what genres and artists to favour — fell in behind these hit acts. But as the seasons went on, it became clear that annually reheating the same dish was yielding diminishing returns. All that The X Factor showed, ultimately, was that there were many young people who could sing in tune and dance in time. Another coinciding global trend was the celebrity idol manufacturing culture in Asian countries.