The New Jedward? What’s Wrong with the Old One?

(Originally published here)

No doubt you’ll have seen and heard all the XFactor hoo-ha about “Blonde Electric” being the new Jedward – with the girls going on TV and saying that they’re nothing like the Dublin twins.

This we can agree on.

As anyone who watched John and Edward’s audition way back in 2009 will know, the twins weren’t “eccentric” – they were two 17 year old school boys, wearing suits, wanting to follow their dreams of becoming pop stars. Far from being cocky, they were confident…is that such a bad thing?

Check it out for yourselves:

Blonde Electric have also said that they play instruments and write their own songs, as if to suggest that Jedward don’t do the same. A tiny bit of research will tell you that Jedward learned violin from a young age, and their YouTube channel, JedwardTV, has a lot of videos showing John’s prowess on the guitar.

 

Their “fly on the wall” series, “Jedward Let Loose” even featured this.

At Essentially Pop we champion those artists who are doing it for themselves – which is only one of the reasons why we love Jedward. We’ve mentioned several times about how they wrote and produced Free Spirit, and how their soon to be released fourth album is made up entirely of songs they’ve written themselves. We don’t like it when programmes such as the XFactor hold them up as objects of ridicule, when we know they’re far from ridiculous, and we don’t like it when other performers use them to promote themselves, and at the same time, deny their own “novelty” label.

Just like other musicians, John and Edward have worked very hard to get to where they are today. They have followed their dreams, and continue to do so. They were on XFactor for only a few weeks – everyone else who has been on that programme has managed to shake off that label…why aren’t they allowed? One Direction, UnionJ, JLS…all these groups started on XFactor, and yet the association is never mentioned. Conversely, Jedward are seemingly not allowed to forget their origins on the programme – their name is brought up every time the show is mentioned.

Isn’t it odd – that in all that time, they’ve only been asked back once? And only then as a novelty act – despite having three number one albums and representing their country not just once, but twice, in the Eurovision Song Contest – and beating the UK both times, it must be said!

So – New Jedward? Nah. We’ll stick with the old one thanks.