Whatever happened to sex and drugs and rock'n'roll?

I have, to my shame, been hooked by this years X Factor, and my pick for the overall winner has to be Misha B, who just seems awesome almost every week.

However, I have absolutely loved it for Frankie Cocozza's rock'n'roll style, and the fact that he actually lives the lifestyle properly. At the risk of sounding like an old man, I can just about remember there being a time when you weren't doing it properly unless you did all manner of drugs, sex and other crazy stuff.

But Mr Cocozza's "wannabe rockstar antics" (that seems to be the phrase that journalists like for it) have got him kicked off the show.

This video explains more:



Essentially, the voiceover explains that there are "golden rules" - a list of "showbiz commandments" - that contestants have to stick to to stay on the show. There is speculation (reported by some sources as fact, but that's what tabloids do...) that Mr Cocozza boasted (within earshot of people working on the show) about taking cocaine and having sex - apparently, these are things you don't get to do on the X Factor.

Ofcom apparently also criticised ITV when Frankie swore on the results show at the weekend after being told he'd survived in the competition, and his behaviour has been alleged to "glamorise alcohol consumption". For fuck's sake, what else are rockstars supposed to to do?! More to the point: rockstars' tendency to break the rules is a part of what makes them, and their rule-breaking, seem glamorous in the first place.

You can't have a show called "The X Factor", seeking performers who have the "X Factor", and then turn around and say to someone who shows it, "Um, well, we quite like your 'factor', but can you tone down the 'x', please?" If what you want is safe, nice, take-home-to-meet-your-mother type performers, then call it "The Safe Factor" and have done with it.

Like I said: Frankie Cocozza is doing what stars are supposed to do, and my opinion is that the guy has the stage persona to carry it off. If Misha B is the finished product as a singer and artist, then Mr Cocozza is the finished product when it comes to rock'n'roll. I am convinced that if you give him a good backing band he will fill big venues, and sell records, because he has that "something".

What I fervently hope for now is that some record company or artist management company will contact Mr Cocozza and offer him a deal, and get this fella out there and in the attention of the music-buying public. I want my nostalgia for the good old days when popular music was brash and annoyed the older generation. (I almost typed "like me", but at 33 I'm not sure I qualify yet for "older generation".)

All of which is not to say that I think taking drugs is a good thing, or something to which people should aspire. Rockstars are not supposed to be role models for our own behaviour, but I think, part of our way of living vicariously and allowing ourselves the fantasy of being bad. We need people like Frankie Cocozza, who can go out and choose to skate on that edge for us. trying to make life, music, whatever, be all clean and lovely and "nice", erodes the very things we have famous people for in the first place.