Jon on X Factor - Australia

It's X Factor. You really shouldn't require any more information.

I was equally against the USA and UK appearances.

He has said before how if he had auditioned through X Factor, or any of these type of glorified karaoke shows, he would never have made it.

The same goes for so many other artists.

These type of shows do not produce artists. They produce pop singers.

Jon Bon Jovi is supposed to be an artist. He's a songwriter, a musician, a showman and a (not very good) actor.

Okaaaay. Yes, X Factor is designed to provide weekly entertainment and ideally some marketable pop singers to fuel interest in further series. Of course you're going to get shallow fame seekers and people who don't understand or aren't prepared to do the work required to have lasting careers beyond the show. But that doesn't mean everyone who ends up on that show should be tarred with the same brush. Often you find the ones who do actually manage to make a career out of music post-X Factor/Idol/whatever have done the so-called hard yards in bars and clubs, got a little extra exposure from the show, and then kept working their arses off. So no, shows like this do not produce artists, but surely artists aren't supposed to be produced over a few weeks or months anyway.

And come on, it's not like Bon Jovi has ever really tried to be anything other than commercial... They're not some underground little indie band we need to be music snobs over, and it's just a couple of episodes.

As a side note, my friends' cover band has Sexy & I Know It and Bad Name in their set and for whatever reason, both seem to go down pretty well with the same crowd.

O come on, its Bon Jovi, I love the band but its not like Jon has mountains of artistic integrity - he is probably the most commercially focused frontman in rock. If it increases album and ticket sales whilst boosting his personal profile - chances are he'll do it.

If Springsteen went on Xfactor i'd have a problem as it really would compromise what he's about but you are talking about a very commercial band who have produced countless pop-rock albums over the years.

The only Xfactor appearance I had a problem with was when they did Prayer in the UK and all the contestants came out and sung too. That was the lowest i've ever seen Jon go to look "relevant", it came across as incredibly cheap karaoke and devalued them as a band in my humble opinion.