A/N : A short essay on the British music industry, written for my Higher English class. The opinions in it are purely my own, please don't be offended if I bash your favourite band in it.

Has Simon Cowell Ruined the British Music Industry?

Britain and the music industry used to go hand-in-hand. We were innovators, inventors, pioneers; we pushed the boundaries of music (and taste). As a result, we produced some of the most iconic and influential bands and artists in history. The Beatles, Queen, the Sex Pistols, the Rolling Stones.

And now? Now Britain is the proud creator of Pop Idol, X Factor, and Fame Academy. Our music is made to a formula, packaged in factories before being shipped to line the walls of HMV. Hear' Say, David Sneddon, Michelle McManus, this isn't entertainment, this isn't art. This is music-by-numbers. The 'stars' sing a little karaoke, hit the right notes, and have their 15 minutes of fame before fading into oblivion.

We don't have stars today. Our music is made by men in studios as opposed to singers on stages. Voices are synthesised, pictures are airbrushed, because who wants the real thing? Who wants personality in their songs, who wants anything but perfection? We're surrounded by fake music and fake people, wide smiles with whitened teeth. Singing is no longer about music; it's about fame and image.

That's not to say that we don't have our creative and individual artists out there. We do. Hidden under the likes of Girls Aloud, there are original artists, singing their masterpieces. The problem is that their voices are drowned out by the tone-deaf warbling of the latest winner of Pop Idol.

Despite the strong manufactured industry around them, some worthy bands are starting to claw their way into the limelight. It's become the 'in' thing to be into natural music. Just as it is suddenly cool to be 'boho', it is also cool to listen to the heartfelt music of struggling bands. Kate Moss's presence at Glastonbury this year only serves as evidence of how mainstream our alternative to pop has become.

Perhaps the growing taste and trend for rock and indie music shows that the public is quickly tiring of Simon Cowell and his preened robotic singers. Britain is waking up and wondering what happened to real music while she fell asleep in front of the TV.

Even children seem to be losing interest in conventional pretty boy bands, barely paying attention to the rehearsed dance routines and mimed songs. Instead, a team of 'light' rock bands have sprung out of nowhere to capture preteen ears. From McFly to Greenday, rock bands that play little more than pop with some guitars thrown in are selling albums by the bucket load.

Even as yet another series of X Factor rushes to find its winner, its star, public interest wanes weekly. Does anybody truly care which Barbie wins? No one will remember the so-called star's name by next year. They'll have been pushed out of mind, following in the footsteps of One True Voice as they desperately release flop after flop.

These flops will be followed, inevitably, by being dropped by their record label, which will have moved eagerly onto its next winner and moneymaking champion.

The nature of their fame is fluid, flashing. It's there one moment, the next a distant memory, an old song on the radio. These lounge singers 'discovered' by reality TV are not great. They are not lyricists, songwriters, or geniuses. They are attention seeking and self-important, milking their time in the limelight.

Can anyone actually say, after all, that Gareth Gates is comparable to John Lennon? Does his name even belong in the same sentence? Of course not. There is a reason why these bands and singers have been dropped, while people such as U2 and REM continue to make and sell music decades after they first arrived on the scene. There is a reason why bands such as Boyzone and the Spice Girls have split. There is a reason why the British public is desperate for the glory days of our music scene.

Recently, bands have been dipping back into the past, being influenced by 'retro' music. Even Madonna, Queen of Pop and reinvention, recently sampled an old ABBA tune on one of her records. Our obsession with older generation's music shows our dissatisfaction with our own music. Or perhaps, even worse, it shows out inability to come up with our own music.

Over the past decade, our musical culture has changed. Rap, hip hop, R 'n' B, they've all been pushed to the forefront of popular music. It's impossible to look at album or singles charts without noticing at least one American rapper in there. While I have no problem with rap music, there is one thing that concerns me about it – where are the British rappers?

Considering the UK's habit of being prevalent in most musical genres, it seems bizarre to me that we're practically absent from this forever-growing field. It's a strain to think of British rappers, and even more difficult to think of any successful on foreign turf. Does this show our declining role in influencing what the world's listening to?

Perhaps, but we're slowly stepping up to bat. The British music scene is growing more and more varied, hundreds of genres quickly becoming popular. On the shelves in music shops, you're likely to see a hardcore rock CD next to folk music next to rap next to jazz. We don't stick to the one genre anymore, either – Charlotte Church recently crossed over from classical music to pop, without any major mishaps.

Music that just a few years ago wouldn't have neared the charts is now in the top ten. Swing, jazz, blues. Michael Bublé, Jamie Cullum, Amy Winehouse. Talented singers, and yet they aren't the type of artist you'd expect to see nestled in among the likes of 50 Cent and Eminem.

The variation in music could be pinned to the sudden accessibility of it. Downloads – legal and illegal – and MP3 players mean that music is at our fingertips. There's more of it than ever, and an album is no longer an investment. One click and you can have that elusive song for free. Small bands are able to record music in their own home and put it on the internet for anyone that's interested to hear.

If that's the case, then the internet will be our saviour. We can turn off Pop Idol and turn to our computers instead, downloading real music, music that's been written for the sake of music, not for the sake of the producer's wallet. With the internet, we can pretend that the horrors of pre-packaged pop don't exist, and instead hide among our MP3s and Media Players. Maybe with this downloaded music we'll be able to turn up the volume and drown out the Cheeky Girl's screeching.