Two years ago, The X Factor was coronated as the biggest show on earth. Simon Cowell, the star of TV’s #1 megahit for a decade, was leaving that gig to headline his own creation that spiced up the stale format that made him famous. A year and a half after that, X Factor started filming and troubling reports of uncooperative audiences, network interference and casting woes started appearing. Then it premiered a month ago to big — though not mind-blowing — ratings.

You’ve probably heard all of this business talk. But what no one seems to be talking about when it comes to X Factor is the show itself. That’s probably because no one in the media has actually watched it; it’s way too long (most new shows have aired between three to six hours of content in the last month where X Factor is almost up to thirty), and reality shows are assumed to suck by design unless they’re Project Runway or Top Chef. But X Factor is shaping up to be another beast entirely. It sucks, but it’s sucking on a gigantic, train wreck level. There are literally hundreds of millions of dollars riding on it, and it’s a complete and utter failure in which nothing works. Host Steve Jones is a brainless tool, the distracting editing and direction drive me to drink, the horrid set looks like it caught fire en route from the People’s Choice Awards, the vast majority of contestants wouldn’t make it past the audition stage of American Idol, and the judges have zero relevance in the music industry (with the notable exception of L.A. Reid, the show’s sole realistic and honest bright spot). But last night’s first live performance show made it clear that aside from all of its aesthetic problems, X Factor is rotten to the core, based on an insidious central premise that demeans artists and elevates suits.

Let’s start with what I believe audiences are looking for in a performance-based music reality show. First and foremost, they want it to discover a superstar, a Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood who will embark on a decades-long career filled with songs we all know and love. Secondly, they want to see lots of people with great voices, and they want that person to come in off the street with nothing but $2 in their pocket and a dream that they pursued by using a sick day to skip their waitressing job for the afternoon. Then, they want three judges (not four, or five, or nine) who are funny, provocative and tough, and talk no longer than 10 seconds about each performance.

X Factor, on the other hand, is a show about reality show judges. They are introduced stepping off helicopters in slow motion, wearing sunglasses, hanging around Italian villas, with apocalyptic opera music blaring behind them, projected on multiple 100 foot screens. By extension, the judges are surrogates for record company executives. They select useless lumps of clay off the street and shape them into what they want them to be, giving them ridiculous arrangements of karaoke songs, backing them with dozens of embarrassed-looking backup dancers, and then taking all the credit for their success.

It’s a competition show, but the competition is among the judges. As American Idol devolved into a boring lovefest last year, I and everyone else looked forward to Simon Cowell coming back this fall and telling it how it is. Last night, he did not criticize a single performer onstage… not one, despite the fact that there are literally only three people on the show who are passable singers (and not a single extraordinary one). His criticism was reserved only for his fellow judges, who picked wrong songs or used the wrong choreography or weren’t contemporary enough. If a performance went well, the congratulations went to the judge/mentor, who did all the heavy lifting. The success or failure of every contestant was in the hands of the executive who molded them, not the singer of the song.

This bizarre reduction of artists and celebration of executives is nauseating, but it’s made even worse by the fact that X Factor is built on an idea of the music industry that crumbled over a decade ago when Napster and bittorrents came around. Record companies wield about as much power now as someone who makes cannonballs. It’s undeniable that an effective executive can guide a talented artist to a productive and profitable career, but the idea that Cowell can pull a completely untalented pretty girl off the street and turn her into a recording artist with good marketing (as he attempted and failed miserably to do twice last night) is as sick and wrong as it is delusional. The anachronistic silliness is hammered home even more by the fact that these visionaries who are tasked creating contemporary superstars selected songs almost exclusively from the Reagan administration; the newest song was “I Kissed A Girl” (which was sung by a man, edgy!).

No matter who wins X Factor, the real winner will be American Idol. Two years ago I thought stodgy ol’ AI was headed to the trash heap and X Factor would steal its thunder, but now it seems simple, true and — its secret weapon all along — American. Nobody wants to see a billionaire turn somebody who can’t sing into a one hit wonder. They want to see a normal person walk in and become a superstar with longevity on the strength of their own talent. We all know that rich dudes are running everything behind the scenes and that Simon was the real star of the show, but the presentation worked how it should, with the spotlight on the artist onstage. X Factor inverts that, celebrating the executive at the expense of the artist. That’s why it will never be the giant cultural event Cowell expected and Fox wanted. Who would cheer for Col. Tom Parker and dismiss Elvis?