Susan Boyle: Difference between revisions

Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle (born 1961) is a British amateur singer and church volunteer who came to public attention on 11 April 2009, when she appeared as a contestant on the third series of Britain's Got Talent. Boyle found fame when she sang "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables in the competition's first round.

Before she sang, both the audience and the judges appeared to express scepticism based on her unpolished appearance and awkwardness. In contrast, her vocal performance was so well received that she has been dubbed "The Woman Who Shut Up Simon Cowell". She received a standing ovation from the live audience, garnering yes-votes from Cowell and Amanda Holden, and the "biggest yes I have ever given anybody" from Piers Morgan. The audition was recorded in January 2009 at the Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow, Scotland..

The juxtaposition of the reception to her voice with the audience's first impression of her triggered global interest. Articles about her appeared in newspapers all over the world, while the numbers who watched her sing online set a record. Cowell is reported to be setting up a contract with Boyle with his Syco Music company label, a subsidiary of Sony Music.

Biography

Personal life

Boyle was born in Blackburn, West Lothian to Patrick, a storeman at the British Leyland factory in Bathgate, and Bridget Boyle, a shorthand typist; her parents were Irish immigrants. The youngest of four brothers and six sisters, of whom only six survive, Boyle was born when her mother was 47. The Sunday Times writes that it was a difficult birth, during which Boyle was briefly deprived of oxygen. She was diagnosed as having learning difficulties, which led to bullying at school . She was labelled "Susie Simple" at school but learnt to overcome those who derided her.

After leaving school with few qualifications, she was employed for the only time in her life as a trainee cook in the kitchen of West Lothian College for six months, and took part in government training schemes. She would visit the theatre from time to time to listen to professional singers, and performed at a number of local venues. In 1995, she auditioned for Michael Barrymore's My Kind of People, which was looking for contestants at the Braehead Shopping Centre in Glasgow, but she said she was too nervous to make a good impression. The Guardian reports that she attended Edinburgh Acting School, and has taken part in the Edinburgh Fringe. She took singing lessons from a voice coach, Fred O'Neil, and in 1999 she made her only previous recording, singing "Cry Me a River" for a charity CD funded by the local council to commemorate the Millennium. O'Neil has said Boyle abandoned an audition for The X Factor because she believed people were being chosen for their looks, and that she almost abandoned her plan to enter Britain's Got Talent. He told The Scotsman: "I remember a phone call late last year when she said she was too old and that it was a young person's game". O'Neil persuaded her to go to the audition.

Boyle's father died in the 1990s, and her siblings had left home, leaving Boyle to look after her ageing mother, who died in 2007 at the age of 91. Boyle still lives in the family home, a four-bedroom council house, with her ten-year-old cat, Pebbles . Boyle's devotion to caring for her mother was such that she did not have any time for herself as she was too busy caring for her mother . Boyle struggled to cope with the loss of her mother and "wouldn't come out for three or four days or answer the door or phone" . Her mother had always encouraged her to enter local singing competitions, which she won several times, and tried to persuade her daughter to enter Britain's Got Talent, urging her to take the risk of singing in front of an audience larger than her parish church . Boyle has said she did not feel ready to do it until after her mother's death, saying that it was that event which propelled her to go on Britain's Got Talent and seek a musical career as her way of paying a tribute to her mother. Her performance on the show was the first time she had sung since then.

Boyle is currently unemployed, and active as a volunteer with Our Lady of Lourdes, a Roman Catholic church in Blackburn. She has never married; and during an interview just before she sang on the talent show, she said she had also "never been kissed" but later added "Oh, I was just joking around. It was just banter and it has been blown way out of proportion".

Early recordings

Boyle recorded a version of "Cry Me a River" for a charity CD entitled "Music for a Millennium Celebration, Sounds of West Lothian", which was produced in 1999 at a school in Whitburn, West Lothian. A reviewer for the West Lothian Herald & Post wrote at the time, "Susan Boyle's heartbreaking rendition of "Cry Me a River", which has been on repeat in my CD player ever since I got this CD..." This recording was released onto the web in the week after April 11, 2009, and gained immediate acclamation, with the New York Post writing that this showed that Boyle was not a "one trick pony" and that the rarity of the CD imprint, with only 1,000 produced, would make them valuable collector's items. Other media reaction was similarly positive, with Hello! magazine stating that the recording was a further illustration of the level of Boyle's talent, which "cements her status" as a singing star.

In 1999, Boyle paid for a demo tape, using "all her savings". It contained "Cry Me a River" and her version of "Killing Me Softly with His Song". Boyle sent it to record companies, radio talent competitions, local and national TV. It has been released on the Internet. Boyle gave a few copies to close friends.

Britain's Got Talent and aftermath

Television performance

In August 2008, when Boyle became aware that Britain's Got Talent would be holding auditions, she applied and was accepted for the audition, which took place in Glasgow in January 2009 and was screened on television on 11 April 2009. Boyle performed a rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables in the first round of the third series of Britain's Got Talent, which was watched by an average of 10.3 million viewers. This performance was widely reported, and millions of people viewed a video of her singing on YouTube. The strength of this reaction reportedly shocked and amazed Boyle.

Boyle is well aware that the audience on Britain's Got Talent was initially hostile to her because of her appearance, but she has refused to change her image:

I know what they were thinking, but why should it matter as long as I can sing? It’s not a beauty contest.

— Susan Boyle, The Sunday Times

News media

Many British newspapers carried articles on Boyle's performance and subsequent Internet coverage. The Sun writer Colin Robertson gave her the nickname "Paula Potts" in reference to the contest's previous opera-singing winner Paul Potts. Many international news outlets also carried stories on her, including the USA's New York Times, New York Daily News and The Los Angeles Times, Australia's Herald Sun, Canada's Maclean's, Germany's Der Spiegel, China's Xinhua News Agency, Macau's The Macau Post Daily, Portugal's Correio da Manhã, Brazil's Zero Hora, South Korea's The Chosun Ilbo, Netherlands' De Telegraaf, Israel's Ynet, Belgium's Het Laatste Nieuws,、 the Arab World's Al-Arabiya, Japan's Asahi Shinbun, Vietnam's Tuoi Tre , and Argentinan's Clarín.

In the U.S., ABC News coverage suggested that Boyle may be "Britain's newest pop sensation", and the network's Entertainment section ran the headline The Woman Who Shut Up Simon Cowell. Several commentators have drawn parallels between Boyle's performance and that of Paul Potts, another unexpected singing talent who rose to fame on British reality television, with Forbes magazine predicting that Boyle could follow in Potts' footsteps and enjoy a long, successful and profitable career.

TV shows

Following her performance on Britain's Got Talent, Boyle was a guest on STV's The Five Thirty Show. She was interviewed via satellite on CBS's Early Show, ABC's Good Morning America, and NBC's Today, and via a telephone interview on FOX's America's Newsroom. In an interview, Simon Cowell said Boyle had received an invitation to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show and predicted that if she did appear "there's every chance Susan Boyle will have the number one album in America".

She also appeared via satellite on CNN's Larry King Live opposite Piers Morgan, who apologized to Boyle for not giving her "anything like the respect" she deserved when she walked out on the stage before singing. Boyle went on to perform an a cappella verse of "My Heart Will Go On" on King's show about which Morgan remarked, "That was just absolutely stunning. To sing that with no musical backing is unbelievable." He then invited Boyle to have dinner with him in London, and she accepted.

Social media

Writing in The Guardian, Leigh Holmwood said that web technology such as YouTube and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been critical in facilitating Boyle's rapid rise to fame. The most popular YouTube video submission of her audition garnered nearly 2.5 million views in the first 72 hours. On the day following the performance, the YouTube video was the most popular article on Digg. The same video was also popular on Reddit, with enough clout to top the site's front page. Within a week, the audition performance had been viewed more than 66 million times, setting an online record, while on Wikipedia her biographical article attracted well over half a million page views. Within nine days, video of the performance had exceeded 100 million video views amongst 20 different websites, with over half of those from a single YouTube submission. The Los Angeles Times wrote that her popularity on YouTube may in part be due to the broad range of emotion packed into a short timeframe, noting that this makes it "perfect for the Internet, where short clips rule."

Susan Boyle's fame also spread by links posted on the Twitter website, including praise from celebrity couple Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore. When told about this, Boyle was said not to have ever heard of Kutcher, but was familiar with the name "Demi Moore". Boyle knew little about her either but thanked them both for their support. When Boyle first appeared on Britain's Got Talent, she said that she aspires to become a musical theatre singer "as successful as" Elaine Paige. Since the appearance, Paige has expressed an interest in singing a duet with Boyle. Actor Hugh Jackman has also wanted to do a duet with Susan Boyle writing on his Twitter, "where is Susan Boyle? I am ready for a duet."

Social and critical analysis

Boyle's sudden fame has drawn much commentary on why this story was so widely reported and what it implies, while others drew moral lessons from people's reactions to her performance. For instance, writing in The Herald, Collette Douglas-Home described Boyle's story as a modern parable and a rebuke to people's tendency to judge others based on their physical appearance. Similarly, Lisa Schwarzbaum, in an article in Entertainment Weekly, said that Boyle's performance was particularly moving as it was a victory for talent and artistry in a culture obsessed with physical attractiveness and presentation. Commenting on the audience's reactions before she started singing, Boyle said:

Modern society is too quick to judge people on their appearances. [...] There is not much you can do about it; it is the way they think; it is the way they are. But maybe this could teach them a lesson, or set an example.

— Susan Boyle, The Washington Post

After Boyle's performance, Holden said:

I am so thrilled because I know that everybody was against you. I honestly think that we were all being very cynical, and I think that's the biggest wake-up call ever. And I just want to say that it was a complete privilege listening to that.

— Amanda Holden, Britain's Got Talent

Cameron Mackintosh, the producer of the Les Misérables musical, also praised the performance, stating:

Just like the judges and audience, I was gob-smacked by the emotional powerhouse performance of Susan Boyle's show-stopping rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream". Vocally, it is one of the best versions of the song I've ever heard—touching, thrilling and uplifting. I do hope she gets to sing it for the Queen.

— Cameron Mackintosh

Echoing Amanda Holden's comments, Jeanne McManus wrote in The Washington Post that, in talent shows such as Britain's Got Talent, one of the main sources of drama is the collision between performers' sometimes exaggerated sense of self-worth and the opinions and reactions of their audience. In Boyle's case, McManus believed that her initial demeanour and homely appearance caused the judges and audience to be "waiting for her to squawk like a duck". Indeed, New York's Daily News said that it was this stark contrast between the audience's low expectations and the quality of her singing that made Boyle's performance such an engaging piece of television. This article also noted that the idea of an underdog being ridiculed or humiliated but then enjoying an unexpected triumph is a common trope in literature and that this is why, when this theme made its unscripted appearance in reality television, it created an enduring and powerful effect.

On the other hand, although this audience reaction was unscripted, it may have been anticipated. Writing in The Huffington Post, Mark Blankenship noted that the producers of the show would have been aware of the potential of this story arc, stating that the programme seemed to deliberately present Boyle in a manner that would enhance this initial reaction. He does note, however, that "as fabricated as it is, her on-camera arc is undeniably moving". The fact that Boyle is in her forties has also been cited as contributing to this strong emotional impact. In another Huffington Post article, Letty Cottin Pogrebin wrote that people may have been "weeping for the years of wasted talent", since most of Boyle's life has been spent in obscurity and those wasted years can never be recovered. All the same, Pogrebin still classed Boyle's performance as a triumph for what she called "women of a certain age", as she saw it as representing a victory over a youth culture that often dismisses middle-aged women.

Tanya Gold wrote in The Guardian that the difference between Boyle's hostile reception and the more neutral response to Paul Potts in his first audition reflected society's expectation that women be both good-looking and talented, with no such expectation existing for men. In a similar vein, Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote on Salon.com that Boyle's performance reminded people that "not all fortysomething women are sleek, Botoxed beauties," going on to say that Boyle's sudden fame came from her ability to remind her audience that, like them, she is a normal, flawed and vulnerable person, familiar with disappointment and mockery, but who nevertheless has the determination to fight for her dream.

Several media sources have commented that Boyle's success seemed to have particular resonance in the United States. Writing in The Scotsman, Craig Brown quoted a U.S. entertainment correspondent who compared Boyle's story to the American Dream, in that it represented talent overcoming adversity and poverty. The Associated Press described this as Boyle's "hardscrabble story", dwelling on her modest lifestyle and what they saw as urban deprivation in her home town. Similarly, The Independent New York correspondent David Usborne wrote that America is a country that will always respond to "the fairy tale where the apparently unprepossessing suddenly becomes pretty, from Shrek to My Fair Lady". Piers Morgan, one of the show's judges, also commented on the unusual power this story seemed to have in the US, noting that "Americans can be very moved by this sort of thing", and likening Boyle's rise to fame from poverty and obscurity to that of the fictional boxer Rocky Balboa.

External Links

• Susan Boyle's Audition on ITV's Britain's Got Talent