Why Do People like Susan Boyle

Is it All Manufactured Hype to Make Simon Cowell Even Richer???

Ted Sherman
Ted Sherman, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Jan 24, 2010 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."
Most of the fascination with Susan Boyle is pure hype, created and generated by the Britain's Got Talent producers and Simon Cowell's American Idol connections in the U.S. Wallowing along with the story are the usual slavish followings by the media for any blown-up entertainment hyperbole.

The hoopla and subsequent public fascination is based on two effects: ridicule and reality. First, she's a most unlikely singing star, because she's an overweight, middle-aged Scottish barmaid whose face and figure are perfect for cartoons and late-night comedian's jokes. The original producers of the British program probably put Susan in the spotlight to serve as ridiculous comic relief among the young, stylish and musically hip competitors. They wanted to give the viewers a laugh, as happened when American Idol put really-awful singer William Hung on the air several years ago. It generated great publicity, especially because this poor jerk actually thought he'd become famous, and went on to record some of his songs. Then, he descended into well-deserved oblivion.

TV viewers love their ridicule, whether for fallen politicians, drug-soaked pro athletes or poor schlubs with no clue about their lack of talent. Most likely, that was probably on the cynical minds of producers of Britain's Got Talent when they shoved Susan Boyle in front of the cameras.

Then, maybe to their surprise, she sang songs from Boradway musicals with a competent, clear contralto voice. The ridicule was still there, but to the delight of the producers, the stark contrast of the plain overweight woman and her unexpected sweet voice became a sensation. Unlike the one-step William Hung hype job, Susan Boyle was given a two-step shot at the slavish mass media coverage. For laughs, she looked like Tugboat Annie, but for fascination, she sang like a Broadway musical star. The reality of Susan Boyle is, first of all, that she's a fairly good singer. No Beverly Sills, Maria Callas nor Grace Bumbry. Nor even a Doris Day nor Mary Martin. Just a pleasant, inoffensive voice. However, she didn't just emerge full blown from the fertile minds of PR hacks.

Susan had spent 25 years enduring smoke and suds as a singing barmaid in various pubs in her native Scotland, and had established a local reputation for singing Broadway numbers. Her rendition of I Dream a Dream from Les Miserables is what brought her to the talent contest.

If she's very lucky and grabs the brass ring, that could be where the universal reality of Susan Boyle emerges. Maybe she's popular now because she came along at exactly the right time. After audiences have been inundated with a half-century of discordant noise that passes for music, the listening public was pleasantly surprised, and teenagers were shocked, to hear someone sing a simple, pleasant melody. The lyrics spoke of love, and didn't promote drugs, anti-social behavior, murder and the gutterization of the English language.

Susan Boyle is wise enough to understand the reasons for her unusual entry into the entertainment spotlight. If she uses the moment productively, she will probably parlay it into a lucrative career. However, a more valuable benefit of her fame may be to finally end the stranglehold that greedy producers and their discordant music have had on popular culture for much too long.

Published by Ted Sherman - Featured Contributor in Travel and Business & Finance

Navy service WWII and Korea, BFA, MA. Retired, experience: exec. speechwriter, advertising, sales promotion, PR, graphic art, photography, travel and humor writing. Follow me: @travel4seniors, Editor of tra...   View profile

More from

7 Comments

Post a Comment
  • S.E. Jacobsen 1/24/2010

    You call her a barmaid, which she has never been. You refer to her voice as a contralto, when she is naturally a soprano.
    Why should you be taken seriously when you cannot bother to check you facts? I am no fan of Simon Cowell's but this one time something really good came of his reality show. A very fine singer who had never been given a chance finally got a break. She spent her whole life being prejudged by people who dismissed her can't we stop doing that to her?

  • Mary Jo 1/24/2010

    You are right about Susan Boyle appealing to an older audience (and growingly, a younger one) who wants music with a real melody of more than 5 repetitious notes, in which the words can actually be understood, by a singer who does not need AutoTune to stay on pitch.She doesn't need 17 notes when one perfect one will do. However, you misunderstand the extraordinary quality of her voice. Even if you choose to ignore the 800 million of us who've bought her record because of that quality, NOT because of hype, you should listen to the many singers & musicians who know how good she is--like Barbara Streisand who called her "a poet singing". Or those who wrote music & lyrics for Les Miserables who say "she owns that song". The timbre of her voice & its emotional impact on the brain, are simply not found in other artists of today.

  • Gerry Sherwood 1/24/2010

    Thats how you know she's good, you have to "force yourself" to go watch her sing.

  • Blondie 1/24/2010

    You should be ashamed of yourself writing such a biased and ill informed article. 1st of all, she was never a barmaid. She was a church volunteer who sang in church and occasionally on karaoke night at her local pub.

    2nd, she has far more than a pleasant voice which is miles better than Doris Day and the others you mentioned. Have you ever really listened to her with an open mind?

    3rd, altho' she was orignially unsophisticated enough to not know how to attractively fix her hair and make up, now she has the best stylists in the world available to her and looks beautiful at everyone of her performances.

    You'd better keep in mind that she just sold 8 million CD's world wide in 2 months with no end in sight! If she didn't indeed have an exceptionally beautiful voice, that wouldn't have happened.

  • Sue 1/24/2010

    Sometime you should force yourself to go hear her sing in person, and then you can re-write this entire article. Her appeal has nothing to do with the way she looks, although her age may be a factor for a lot of older women. You might also be very surprised by the way she loks if you see her in person. She is tiny. Simon Cowell is totally beside the point to most of her fans. He just gave her the opportunity. You are just repeating things you have heard here. Go out and learn the truth.

  • Sue 1/24/2010

    You are actually very wrong about why people like Susan Boyle. She has a voice and emotion in her singing that makes people cry-lots of people, male and female and all ages. She touches people's hearts with her music and something within us stirs and yearns with her. Also, the tone or timbre or vibrato or something in her voice acts almost like an endorphin on many people-it relaxes and calms them. Third, people like Susan Boyle because she is straightforward about her background, her beliefs, herself. She doesn't claim to be anything other than a good singer, and she has no goofy gimmick-just stands and sings, and people love to listen. She is a warm-hearted, generous woman with a great sense of humor. She has courage and determination to overcome her own shortcomings and nervousness and go 0ut and entertain people.

    And she was never a barmaid. She was a caretaker for years for an elderly mother, and relieved the stress by singing in karaoke bars.

    Sometime you should f

  • Louie Jerome 1/24/2010

    Interesting viewpoint. I think Susan Boyle has an amazing voice but I cannot stand Simon Cowell and his arrogant attitude.

Displaying Comments

To comment, please sign in to your Yahoo! account, or sign up for a new account.