Susan Boyle dreamed her dream in time gone by, but it was Simon Cowell who made it all possible, let alone worth living.
We don’t have a category for Master Manipulator of the Year in this, our annual year-end look at the world of entertainment. If we did, Cowell would win in a heartbeat. Instead, we’re anointing him Entertainer of the Year for 2009.
Controversial choice? You betcha. Have a read further below; some of our entertainment writers are quite disappointed with the choice.
Here’s the reasoning for picking Cowell.
Boyle would be an easy choice for Entertainer of the Year, and will be selected as such by prominent media the world over.
Eight months ago, few outside her small village in Scotland had ever heard of Susan Boyle. But by mid-April she was a global sensation, after her stunning vocal rendition of the song I Dreamed A Dream on the Britain’s Got Talent reality-TV show. Video clips of her performance instantly made it to YouTube and melted tens of millions of hearts within days, setting Internet records in the process.
It wasn’t just that Boyle could sing so spectacularly. Rather, hers was the ultimate "out of nowhere" success story. Here was this 47-year-old, socially moronic spinster from remote Scotland, complete with unkempt appearance and laughably rube-ish shoebox haircut, singing like a Broadway star.
The shy singer did a zillion interviews and then, perhaps predictably, quickly melted down from all the searing attention and scrutiny — winding up hospitalized in England. Her new handlers mercifully removed her for several months from the public eye.
But Boyle is now back, as big as ever. Her debut album, titled I Dreamed A Dream, hit stores in late November. It has been so popular in so many countries that, after first setting the Amazon.com record for pre-sales, it has already become the best-selling debut album ever by a female artist, with upwards of 2 million copies sold.
As the year ends, the four most popular versions of Boyle’s initial performance on Britain’s Got Talent have been viewed collectively more than 124 million times. Incredible.
If it weren’t for the savvy of Simon Cowell, however, Boyle would still be just dreaming the dream, singing only to her 10-year-old cat Pebbles.
It was the 50-year-old Dean of TV Mean, Cowell, who shrewdly conceived and carefully achieved the entire Boyle phenomenon. Indeed, we know of Boyle solely because of Cowell.
Have another look at her initial BGT performance on YouTube. Even if you believe that Cowell, like the other two judges, was unaware of Boyle’s talent beforehand, there can be no mistaking that he — as the creator and executive producer of Britain’s Got Talent — ensured the edited version of her performance that made it to air was, literally, picture perfect. That is, every image — every camera cut — was painstakingly chosen. There isn’t a wasted micro-second of footage. Every eye twinkle of every judge is captured and sequenced masterfully. The entire result is indeed perfect. (Too perfect, to some cynics’ minds.)
Cowell well knew that if the guys in the editing booth succeeded, Boyle would become a world phenomenon. And then he would sign Boyle to his record label, and greenbacks would begin raining on everyone by year’s end.
What a master puppeteer. How do you not reward that level of entertainment success and savvy?
Cowell’s 2009 success card doesn’t just begin and end with Boyle. As judge on reality-TV juggernaut American Idol (for eight seasons now) as well as England’s version of Idol called The X Factor (six seasons), Cowell has helped to determine and mould many of this year’s music and pop-culture superstars — including his label stars Carrie Underwood (Idol alum), Adam Lambert (2009 Idol runner-up), Chris Daughtry (Idol alum) and Leona Lewis (X Factor winner).
All of them entertained us in 2009. All of them, to varying degrees, owe a big thank-you to Cowell.
For that, he is our Entertainer of the Year.
Disagree? You’re not alone. Below, our national entertainment writers weigh in. Some agree, some don’t. None hold back:
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DARRYL STERDAN
Simon Cowell? Entertainer of the year? This year? As Simon might say, absolute rubbish.
It might have made an iota of sense a few years ago, when Idol meant something. But ratings-wise, it has peaked. Sure, every year it births a new crop of singers — almost all flashes in the pan. For every Kelly Clarkson, there’s a Ruben Studdard, a Fantasia, a Taylor Hicks.
Besides, arguably the most successful Idol alums didn’t win — Daughtry, Jennifer Hudson, Clay Aiken. That pretty much negates the notion of Cowell as kingmaker, IMHO. And I challenge anyone to name one thing Cowell did this year that was unique and entertaining. He’s a savvy businessman, sure.
Bottom line: Decades from now, when Susan Boyle and Adam Lambert are forgotten, everyone will think of 2009 as the year Michael Jackson died. Even Simon.
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JIM SLOTEK
If nothing succeeds like success, then — like it or not — these days, success is spelled “Simon Cowell.”
When American Idol began, it was dismissed as the realization of Andy Warhol’s prediction that “in the future, everybody will be famous for 15 minutes.”
I recently glanced at a full-page HMV ad of 12 top artists’ albums on sale, and noticed Susan Boyle’s I Dreamed A Dream plus current albums by Leona Lewis, Carrie Underwood, David Archuleta and Adam Lambert. Add Jennifer Hudson’s Oscar to the mix, and I’m telling you, Simon’s not going.
I know. It bugs me too. Fame should be something you work for, for years. But now it’s not. That’s just how it is. As a society, we demand instant gratification in all aspects of our lives. Why should fame be any different?
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BRUCE KIRKLAND
While there is no doubting his power and his influence, Cowell represents the best and the worst — the positive and the negative — of current popular entertainment. There are no signs his impact will fade next decade.
On the positive side, the guy has refined tastes and absolutely knows good singing, great performance, strong dance moves and all the other elements required for the best in live TV entertainment.
On the negative side, Cowell has popularized and even legitimized public cruelty. The popularity of shows such as American Idol and its international spin-offs depends as much on beating the self-delusional, tone-deaf singers to a pulp as it does celebrating discoveries such as Susan Boyle. This meanness has infected the whole reality-TV genre. It is now acceptable to entertain the masses through ridicule, arrogance and a sense of superiority.
I blame Simon Cowell. He is the Master of Mean.
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JOHN COULBOURN
It seems that on many fronts we’ve already eradicated the line that separates famous and infamous, so let’s not get too caught up parsing the meanings of artist and entertainer when we label Simple Simon as Entertainer of the Year.
No one is suggesting for a moment that he has, through his various endeavours, managed to unearth the best singers on the planet — but rather, through his efforts at self-aggrandizement, he has managed to connect with a few of the now best-known performers on the planet.
That he is largely responsible for their notoriety (and in the process, the trivialization of great swaths of television air time) simply serves to underscore the irony of the age in which we live.
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JANE STEVENSON
John, you ignorant slut! Simon Cowell is 2009’s entertainer of the year? I think not.
Cowell, who frankly doesn’t need any encouragement, can continue to make his multi-millions off the backs of singers whose popularity and record contracts are ultimately decided by the public, as opposed to anyone with any real music expertise.
It’s one thing to give these people a TV platform on which to be discovered. It’s quite another to see a lot of them fail so miserably as live performers.
Susan Boyle, who has already broken down a couple of times and has twice in recent weeks cancelled a free Toronto concert and autograph signing, is clearly not prepared to follow up her best-selling debut in a live setting. And a recent tour by AmIdol alum Chris Daughtry proved that while he can sing, he’s not a great showman.
2009’s real entertainer of the year? Lady Gaga, who Cowell can’t taken any credit for.
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LIZ BRAUN
“It’s all a game to him ... The X Factor is what it is: lightweight, populist drivel. And Simon Cowell is what he is: the money machine behind it, laughing all the way to the bank for the fifth Christmas running.”
That’s just part of a bitchslapping Simon Cowell takes in the new issue of NME, and not a moment too soon.
This is a man whose own mom says he was “a complete handful” as a child, and whose rudeness to contestants has helped elevate a general social atmosphere of incivility.
Cowell’s worst crime against humanity, however, is that the success of his empire has encouraged the sort of showy Diva bellowing that has passed as singing for the past decade. Too many of his winning performers hail from the Mariah Carey school of singing, to wit: Why hit just one note when you can hit 12? And if they can be notes that only the dog can hear, all the better.
The man gives me the screaming abdabs.
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BILL HARRIS
People love crap. Not new. But in recent years people have become fascinated by the manufacture of crap.
The notable thing about the selection of Simon Cowell is how passive I am. I’d be more upset if I weren’t so heavily medicated, but I also have accepted the world has changed. Young performers don’t get famous any more by building up the nerve to walk into Sun Records (Elvis Presley), or trekking to dangerous Hamburg (the Beatles), or threatening the mainstream so much that they were at risk of physical violence when they walked down the street (the Sex Pistols).
These days, you might have to stand in line at an Idol audition, God forbid. But if you’re goofily different, like Susan Boyle, professional leeches such as Cowell will exploit you.
The public has embraced this as the new order. But it interests me not. Serenity now, serenity now ...
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KEVIN WILLIAMSON
You name the virus, not the burning itch. So while the logic is flawed in crowning Simon Cowell Entertainer of the Year, at least we’re scratching in the general vicinity.
Cruel kingmaker Cowell is just the symptom of what’s become our culture of celebrity me-ism. Remember, this is a year that gave us not only Cowell’s court of jesters — Susan Boyle, Adam Lambert, et al — but White House party crashers, balloon boys and a multitude of wannabe stars lusting for hits on YouTube and ratings on TV.
Has Cowell — and what he represents — cheapened the institution of fame? Does it feel unsavory to reward him? Were there more talented, hard-working, deserving candidates? Of course.
But he’s the face of the new reality of celebrity, in which none of the above applies. Live with it.
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LINDSEY WARD
I’ve been racking my brain for days trying to think of the last entertaining thing Simon Cowell has done and, well, I give up.
As someone who whiles away far too much of their winter and spring months watching him shatter the dreams of amateur singers as American Idol’s embittered British judge, I can safely say he’s no entertainer (and he would probably be the first to admit it).
Witty, yes. Loaded with constructive — if not cruel — criticism, indeed. But that hardly qualifies him as Entertainer of the Year. Businessman of the Year would be more like it.
In addition to tracking down stars such as Leona Lewis, Susan Boyle and Adam Lambert, he has a hand in the lucrative shows they appeared on — and even owns the company that makes BGT and The X Factor. Clearly he has made a big enough name for himself — and has made enough quid — without having to entertain us.
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What do you think? Email us at ENT@sunmedia.ca.
