Australian Idol
Australian Idol is a singing elimination contest that has been running since 2003. It took over from the less popular Popstars (although Popstars also ran in 2003, with both shows running at the same time for 1 year). Australian Idol is loosely based on American Idol. Many of the contestants of Australian Idol have gone on to have successful singing careers, not just the winners but also the runners up and on average a total of 5 out of the top 10 each year have had some success after the show. In every edition of the show, the runner up has had a more successful career than the winner. This has been known as "the winner's curse".
Year by year[edit]
Season 1: 2003[edit]
In 2003, Australian Idol competed with Popstars, who was then in its 3rd and ultimately final year. While Popstars was based on a UK TV series, Australian Idol was based on American Idol, a US show (of note: the UK Popstars is still running). Many people were inspired by Popstars but it had been widely criticised for doing it wrong. Australian Idol was seen by many as a way of doing it right. In this case, anyone of any age could compete, and they were aiming for it by themselves, not the final 6 or 7 being forced into a band. The season went well enough with many established singers taking part.
The show added a lot of interest when it got to the final 3 stage, when Cosima de Vito controversially withdrew, claiming that she had a sore throat and was unable to compete that week. This was outrageous and she was slammed in the media for dropping out, and as a result was not offered a record contract in spite of at that stage being the favourite to win.
The two finalists were Shannon Noll and Guy Sebastian. It was billed as "the battle of the hair" because of Guy Sebastian's afro versus Shannon Noll's tuft of hair under his bottom lip. In the end, Guy Sebastian won narrowly. Ever since, the two have competed in sales and awards ever after. Both have had successful singing careers, as have many others from that year.
Additional controversy arose when Today Tonight accused Guy Sebastian of being a member of Hillsong Church, who they had repeatedly demonised as trying to take over the country. In response, Guy Sebastian proudly announced "I am a Hillsonger" (although he was in an affiliate church, and not Hillsong itself). This has continued to anger Today Tonight who have continued to push the idea that Australian Idol (shown on a rival network) are bad and secondly that Hillsong are much worse than they had at first imagined.
Season 2: 2004[edit]
In 2004, the show was dominated by black female singers, possibly because of judge Marcia Hines (who was an African American that emigrated to Australia decades earlier) being possibly the most influential judge. Indeed, throughout the show's history, a disproportional amount of black female singers have done well in the show (while black male singers have not done nearly as well). In spite of this, Anthony Callea was the favourite to win, winning praise galore from fellow judge Mark Holden, who gave him "touchdowns" (based on American football, which most definitely is an insult to Australia's culture) galore and also gave him royal touchdowns, virtually guaranteeing his victory.
In spite of this, chubby 16 year old Aboriginal Australian Casey Donovan was the winner. As with all other years, runner up Anthony Callea was the more successful performer, but this time by a wider margin than ever before.
Casey Donovan was praised by the aboriginal community, winning awards for aboriginals all over the place. Her first single was a big hit, as was her 2nd, and many thought that she would be bigger than Guy Sebastian or Shannon Noll or anyone else.
Then Casey fell apart, getting increasingly fatter, smoking and drinking and eating too much, while not exercising. She was for a long time terrorised by the media, which led to her suffering from depression. She became the biggest loser (for a winner) in the show's history, with the biggest fall from grace ever. The show itself suffered credibility because of it.
Season 3: 2005[edit]
In 2005, perhaps more contestants than ever before reached careers, with less fighting than ever before, and the closest final ever. Ultimately, a number of the female contestants from this year (and including some in 2004, and later singers in 2006) formed an all-girl singing group called The Young Divas, who had great success. Included in this group was 2005 winner Kate DeAraugo and runner up Emily Williams. As in 2004, the show was dominated by black female singers, who represent less than 2% of the Australian population, yet were making up 30% or more of the Australian Idol population. Lee Harding also had a moderately successful
Season 4: 2006[edit]
2006 had less black female singers than in the previous 2 years, but one of the dominant singers of the year was Jessica Mauboy, an aboriginal girl from Darwin, who, like Casey Donovan 2 years earlier, was only 16 years of age. Many feared that if she won then the same kind of fate would await her.
Opposing her was Damien Leith, who was controversial because he was from Ireland. Many people questioned how fair it was for people from outside of Australia to be allowed to compete.
Ultimately, Damien Leith won, perhaps even because many people who would have supported Jessica Mauboy wanted her to lose, both to avoid the winner's curse and also to avoid the fate that faced Casey Donovan.
In spite of all of the controversy, Damien Leith's album, titled "The Winner's Journey", was a success, as was his follow up album. He was expected by many to flop worse than anyone ever had, but he actually did better than Casey Donovan had. Jessica Mauboy for her part soon afterwards joined The Young Divas. 3rd placed Dean Geyer also had some success, although he later joined soap opera Neighbours.
Season 5: 2007[edit]
2007 was the first season with 4 judges in, after Ian Dickson returned, but they failed to get rid of his replacement Kyle Sandilands. This was seen as the catalyst for many of the controversies that faced the show. At the end of the season, Mark Holden, who had in many ways tried to control the season since its inception, was fired, at least partially in relation to his treatment of 5th placed Tarisai Vushe, which led to the show being cancelled in Tasmania and rubbished throughout the media.
The show had a number of young singers, including baby-faced Matt Corby and Ben McKenzie, both of whom were widely believed to be gay. They did not have the black female dominance of previous years, although Tarisai Vushe, who was born in Zimbabwe, was a big contender for the title.
Tarisai Vushe was a target for wrath in the show's 5th season. Firstly, she was a black female, the race/gender combination that had been favoured by Marcia Hines since the show began. Secondly, she was from overseas, which still had a lot of anger after 2006 winner Damien Leith had won from Ireland. Thirdly, she was a very religious person, and prayed before every song. Fourthly, she was so good at the start of the show that there was really no need for any improvement, which made a mockery of the show's purpose, which was to "develop" a singer. She knew that she was good too.
Tarisai's praying and "thank you God" speeches after each song and award (etc) led to the show banning any religious references (against Marcia Hines's wishes).
Following this, Today Tonight jumped on Tarisai and Matt's involvement in Shire Live, an affiliate of Hillsong Church, to falsely claim that 7 of the top 9 contestants were members of Hillsong Church, and to further falsely claim that they were rigging the competition. In actual fact, only 1 of the other contestants was even a Christian - the others who were named did not even attend church. Nonetheless, this smear campaign led to Ben McKenzie being unfairly evicted, which led to Marcia Hines threatening on air to quit the show. It also effectively promoted eventual winner Natalie Gauci as well as eventual 3rd placed Carl Riseley, who was the only 2 not named by Today Tonight, encouraging the country to vote for them if they wanted to stop the cheating.
During the week between the final 6 and final 5 stage, after a week in which Natalie Gauci was slammed by the band The Divinyls for her variation of their song "Boys In Town", a caller to judge Kyle Sandilands's radio show said that Tarisai Vushe was "fake". This was in reference to her not really listening to advice that she was given to improve, because she honestly felt that she was already good enough. She was being polite, but not listening.
Whilst the call itself received almost no publicity, it was aired at the final 5 stage by Australian Idol itself, with judge Mark Holden trying to "turn it around into a positive". Tarisai was encouraged to be angry, in singing "When It All Falls Apart", a cover of a Veronicas song (who, ironically, Natalie Gauci was good friends with). Tarisai made another radical change to her hair, such that she didn't even look like the same person from the previous weeks.
After singing the song, judge Kyle Sandilands, before commenting on the performance itself, made a big statement to say how bad that call was. Before he was allowed to say his comment on the performance itself, judge Mark Holden butted in with "In saying that, that was fake". If that wasn't bad enough, then judge Ian Dickson also butted in with "I hate to put the boot in but I agree". Marcia Hines, when asked for comment, said "I have nothing to say".
This outrageous behaviour drew widespread criticism, and led to the show being cancelled for the 2008 series, at least in Tasmania. It also greatly increased ratings. It led to Tarisai Vushe, who 2 weeks earlier was the outright favourite for the competition, being eliminated from the competition. She also confronted Mark Holden to tell him just what she thought of his behaviour. He taped it, with a cheeky comment "That is what I was aiming for". Tarisai later stated that she knew that it was all for ratings and wasn't real.
Tarisai also criticised Natalie Gauci for being fake. Natalie had previously been criticised for being fake because she had changed the lyrics of the songs, such that they were her own songs, not covers, especially how she ruined The Divinyls's song "Boys In Town" (at least, according to The Divinyls). Tarisai was angry when Natalie tried to hug her, in spite of being mean to her for their entire time in the house, and lashed out at her. She also lashed out at the others for not backing her up.
The week that Tarisai was eliminated was the highest rating week of the entire series, with people everywhere wanting to know more about this scandal. Whilst in every other year, more people watched as the finals came about, in 2007 less people watched. The Tarisai scandal continued to be mentioned, with an almost universal opinion that what the judges, especially Mark Holden, did, was wrong and a disgrace, but many people nonetheless agreeing with the result - that she was fake.
Somewhere along the lines, though, they forgot what they were saying "fake" about. She was arrogant. She knew she was good. She was pretending to take criticism, while not really listening. That was the fakeness. The radio caller wasn't suggesting that she wasn't genuinely emotional when singing, or that she wasn't genuinely trying her best. Yet since the scandal came out, many people have suggested that she was fake in other aspects, aspects which in actual fact apply to Natalie Gauci's fakeness, faking songs, faking emotions, faking many other aspects.
As the show progressed, more people were eliminated in relation to the Hillsong Church scandal, except for Matt Corby, who somehow seemed to be immune. The final 3 was a mockery of the competition, with 2 wild cards - Natalie Gauci and Carl Riseley - in the final 3. Two people who would not have made the top 12 if it were not for the judges, and would not have made it to the top 6 if it were not for Today Tonight. Carl Riseley was actually something of a shock to many that he was eliminated in 3rd place, perhaps allowing for a genuine singer to win, but the final result let down many people. Rather than the overwhelming favourite winning, Natalie Gauci was the winner.
Natalie Gauci has been the least successful winner of the competition in its 5 year history. Even Casey Donovan had a number 1 single and album and a sold out tour, at least the first one. Gauci's single did debut at 1, but it was at 2 in its 2nd week and then fell down the charts very quickly thereafter. The album didn't even make it to number 1 before spiralling out of the charts. Her tour was a major disappointment.
Carl Riseley was signed to a major label and did release an album, "The Rise", which made it to number 3 on the albums charts.
Following the flop of her tour, Matt Corby joined Gauci on her "Winner's Journey tour" to help to boost numbers. He is yet to release an album or single.
Season 6: 2008[edit]
The show was very different in 2008 with the absence of Mark Holden, and they returned to a 3 judge format. Whilst there were rumours that Marcia Hines would quit in disgust and restart her singing career, these proved fruitless. Whilst Kyle Sandilands was named as host of Big Brother for 2008, he remained as host of the show.
They tried a few new things. For one thing, they allowed auditions in the UK. Another thing was that people got to vote a 2nd time, once for the contestants themselves and secondly for the bottom 3, if you wanted to save your favourite. This was copied from Bulgaria's Music Idol.
Whilst there were numerous overseas entrants, and they guaranteed 12 male and 12 female into the top 24, the final 4 were all male, and all older men too (at least, not 16 year olds), with ages ranging from 22-26.
The season generally avoided controversy, with no dominance of black females, or overseas entrants, and Today Tonight managed to avoid the temptation of drumming up another smear campaign. Whilst it could be considered to be controversial to have 4 males in the top 4, the show attracted little media attention.
Perhaps the biggest controversy occurred at the final 3 stage when, for 25 minutes the TV screens incorrectly listed the number of the safe contestant, Wes Carr, instead of Luke Dickens, who was at that stage favourite to be eliminated. As a result, Luke Dickens was saved from elimination, possibly due to the error, while Mark Spano was left in 3rd place, perhaps unfairly. Wes Carr ended up winning the final from Luke Dickens by a comfortable margin.