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Susan
Boyle ~I Dreamed A Dream
Susan
Boyle
An
artist's depiction of Susan Boyle
Background
information Birth
name Susan
Magdalane Boyle Born 1
April 1961 (1961-04-01)
(age 48) Origin Blackburn,
West Lothian,
Scotland Occupations Singer Vocals 2009–present Labels
Doesn't
She Look Beautiful!
JUST
BEAUTIFUL! SO PROUD OF HER!!!
Susan
Magdalane Boyle (born 1 April
1961)
is a Scottish
singer who came to international
public attention when she
appeared as a contestant on
reality TV programme Britain's
Got Talent on 11 April 2009,
singing "I
Dreamed a Dream" from Les
Miserable's.
Her
first album was released in
November 2009 and debuted as the
number one best-selling CD on
charts around the globe. Global
interest in Boyle was triggered
by the contrast between her
powerful voice and her plain
appearance on stage. The
juxtaposition of the audience's
first impression of her with the
standing ovation she received
after her performance led to an
international media and Internet
response. Within nine days of
the audition, videos of Boyle
— from the show, various
interviews, and her 1999
rendition of "Cry
Me a River" — had
been watched over 100 million
times, an online record.
Despite the sustained media
interest, she later finished in
second place in the final of the
show, behind dance troupe Diversity. Boyle's
first album, I
Dreamed a Dream, was
released on 23 November 2009,
and has become
Amazon's
best-selling album in pre-sales.
Its first single is a cover of
the Jagger/Richards
song "Wild
Horses." The album
includes "You'll
See," "I Dreamed a
Dream," and "Cry Me a
River."
According to Billboard,
"The arrival of "I
Dreamed a Dream" ... marks
the best opening week for a
female artist's debut album
since Sounds can began tracking
sales in 1991." Ok,
by now you've heard the story of
Susan Boyle, the British church lady/spinster who wowed
the crowd at Britain's Got
Talent. If you haven't - then
take a minute and look
at
the clip
to
understand the pure power of
what an unexpected talent can
do. But
the Susan Boyle story has a lot
more going on than just the
music phenomenon, thought that's
interesting to be sure. Take,
for example, the story of Paul
Wood. Paul
Wood is a construction worker in
London, who's got the bug for
building video networks on the
web in his spare time. So
on Saturday night in London last
week Wood decided on a lark that
this Susan Boyle woman he read
about might 'take off' when
Britain's Got Talent would be
broadcast. He'd seen her in the
auditions and decided to take a
risk. He bought the
URL Susan-Boyle.com
and Sunday night - moments after
the broadcast - he had a fan
site for her up online. What
Wood didn't know and couldn't
know was that some how Susan
Boyle connected with a wide
variety of people in a deep and
powerful way. Why is that?
First, you need to see the clip
to understand. We can spend a
sec and try and psycho-analyze
the public: For some, the music
is what it's all about. For
others, it's the ugly duckling
who spreads her wings. And then,
it may just be given the
economy, with people feeling so
beaten up, that watching an
underdog totally triumph was
just too hard to resist. It
hardly matters. She totally
owned the gig - and now she's a
rocket. And the best part? This
isn't some contrived media event
from the pop-culture factory.
This is real. Susan-Boyle.com
has created a pop-up destination
where people can connect, share
stories, record videos, and
watch Susan Boyle's video
experience. It is a feel good
site with most comments gushing
with enthusiasm and support.
There is something that feels
good about watching a community
grow organically around such a
positive media moment and
personality. We just don't have
enough of this stuff these days. Four
days later he has a website that
is getting close to a million
page views a day and has over
12,000 registered members. The
Wall Street Journal reports here
that the site's fast growing
traffic is the #1 site for
Susan-Boyle fans worldwide,
providing a unique mix of
network clips, user-submitted
video testimonials, and a live
twitter stream of Susan Boyle
fans that updates round the
clock from a fast growing
worldwide fan base. It
is also worth pointing out, that
only in the technologically
adept world we live in could
such an event be possible.
Millions of people flocking to a
virtual destination and forming
a "flash mob" style
community - never meeting each
other, but finding a real outlet
to come together and share in
the moment. Who says technology
is making us numb to personal
interaction?
Pebbles
- Susan's Cat
Boyle
was born in Blackburn, West
Lothian, Scotland, to Patrick
Boyle, a miner, World War II
veteran and singer at the Bishop's
Blaize, and Bridget, a shorthand
typist, who were both immigrants
from County Donegal, Ireland.
She
was the youngest of four brothers
and six sisters Born
when her mother was 47, Boyle was
briefly deprived
of oxygen during the difficult
birth and was later diagnosed as
having learning
difficulties.
Boyle says she was bullied as a
child and was nicknamed
"Susie Simple" at
school. 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 programs. She visited the
theatre to listen to professional
singers and performed at a number
of local venues. Boyle
took singing lessons from voice
coach Fred O'Neil. She attended
Edinburgh Acting School and took
part in the Edinburgh Fringe Prior
to Britain's Got Talent, her main
experience had come from singing
in church and karoaoke at pubs in
her village. She had also
auditioned several times for My
Kind Of People She also has long
participated in her parish
church's pilgrimages to the Knock
Shrine, Country Mayo, Ireland, and
has sung there at the Marian
basilica. Her
repertoire through the years has
included songs such as The Way We
Were" and "I Don't Know
How To Love Him"
British tabloids claimed
"exclusives" of video
clips of some early performances.
In 1995 her audition for Michael
Barrymore's My Kind Of
People" at the Olympia
Shopping Centre in East Kilbridge
was filmed. The amateur video
shows Barrymore was apparently
more interested in mocking her. In
1999 she recorded a track for a
charity CD to commemorate the
Millennium produced at a West
Lothian school. Only 1,000 copies
of the CD, Music for a Millennium
Celebration, Sounds of West
Lothian, were pressed. An early
review in the West Lothian Herald
& Post said Boyle's rendition
of "Cry Me a River" was
"heartbreaking" and
"had been on repeat in my CD
player ever since I got this
CD..."The recording found its
way onto the internet following
her first televised appearance and
the
New York Post said it showed
that Boyle was "not a one
trick pony." In
1999, Boyle used all her savings
to pay for a professional demo
tape, copies of which she later
sent to record companies, radio
talent competitions, local and
national TV. The demo tape
consisted of her versions of
"Cry Me a River" and
"Killing
Me Softly with His Song",
and was uploaded to the Internet
after her audition. After
Boyle won several local singing
competitions, her mother urged her
to enter Britain's Got Talent and
take the risk of singing in front
of an audience larger than her
parish church. Former coach O'Neil
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. O'Neil
persuaded her to audition despite
her believing "...she was too
old and that it was a young
person's game". Boyle said
that her mother's death motivated
her to go on Britain's Got Talent
and seek a musical career to pay
tribute to her mother. Her
performance on the show was the
first time she had sung in public
since then. Boyle
still lives in the family home, a
four-bedroom council
house, with
her 10-year-old
cat, Pebbles. Her
father died in the 1990s, and her
siblings had left home. Boyle
never married, and she cared
for her ageing mother until
she died in 2007 at the age of 91,
which meant that she never had any
time for herself. A neighbor
reported that when Bridget Boyle
died, her daughter "wouldn't
come out for three or four days or
answer the door or phone." Boyle
remains active as a volunteer at
Our Lady of Lourdes church in
Blackburn, visiting elderly
members of the congregation in
their homes. Main
article: Britain's
Got Talent (series 3)
In
August 2008, Boyle applied for an
audition for the third series of
Britain's Got Talent and was
accepted after a preliminary
audition in Glasgow.
When Boyle first appeared on
Britain's Got Talent at the city's
Clyde
Auditorium, she said that she
aspired to become a musical
theatre singer "as
successful as" Elaine
Paige.
Boyle sang "I Dreamed a
Dream"
from Les Misérables
in the first round of the third
series of Britain's Got Talent,
which was watched by over 10
million viewers when it aired on
11 April 2009. Amanda
Holden remarked upon the
audience's initially cynical
attitude, and the subsequent
"biggest wake-up call
ever" upon hearing her
performance. This
performance was widely reported
and tens of millions of people
viewed the video on YouTube.
Boyle was "absolutely
gobsmacked" by the strength
of this reaction. Boyle is 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. Since the appearance, Paige
has expressed interest in singing
a duet with Boyle, and has called
her "a role model for
everyone who has a dream".
Boyle's rendition of "I
Dreamed a Dream" has been
credited with causing a surge in
ticket sales in the Vancouver
production of Les Misérables. She
was one of 40 acts that were put
through to the semi-finals. She
appeared last on the first
semi-final on 24 May 2009,
performing "Memory"
from the musical Cats.
In the public vote she was the act
to receive the highest number of
votes and go through to the final.
She was the clear favourite to win
the final, but ended up in second
place to Diversity;
the UK TV audience was a record of
17.3 million viewers. The
Press Complaints Commission (PCC)
became concerned by press reports
about Boyle's erratic behaviour
and speculation about her mental
condition and wrote to remind
editors about clause 3 (privacy)
of their code of press conduct.
The day after the final, Boyle was
admitted to The Priory, a private psychiatric
clinic in London, Talkback
Thames explained "Following
Saturday night's show, Susan is
exhausted and emotionally
drained." Her stay in
hospital attracted widespread
attention, with Prime Minister
Gordon Brown wishing her well. Cowell
has offered to waive
Boyle's contractual obligation to
take part in the BGT tour. Her
family said "she's been
battered non-stop for the last
seven weeks and it has taken its
toll [...but...] her dream is very
much alive," as she had been
invited to the Independence Day
celebrations at the White House Boyle
left the clinic five days after
her admission and said she would
participate in the BGT tour.
However, she refused to show up
for
rehearsals and the Daily
Telegraph reported that Boyle
wanted to perform only a small
number of the scheduled 23 UK tour
venues to "conserve her voice
for her debut album."Album
and U.S. concert tour Boyle's
first album, I
Dreamed a Dream, was released
on 23 November 2009. The album
includes covers of "Wild
Horses" (scheduled to be
her first single) and "You'll
See" as well as "I
Dreamed a Dream", and
"Cry Me a River". I
Dreamed a Dream became
Amazon.com's best-selling album in
pre-sales on 4 September 2009,
three months before the scheduled
release. In Britain, Susan's debut
album was recognised as the
fastest selling UK debut album of
all time selling 411,820 copies
beating the previous fastest
selling debut of all time, Spirit
by Leona Lewis I
Dreamed a Dream also outsold the
rest of the top 5 albums combined.
It's the first album of the month
in the Italian #1 Account by a
non-Italian artist ever. In only a
week, it already sold more than 2
million copies worldwide, becoming
the Fastest Selling Global Female
Debut Album. Boyle gave a U.S.
concert tour in November as a
lead-up to the album release. On
13 December 2009 she appeared in
her own television special "I
Dreamed a Dream: the Susan Boyle
Story", featuring a duet with
her musical hero Elaine
Paige. It got ratings of 10
million viewers in the United
Kingdom and in America was the TV
Guide Network's highest rated
television special in its history.
It has been reported that Susan
Boyle will be invited to perform
"I Dreamed a Dream" for
a small gathering at the birthday
celebration of Michelle
Obama on 17 January 2010. For
More Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Boyle HER
PERSONAL WEBSITE: http://www.susanboylemusic.com/us/
Genres
Years
active
Biography
Early
life
Early
singing
Personal
life
Britain's
Got Talent
Post
Talent
Hospital
stay and BGT tour
