Would a dream change the world? The answer is
YES!
Susan Boyle (born June 15, 1961) is a Scottish amateur singer who came to public attention on April 11, 2009 when she appeared as a contestant on the third series of Britain's Got Talent. Boyle leapt to almost immediate global 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 skepticism based on her ungroomed appearance and awkwardness. In contrast, her vocal performance was so outstanding that she has been dubbed "The Woman Who Shut Up Simon Cowell". She received a standing ovation from the live audience, attracting 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 her powerful voice with the audience's first impression of her triggered global interest. Articles about her appeared in newspapers all over the world, while online videos of her performance totalled over 50 million views within a week. Cowell is reported to be setting up a contract with Boyle with his Syco Music company label, a subsidiary of Sony Music.
Her 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. The youngest of four brothers and five sisters, 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, leading to mild brain damage. She was diagnosed as having learning difficulties, which led to bullying and mockery at school.
After leaving school with few qualifications, she was employed in the kitchen of West Lothian College, and took part in government training schemes. She would visit the theatre from time to time to listen to professional singers, and 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. 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.
Boyle's father died in the 1990s, and her siblings had left home, leaving Boyle to look after her aging 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. 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 didn't feel ready to do it until after her mother's death. 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 church in Whitburn. 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 added later, "Oh, I was just joking around. It was just banter and it has been blown way out of proportion."
Her Television performanceBoyle 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 aired on 11 April 2009. This performance was widely reported and a video of her singing was viewed by tens of millions of people on the website YouTube. Boyle was reportedly shocked and amazed by the strength of this reaction.
Her News MediaMany 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 New York Daily News, 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, Korea's The Chosun Ilbo, Holland's De Telegraaf and Belgium's Het Laatste Nieuws.
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 discovered by British reality television, with Forbes magazine predicting that Boyle could follow in Potts' footsteps and enjoy a long, successful and profitable career. Additionally, she appeared on CNN's Larry King Live opposite Ashton Kutcher, who had previously watched her performance with his wife.
Her TV ShowsFollowing 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".
Her Social Media
Writing in The Guardian Leigh Holmwood stated 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. Within a week, the video had been viewed more than 28 million times, making it the most viewed video of the month worldwide. 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.
The Los Angeles Times wrote that the popularity of this video 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. Although recognising the name 'Demi Moore', Boyle knew little about her either, but thanked them for their support.
Her Charity CD
Boyle recorded a version of "Cry Me a River" for a charity CD produced in 1999 at a school in Whitburn, West Lothian. This recording has now been released on the web, and has gathered immediate acclaim, with the New York Post writing that this shows that Boyle is not a "one-trick pony" and that the rarity of this CD imprint, with only 1,000 produced, will make them valuable collector's items. Other media reaction was similarly positive, with Hello! magazine stating that the recording is a further illustration of the level of Boyle's talent, going on to write that the song "cements her status" as a singing star.
