Saturday, February 17

we live in an age of idols

I arrived back in 'toon town today to a woman holding a "Canadian Idol" sign in the arrivals area of the airport. As much as I was tempted, I chose not to walk up to the woman and say "I'm the Canadian Idol".

Works out Canadian Idol is doing their auditions in 'toon town this weekend. I also caught an episode of American Idol this week and began to realize there are idols all around us.

The current "idol" phenomenon began in the United Kingdom. It was called "Pop Idol". With the popularity of the show in America it appears they gave up the name and have switched to the show "X-Factor" which has a few slight variations, but essentially the same format.

The very first winner of Pop Idol was a young man named Will Young. He has gone on to have several albums in England, and won numerous awards and sold out Wembley Arena. He never broke in the States, but that's probably because he was openly gay in the competition. It seems the UK is more accepting of gay pop stars than North America.

Anyways, here's a clip of Will Young covering the Steven Sills song "Love the one you're with" at the Prince's Trust 30th Anniversary concert. I thought it was fitting because it has been a couple of weeks without brit pop, which is just too long.

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