The frumpy virgin who's slaying them on YouTube
She has the eyebrows of a Roman Emperor. She has the square shoulders of one of his centurions. And she walks like a bouncer who had one too many years in the NFL.
When Susan Boyle stepped onto the stage of "Britain's Got Talent" this past weekend, the audience laughed and the judges could barely stop their cheeks from bulging through a guffaw.
Here was a self-confessed, never-been-kissed, unemployed 47-year-old Scotswoman who, when she saw herself on television, said she was mortified that she "looked like a garage."
She told the judges she wanted to be a professional singer. Simon Cowell (yes, he) looked like he wanted to ask her to clean his car.
Susan Boyle has become an overnight sensation on YouTube.
(Credit: YouTube/"Britain's Got Talent")She insisted she wanted to be like Elaine Page, a diminutive English singer who has starred in "Evita," amongst other musicals. The audience choked.
Then Susan Boyle began to sing.
Frankly, she hasn't stopped. More than 6 million people have already turned to YouTube to see what all the fuss is about. They're crying in Calcutta. They're bawling in Brussels.
Why? Because watching someone so far removed from anyone's physical conception of a star finally get an audience for her extraordinary voice is as moving an experience as you're likely to enjoy this year.
Here all the unrealized hopes and dreams that so many harbor till their death are laid bare in an operetta of just a few minutes.
Here is a woman who suffered mild brain damage at birth, who was laughed at in school, and who has probably been laughed at for most of her 47 years because she lived with her mother, because she lives with her cat, and because she doesn't look like friends are supposed to look.
Yes, she is now famous. She will get a recording contract. And, one suspects, she might not enjoy it all as others might.
But if, on watching the YouTube clip, you do not spontaneously burst into tears (I give you at the most 30 seconds into her performance), then you are either an alien creation of Ray Kurzweil or you should pop along to your local shrink for some considerable surgery.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
It doesn't say much in favor of our society that we've come to expect our stars to be 20-something eye candy. When a middle-aged, ordinary-looking person comes along, nobody gives them a second glance. That's awfully shallow of us, to put it mildly.
It reminds me of Paul Potts, another ordinary-looking individual who made his ordinary-looking way onto the same program, and bowled everyone over with a rendition of Nessun Dorma.
Good for Britain's Got Talent for not requiring their contestants to be eye candy. Ordinary-looking people have talent, too.
See 0:54 for Simon looking back at the audience and realizing he's going to have to cover his A$$.
[CNET editors' note: Prohibited content edited out.]
The REASON we are surprised? NOT because she's rather unattractive. There are plenty of unattractive singers out there.
It's because she's nearly 50!
Why is this surprising? Because it is very, very, VERY unlikely that someone who sings that well could make it 47 years without being discovered. That's why. In our media driven society, this is a true rarity. Most singers start out much younger, no matter what they look like.
And of course her complete lack of self confidence didn't help. People don't expect much from people who lack confidence. Even after she finished, as everyone was floored, she thought she had lost and tried to leave the stage. That says a lot about why we didn't expect anything from her in the first place.
That's why it shocked Simon, and Piers, and the lady judge who I don't know. That's why it's shocking when we watch. It's not about some unfair bias against the ugly, it's because, given her total package, it is highly unlikely that she would be that good.
And please, she is NOT perfect. She needs some work in the voice department before her album is cut. But she's much better than the vast majority of people and should be easily trainable to fix the few issues with her delivery.
So, feel good about being pleasantly surprised. Don't let others make you feel guilty for your modest expectations.
I'm very happy for her and for us: hers is a voice that should be heard!
c'mon Chris, therapy just because we don't get caught up in the hoopla?
Everyone should watch "Before The Music Dies".
Her pitch was perfect. Her range was outstanding and her breathing control was amazing. During the 'long' portion of her song where she had to hold that note, she never wavered. She is a world class singer who could easily out sing 99.9% of today's so called 'musicians' that the cookie cutter onto the radio.
The biggest difference with her is she knows how to sing from the heart, and that combined with her skill makes her a world class singer. She reminds me of Paul Potts and should win this contest by a landslide.
When you say "she's not THAT good yet. " Doesn't make your mind hurt?
Actually, i agree; several spots in her song were somewhat shaky. If it was an American Idol audition, she probably would have gotten complaints from the judges before they passed her to the next round. But of course it was not an American Idol audition, and she was clearly nervous and not at all accustomed to being in front of an audience. With training and confidence, she clearly has the natural talent to go very far.
Although people make a big deal about her appearance, some of the greatest names on the stage have been "average" looking in their later years: Ethel Merman, Beverly Sills, etc. She's no worse looking than most 50-year-old ladies who can't afford to spend $$$ on their appearance.
Usually I avoid watching any kind of show of this genre... but damn - that woman can sing!
Then she sang and it brought a tear to my eye. How inspiring to see someone who is salt of the earth have so much confidence in herself and her talent and not be a primadonna about it. Totally awesome ! !
But there are an awful lot of people who have talents that have never been given the opportunity to use them, because the media moguls decide who they promote. And these quite ordinary people, or those who aren't deemed 'attractive enough', because they can't be packaged and sold to make the industry tons of money.
Talent doesn't really matter to them as long as they can sex up the image of the 'star' and mass market it. I'm so tired of cookie cutter singers and actors. They're all alike, with just a few minor differences.
If you watch old movies, you'll see that it wasn't always this way. There were more ordinary folks in the public eye back then. And there wasn't a set of washboard abs, or a boob job in site, much less bleached teeth and perfect smiles.
And the acting, singing, what have you, was great!
It's no longer about the talent, something Jennifer Hudson figured out when she was pushed off the show for being too fat, whoops, I mean by the judges criticism of her singing.
Her voice is great.
Really? She is hardly confident in herself, and to me, the way she came off, she seemed a bit depressed. I hope this will turn her life around...
It is a classic example of a dream coming true against the greatest of odds in the most unlikely of circumstances. A lonely, unloved, conventionally unattractive person takes perhaps her one and only shot at fame and is wildly successful. Great story.
But buried in all of the warmth of this story is a rather sinister implication: The only place such a miraculous example of personal fulfillment and social recognition is possible is in the theater of reality television. Only with Simon Cowell's smug verdict of approval can a dream come true. The awaking of our humanity (and Simon's and that of the audience) is only possible when we operate within the climate of inhumanity that makes a person with this woman's perceived limitations an outcast. Our hearts are warmed precisely because they are generally cold.
And of what the social outcasts who lack a sublime singing voice? Are they to be forever denied the decency of acceptance and recognition because they lack an unnatural talent that can land them before one of pop culture's reality show tribunals?
I suspect that if this woman's voice were as ungainly as her appearance, she would be an internet hit for entirely different reasons.
Great comment
Well, I tried.
Great job Susan...guys, don't hate. love a lil.
I like to think that everyone has a talent or something special about them. ...if they care to follow and nurture it, that is. If you don't develop the gifts that were given to you, then you don't deserve the deceny of acceptance you say they do.
Lastly, I don't care what Simon's opinion is. He's a tool who doesn't know a thing about talent.
She finally got a forum, and she was able to show her stuff. Throughout life, she likely had many opportunities to sing, but for some reason, didn't take them.
It takes talent, preparation and courage to become and overnight success. All the "outcasts" of which you speak lack some or all of those qualities. That's the sad reality of life.
- by logos April 15, 2009 3:23 PM PDT
- She looks like what could be just an average Scottish lady that you would bump into while down at the shops and then that voice opens up and you say to yourself, what talent and what a shame that she never got a chance to show it over the years. Best of luck to the Scottish gal from West Lothian.
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