news articles 15 november

[Inside Australian Idol]

It's a Guy thing
By Nui Te Koha
November 15, 2003


MUSIC heavyweights want Guy Sebastian crowned Australian Idol. As Sebastian and fellow finalist Shannon Noll await their fate by public vote, industry support has shifted to the Bro With the 'Fro.
"They are poles apart musically, but Guy has got a real talent," music guru "Molly" Meldrum said this week.

"They are both good for different reasons. Shannon is mainstream. He is more your Big Brother thing. He has that kind of appeal. Guy is a very good singer."

Nova FM music director Estelle Paterson, Renee Geyer and singing coach David Jaanz, agree on Sebastian.

Noll, a farmer, and Sebsatian, a teacher, survived a nationwide audition of 10,000, and a gruelling weekly sing-off to reach the Idol grand final.


Last week, Noll wisely covered Bryan Adams and Jimmy Barnes songs.

Sebastian stayed on the commercial fringe, choosing Jackson 5 and Beyonce Knowles.

Each performed a rendition of a new song, Angels Brought Me Here. Noll, whose father died in an accident, gave a highly emotional version.

"The real winner of Australian Idol will be BMG," said Geyer.

BMG Records owns the rights to Idol and will sign the eventual winner.

"I think Guy should win," Geyer said.

"He is a musician, he has his head screwed on straight and knows what he is doing."

Geyer said Paulini Curuenavuli, ousted three weeks ago, should have been a grand finalist.

Jaanz, who has taught Delta Goodrem, Tina Arena, Holly Valance and US star Anastasia, supports Sebastian.

"Shannon is a very good rock singer, but Guy is a freak," said Jaanz.

Paterson says Nova 100 FM will play Sebastian "no matter what".

"Guy has a great voice, he knows what he is doing and he is flat out talented," she said.

"I just hope they give him the chance to sing some really good songs. It really will come down to the songs."

Herald Sun

entertainment.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4459,7873466%255E10431%255E%255Enbv,00.html

[Inside Australian Idol]

Shannon wins vocal support of singing expert
By Tony Davis
November 15, 2003


The Conservatorium's Michael Halliwell gives Shannon Noll's voice his vote. Photo: Jon Reid

Shannon has a better voice than Guy or Cosima, but none can match Paulini, the Fijian-born Sydneysider who was the first of the Australian Idol final four to be sent packing.

That's the considered opinion of Michael Halliwell, the head of vocal studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Dr Halliwell will start auditioning 150 potential singing students next week as part of his role at the "Con". But he agreed to start the process early by listening to the Australian Idol four, and evaluating the technical quality of their voices for the Herald.

Dr Halliwell, 50, is a South African-born, London-trained former opera singer who has sat through thousands of auditions to uncover vocal potential.

He had not seen the hit television show before yesterday when he sat in his sound-proof office and worked his way through studio recordings and live television performances of Guy Sebastian, Shannon Noll, Cosima De Vito and Pauline "Paulini" Curuenavuli .

So has the show, as claimed, unearthed real talent?

In general yes, says Dr Halliwell, though his opinion of hot favourite Guy would seem to run against popular opinion. "Shannon's is probably a voice with more range and more dynamic variation and colour variation," he said.

"I would classify Shannon's voice from a classical point of view as a light lyric tenor, with a nice easy extension to the top. I think he uses it pretty intelligently, carefully. He is the most comfortable vocally of the four in terms of what he is singing And I think it's a good, strong voice."

Dr Halliwell feels Shannon could respond well to classical training, even though the technique is completely different. "Mozart maybe, nothing too heavy, no big dramatic operas."

He considers Guy's sound pretty, but limited. "It's almost like a speaking way of singing, it's not really using the full vocal mechanism."

Dr Halliwell agrees that voice quality and star quality are not always the same thing, and that judging the technical quality of voices can depend on repertoire.

But he rates Paulini above Shannon. "Her voice has areas where I think it makes it a little more interesting than his. Of all the four singers she has the widest range of colour.

"It's a voice with a lot of substance, a strong voice."

Although he was taken with Cosima's presentation and "pizzaz", Dr Halliwell found her voice "fairly limited in sound".

If Shannon were to turn up at the Con for auditions after next Wednesday's final episode of Australian Idol would Dr Halliwell be interested?

"Certainly, we have students that audition by singing popular songs. We get a lot of potential in voices - what is in a voice that hasn't yet come out. For me [Shannon] shows a lot of potential in the voice and he'll probably take it a lot further."

But if he could choose just one? "Paulini."

www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/14/1068674380834.html

[Inside Australian Idol]

The gospel truth about an idol
By Penelope Debelle
November 15, 2003


His brother's keeper ... Oliver Sebastian, Guy's elder brother, joins worship at the Paradise Community Church in Adelaide. Photo: Peter Mathew

Angels may have brought Guy Sebastian to the stage of the Sydney Opera House for the grand final of Australian Idol, but he also has some very earthly support from an Assembly of God church in Paradise, a suburb in north-eastern Adelaide.

This is no ordinary church. Every Sunday there are so many worshippers streaming into the Paradise Community Church that security guards have to direct the traffic. Up to 4000 are drawn here each week by the church's strongly evangelical, music-driven style of worship. It has become such a force that one of its leaders, Pastor Andrew Evans, was elected to the South Australian Parliament at the last election, representing the conservative Family First party.

For the first 20 minutes there is nothing but song, contemporary gospel performed by remarkably well-trained singers whose images are projected behind them, U2-style, on giant video screens. The church has just bought second-hand television equipment from Channel Nine in Perth to use with lighting to create a mood of song-based religious ecstasy.


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For the past seven years Guy Sebastian has sung out front, topping his performances with a solo Christmas carol last year in front of 15,000 people. He has also recorded a number of Christian rock CDs.

"I've always known he was outstanding. He is an unbelievable talent," says the church's music director, Pastor Paul Zaia. "We've got a number of different singers who I think are equally as good as Guy, purely from a vocal point of view. But they don't have a 'fro."

Born in Malaysia, where his geologist father, Ivan, and mother, Nellie, were based, Guy and his brothers are integral to the church's music. Oliver, 25, helps with arrangements, sings, plays keyboards and guitar on the main stage, while Chris, 15, and Jeremy, 13, sing in the church's junior Solid Rock gospel services.

"Guy is the first one to meet with big-time success. He is the only one to have sought it out at this stage," says Oliver, who works in IT and is happy to enjoy music as a hobby.

Paul Zaia has been music adviser to Guy throughout the competition and last Sunday he and the head of the church, Pastor Ashley Evans (son of Andrew Evans, MLC) were in the crowd cheering on Guy during the final sing-off with the other surviving Idol contestant, Shannon. Zaia says that once Guy was among the top 40 contestants, he warned him to prepare for the top three. "He'd say, 'No, it just won't happen'," Zaia says. "And he'd rattle off a whole lot of other guys who he felt were really talented and were probably a lot better-looking than him. 'No, Millsy will get it; Levi will get it.' He felt in all honesty that there were a lot of people other than him that were better qualified."

The church has helped guide Guy's musical choices, giving him brutally honest advice. "Sometimes we felt Guy's song choice hasn't been great and in this competition song choice has been crucial," Zaia says. Climb Every Mountain, which Guy performed the week before the final, was particularly risky, he says, because of the era it represented and its suitability for Guy's image. "If I had known Christina Aguilera had also done a cover of that song, I would have been less nervous. But he did an outstanding job and sold it brilliantly."

The church's dilemma has been how to embrace Guy without singling him out for superstar treatment, anathema to its inclusive approach. So they are backing him quietly, without too much fuss, but their weekly church news segment is littered with Idol references.

They also know how to vote. "Absolutely," says Andrew Evans. "I told him I was taking out a second mortgage, and my wife is, too."

Oliver says it is almost irrelevant now whether Guy or Shannon wins; neither could be better known, no matter what the vote. And either way, the Paradise Community Church has lost one of its best singers because Guy, who is free of romantic attachments, will move to Sydney to pursue his music dream.

It is a sign of Guy's work ethic that Oliver says he has already written and selected most of the songs for his first post-Idol album, even if he does not win.

"He is anticipating, 'OK, I might not win and this work may be all for nothing', but he needs to invest in it now," Oliver says. "If he wins on Wednesday, he is going to have a limited time to make it great and he doesn't want to release an album of manufactured pop. He doesn't want to be another failed Popstar."

www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/14/1068674380924.html

[Inside Australian Idol]

Idol chatter
By Nick Galvin
November 15, 2003
Icon

And then there were two. Nope, we're not talking about boofy blokes with IQs smaller than their shoe size chasing a bag of wind around a paddock.

This is the real game: the pointy end of Australian Idol.

And, while it's quite acceptable to admit to being a swinging voter at election time (and you can even get away with not caring much who will win the Rugby World Cup), it's social death to have no opinion on who will be named Australian Idol at the Opera House on Wednesday.

Should it be Guy or Shannon?

To help you decide, take a look at the official Australian Idol site. There you'll find plenty of background about boy-from-the-bush Shannon and rival Guy, the dude from Adelaide with the Willie Mason-style afro.

If you've managed to miss the hype so far, you'll benefit from a quick look through au.australianidol.yahoo.com/contestants, which features biographies of those who fell by the wayside - otherwise known as losers.

Note the outstandingly lame nicknames adopted by the various wannabes, including Robert Mills's creative "Millsy" and Kelly Cavuoto's "Kels" ("but she prefers to be called Kelly").

Shannon Noll will answer to "Nolley", while the unimaginative Guy has no nickname at all.

Over at Australian Idol Online there's a great archive of stories that have come out of the show so far. You can read a report about the episode in which Cosima De Vito announced she was withdrawing for medical reasons and (my personal favourite) an account of the show in which judges Mark Holden and Ian Dickson told contestant Paulini Curuenavuli she was too porky for her dress.

My advice to Paulini, if the comment still bothers her, is to take a look at Mark Holden's page from Nostalgia Central. Anyone who once had a haircut like that should take a long hard look at themselves before attacking others' fashion sense.

Of course, Ian "Dicko" Dickson is way out front in the tragic haircut stakes but he salvages much credibility by telling the no-hopers precisely how untalented they are.

Sample the wit and wisdom of Dicko at Behind the Idol. "That's not a voice, that's a weapon of mass destruction," he said to one hapless contestant, while another was told: "If the BeeGees heard you sing that, you would finish the other brothers off."

On occasion though, he has simply resorted to the straightforward approach, as in "You - shut up. How can you expect us to judge that?"

Genius.

The Inside Australian Idol site has a well-populated forum where fans discuss everything from the judges ("I always thought that Australia's worst crime was sheep-shagging until they made [Mark] Holden an Idol judge") to intelligent comments on the relative merits of the final two contestants ("Guy sux. Guy sux. Guy sux.").

There is also a voting page that, like all online voting devices, is capable of being rorted but might still give a clue as to which way the final will go. When I dropped by, Guy had racked up 68 per cent of the votes. Maybe he doesn't suck quite as much as some on the forum would have us believe.

At Centrebet you'll find a further clue about Shannon and Guy's relative chances. According to the bookies, Guy is a raging hot favourite at $1.25 while Shannon is only a lukewarm $3.50.

While you're there, you could also have a punt on Danish Idol: Dorthe Kjeldgaard Hansen is looking pretty hot at $2.75.

And if you're looking forward to the whole circus being over come Thursday morning, you'd better hope the Australian Idol Karaoke Hits DVD doesn't turn up under your Christmas tree.

According to the promotional spiel, you'll be able to "interact and perform the hits belted out over their exciting journey to find the next Australian Idol".

On the other hand, if the end of the Australian series will leave you hanging out for more, fear not: World Idol is just around the corner.

The international version of the concept will pit the winners of 12 Idol competitions from around the globe against each other in a sort of Young Talent Time meets Eurovision affair.

Can't wait.

www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/14/1068674375147.html

[hmmmm]

I reckon that Michael Halliwell dude just lost all his credibility. Shannon better than Guy and Cosima? What's he smoking? That guy's living in the Twilight Zone.