Post by Inside Australian Idol on Mar 25, 2005 22:38:43 GMT 10
Shooting stars
March 24, 2005
Australian Idol runner-up Anthony Callea.
Photo: Simon Schluter
The Idol franchise chews up and spits out pop wannabes. Last year's runner-up wants to be around for a bit longer, writes Craig Mathieson.
Anthony Callea would like a gin and tonic. It's three in the afternoon and he's been on the move since well before dawn. He was up at five for an interview on Channel Nine's The Today Show and then made a succession of visits to Melbourne's commercial radio breakfast programs.
Seated in the back of a South Melbourne cafe, sunglasses casually folded into the neckband of his T-shirt, the code of the celebrity is asserting itself. His skin is a tone more tanned, his teeth a degree whiter - making for the required contrast - there's the slight strain to his features that comes from answering the same questions over and over, and he has a preternatural ability to sense a camera phone.
The 22-year-old is promoting his second single, the all-purpose double A-side Rain/Bridge Over Troubled Water - which entered the national charts at number one on Monday - and his self-titled debut album, to be released this Sunday. Callea's debut single, his impassioned cover of Andrea Bocelli's The Prayer, the song with which he announced himself on Australian Idol, has sold more than 300,000 copies.
These impressive statistics tell only part of the story. Australian Idol creates careers - putting unknown artists into the spotlight - and it also burns them out. Little more than three months after it began, the career of Sydney teenager Casey Donovan, who topped Callea in the second series of the show derided as a national karaoke competition, is considered finished by music industry observers.
Guy Sebastian, winner of the first Australian Idol series, has put out a second album that has not even approached the phenomenal success of his first. He's also just played a series of shows at Sydney's Star City Casino, a lucrative option, but not indicative of buoyant prospects.
For Anthony Callea, his moment of triumph on Idol, worked towards and thought about for years, is tempered by the fear that his singing career may dazzle brightly but briefly. This helps explain why he pushes himself through a daunting promotional schedule. He is, in a way, already fighting to preserve his career and render it durable. Next month is fine, the next year is up for grabs.
Callea is not an obvious candidate for pop stardom. Sure, he has the accoutrements - the ready smile, the good looks, enough unflagging charm to give out 150 kisses to young female fans at a record signing - but he's not an obsessive dreamer, a pop fantasist.
As a child, Savage Garden's Darren Hayes tried to recreate Michael Jackson's Thriller video. Callea first asked his parents for singing lessons when he was three. "Growing up," he recalls, "whatever I did, I did 100 per cent. I hate doing things half-heartedly. If I'm going to do something I'm going to do it properly."
He grew up and attended school in Werribee. He topped the state with a perfect score for solo music performance in his VCE and worked with various producers, writing and recording demo tracks (a vocal from one of those sessions, for Into Your Heart, which Callea recorded when he was just 16, was good enough to be recycled, with a new backing track, for his album). To earn a living, he performed with a vocal trio and was a singing tutor.
Initially he was cautious about pursuing the Australian Idol path, worried it wasn't the right vehicle for him. He didn't audition for the first series and hesitated to sign up for the sequel.
"There's not much out there to get you noticed," he says. "I was recording from the age of 16, and most of the time you hand things over to people and they just go, 'Yeah, whatever', and they don't even listen to it. Now, I just think, 'I've gone a different way of getting where I wanted to be and there's nothing wrong with that'."
Callea also thinks he has reason to be thankful he didn't win Australian Idol. A perfectionist when it comes to recording and a stickler for choosing the right songs, as a winner he would have been forced to finish an album of essentially pre-recorded tunes in only six days. Any flaws would have nagged at him incessantly, he says.
As it was, he had six weeks. The album's 12 tracks were culled from 40 candidates, and from the start, Callea was mindful of what was at stake.
"This is what I've always wanted to do, you don't want to stuff it up. You have to have the right song selection," he explains. "What I would have thought was right a year or 18 months ago is completely different now that I've worked with certain people."
The result is a capable piece of adult-oriented pop that encompasses orchestrated ballads and smooth, radio confections. The best moments on Anthony Callea have the tone of previous pop era highpoints: Hurts So Bad could be from George Michael's Faith, and Obvious has the kind of sticky chorus at which Robbie Williams and his Take That bandmates used to excel.
"It's not the most ideal situation," says Callea of a schedule that was punctuated by the Australian Idol summer tour, the forgettable group single Good Times that debuted in the ignominious position of No. 53, and promotion for The Prayer. "But this is not something I was going to let slip through my fingers. It had to be done, so you just do it.
"People would say 'You're a bit stubborn', and I would say 'I want what I want and then I'll be happy'. I'd rather be stubborn and put in the hard work than not be happy with it later."
A lot of people tuned into the second series of Australian Idol - the final-verdict episode in which Donovan defeated Callea was the third-most-watched television program in Victoria last year - but few were as interested as Wendy Richards. After working with leading concert promoter Michael Coppel for 11 years, Richards represented 19 Entertainment (the British company that owns the Pop Idol brand) on the tour that followed the first series of Idol and she was contracted to manage the winner of the second series.
She also had the contractual right to manage any of the other finalists. Not surprisingly, she took up her option on Callea (Richards also says that if Callea had won, she would have chosen to manage Casey Donovan).
Richards consulted 19 Entertainment, which has licensed Idol in 57 countries, about what to expect for second-year finalists. The answer was rather stark: "If you look around the world at second-series winners, it is just not as big," she says. "The expectation is still there however."
This became clear after the launch of Casey Donovan's album, For You. Guy Sebastian and Shannon Noll, the two first-season Australian finalists, had both gone on to sell more than 350,000 copies of their debut albums.
Anticipating a similar result, the newly merged Sony BMG Records shipped more than 210,000 of Donovan's albums to retailers.
For You lasted only 13 weeks in the top 150 and it is thought that about 100,000 albums have been returned by record chains and department stores. Sony BMG has since publicly denied reports that Donovan is to be dropped by the label.
The belief that without the prime-time support of Australia Idol, the finalists' careers would wither to varying degrees, has been vindicated. Guy Sebastian's second album, Beautiful Life, was a better set of songs than his debut, but it only managed a quarter of the sales. The expenditure for subsequent discs is also far greater, putting more pressure on the artist.
And the cost to Sony BMG to stage Sebastian's Out With My Baby performance at last year's ARIAs was reportedly $90,000.
The Idol process is pop culture strip-mining. It chomps through the public's interest in their favourite acts. Personal anecdotes and attributes, nuggets that might normally be revealed over several albums are force-fed to the viewing audience in a matter of weeks.
Building a long-term career is never easy, but graduating from Australian Idol appears to decrease the odds.
Wendy Richards nevertheless believes the transition is possible for Callea.
The vocalist himself, in his focused way, is already preparing himself.
"You have to be in control, know what you want and create goals and plans and make sure that it lasts long-term," he says. "After the album, I'm planning on doing shows in Melbourne and Sydney and then a national tour in July and then, hopefully, by the end of the year I can release something in Europe and Asia and see how we go there."
Beyond that, he's fairly sanguine. "I can only do what I can do," he says with a shrug.
He still lives at home, although he's barely there any more. "Apparently I own a penthouse apartment in Sydney. I'm still trying to find it." He stays close to family and friends, and the quality he has come to appreciate most in other people is sincerity.
"I can't stand fake people," he declares. "I have a very good radar.
Whenever I meet someone new I always try and work out what they're on about and who they are before I open up to them. I put up a guard, but sometimes you have to, especially in the position I'm in now."
The gin and tonic is finished. The next item on the schedule is a photo shoot. On the way out of the cafe he has his photo taken with a staff member. Callea is unfailingly polite, but wary.
"I've had to grow up in the last six months, be more independent and learn to do things for myself," he says. "When I make a decision now it dictates where my career is going."
Anthony Callea is released on Sunday through Sony/BMG.
www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/03/24/1111525264599.html
March 24, 2005
Australian Idol runner-up Anthony Callea.
Photo: Simon Schluter
The Idol franchise chews up and spits out pop wannabes. Last year's runner-up wants to be around for a bit longer, writes Craig Mathieson.
Anthony Callea would like a gin and tonic. It's three in the afternoon and he's been on the move since well before dawn. He was up at five for an interview on Channel Nine's The Today Show and then made a succession of visits to Melbourne's commercial radio breakfast programs.
Seated in the back of a South Melbourne cafe, sunglasses casually folded into the neckband of his T-shirt, the code of the celebrity is asserting itself. His skin is a tone more tanned, his teeth a degree whiter - making for the required contrast - there's the slight strain to his features that comes from answering the same questions over and over, and he has a preternatural ability to sense a camera phone.
The 22-year-old is promoting his second single, the all-purpose double A-side Rain/Bridge Over Troubled Water - which entered the national charts at number one on Monday - and his self-titled debut album, to be released this Sunday. Callea's debut single, his impassioned cover of Andrea Bocelli's The Prayer, the song with which he announced himself on Australian Idol, has sold more than 300,000 copies.
These impressive statistics tell only part of the story. Australian Idol creates careers - putting unknown artists into the spotlight - and it also burns them out. Little more than three months after it began, the career of Sydney teenager Casey Donovan, who topped Callea in the second series of the show derided as a national karaoke competition, is considered finished by music industry observers.
Guy Sebastian, winner of the first Australian Idol series, has put out a second album that has not even approached the phenomenal success of his first. He's also just played a series of shows at Sydney's Star City Casino, a lucrative option, but not indicative of buoyant prospects.
For Anthony Callea, his moment of triumph on Idol, worked towards and thought about for years, is tempered by the fear that his singing career may dazzle brightly but briefly. This helps explain why he pushes himself through a daunting promotional schedule. He is, in a way, already fighting to preserve his career and render it durable. Next month is fine, the next year is up for grabs.
Callea is not an obvious candidate for pop stardom. Sure, he has the accoutrements - the ready smile, the good looks, enough unflagging charm to give out 150 kisses to young female fans at a record signing - but he's not an obsessive dreamer, a pop fantasist.
As a child, Savage Garden's Darren Hayes tried to recreate Michael Jackson's Thriller video. Callea first asked his parents for singing lessons when he was three. "Growing up," he recalls, "whatever I did, I did 100 per cent. I hate doing things half-heartedly. If I'm going to do something I'm going to do it properly."
He grew up and attended school in Werribee. He topped the state with a perfect score for solo music performance in his VCE and worked with various producers, writing and recording demo tracks (a vocal from one of those sessions, for Into Your Heart, which Callea recorded when he was just 16, was good enough to be recycled, with a new backing track, for his album). To earn a living, he performed with a vocal trio and was a singing tutor.
Initially he was cautious about pursuing the Australian Idol path, worried it wasn't the right vehicle for him. He didn't audition for the first series and hesitated to sign up for the sequel.
"There's not much out there to get you noticed," he says. "I was recording from the age of 16, and most of the time you hand things over to people and they just go, 'Yeah, whatever', and they don't even listen to it. Now, I just think, 'I've gone a different way of getting where I wanted to be and there's nothing wrong with that'."
Callea also thinks he has reason to be thankful he didn't win Australian Idol. A perfectionist when it comes to recording and a stickler for choosing the right songs, as a winner he would have been forced to finish an album of essentially pre-recorded tunes in only six days. Any flaws would have nagged at him incessantly, he says.
As it was, he had six weeks. The album's 12 tracks were culled from 40 candidates, and from the start, Callea was mindful of what was at stake.
"This is what I've always wanted to do, you don't want to stuff it up. You have to have the right song selection," he explains. "What I would have thought was right a year or 18 months ago is completely different now that I've worked with certain people."
The result is a capable piece of adult-oriented pop that encompasses orchestrated ballads and smooth, radio confections. The best moments on Anthony Callea have the tone of previous pop era highpoints: Hurts So Bad could be from George Michael's Faith, and Obvious has the kind of sticky chorus at which Robbie Williams and his Take That bandmates used to excel.
"It's not the most ideal situation," says Callea of a schedule that was punctuated by the Australian Idol summer tour, the forgettable group single Good Times that debuted in the ignominious position of No. 53, and promotion for The Prayer. "But this is not something I was going to let slip through my fingers. It had to be done, so you just do it.
"People would say 'You're a bit stubborn', and I would say 'I want what I want and then I'll be happy'. I'd rather be stubborn and put in the hard work than not be happy with it later."
A lot of people tuned into the second series of Australian Idol - the final-verdict episode in which Donovan defeated Callea was the third-most-watched television program in Victoria last year - but few were as interested as Wendy Richards. After working with leading concert promoter Michael Coppel for 11 years, Richards represented 19 Entertainment (the British company that owns the Pop Idol brand) on the tour that followed the first series of Idol and she was contracted to manage the winner of the second series.
She also had the contractual right to manage any of the other finalists. Not surprisingly, she took up her option on Callea (Richards also says that if Callea had won, she would have chosen to manage Casey Donovan).
Richards consulted 19 Entertainment, which has licensed Idol in 57 countries, about what to expect for second-year finalists. The answer was rather stark: "If you look around the world at second-series winners, it is just not as big," she says. "The expectation is still there however."
This became clear after the launch of Casey Donovan's album, For You. Guy Sebastian and Shannon Noll, the two first-season Australian finalists, had both gone on to sell more than 350,000 copies of their debut albums.
Anticipating a similar result, the newly merged Sony BMG Records shipped more than 210,000 of Donovan's albums to retailers.
For You lasted only 13 weeks in the top 150 and it is thought that about 100,000 albums have been returned by record chains and department stores. Sony BMG has since publicly denied reports that Donovan is to be dropped by the label.
The belief that without the prime-time support of Australia Idol, the finalists' careers would wither to varying degrees, has been vindicated. Guy Sebastian's second album, Beautiful Life, was a better set of songs than his debut, but it only managed a quarter of the sales. The expenditure for subsequent discs is also far greater, putting more pressure on the artist.
And the cost to Sony BMG to stage Sebastian's Out With My Baby performance at last year's ARIAs was reportedly $90,000.
The Idol process is pop culture strip-mining. It chomps through the public's interest in their favourite acts. Personal anecdotes and attributes, nuggets that might normally be revealed over several albums are force-fed to the viewing audience in a matter of weeks.
Building a long-term career is never easy, but graduating from Australian Idol appears to decrease the odds.
Wendy Richards nevertheless believes the transition is possible for Callea.
The vocalist himself, in his focused way, is already preparing himself.
"You have to be in control, know what you want and create goals and plans and make sure that it lasts long-term," he says. "After the album, I'm planning on doing shows in Melbourne and Sydney and then a national tour in July and then, hopefully, by the end of the year I can release something in Europe and Asia and see how we go there."
Beyond that, he's fairly sanguine. "I can only do what I can do," he says with a shrug.
He still lives at home, although he's barely there any more. "Apparently I own a penthouse apartment in Sydney. I'm still trying to find it." He stays close to family and friends, and the quality he has come to appreciate most in other people is sincerity.
"I can't stand fake people," he declares. "I have a very good radar.
Whenever I meet someone new I always try and work out what they're on about and who they are before I open up to them. I put up a guard, but sometimes you have to, especially in the position I'm in now."
The gin and tonic is finished. The next item on the schedule is a photo shoot. On the way out of the cafe he has his photo taken with a staff member. Callea is unfailingly polite, but wary.
"I've had to grow up in the last six months, be more independent and learn to do things for myself," he says. "When I make a decision now it dictates where my career is going."
Anthony Callea is released on Sunday through Sony/BMG.
www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/03/24/1111525264599.html
