Sing like you're winning

So you’re an aspiring singer and you’ve decided it’s your life-long dream to make it in the music business, or ‘the biz’ as it is sometimes referred to by either Richard Wilkins or some other two-bit Hollywood reporter who tried to make it in ‘the biz’ but failed and has now found themselves reporting on other more successful and attractive people for an Australian breakfast TV show. 

But how are you going to break into the market when you’re not eighteen years old and willing to sing about how girls flipping their hair gets you overwhelmed? (By the way One Direction, if that’s all it takes to get you overwhelmed then a) what are you on and can I have some please?, and b) I’m just warning you once real life and puberty sets in it might not be rainbows and kittens and sunshine all the time as may have been promised to you by Simon Cowell’s fitted black t-shirt.) 

Luckily for a ‘real talent’ such as yourself, there’s no shortage of reality television shows to ‘discover’ you or humiliate you to the point of quitting music altogether. But which reality show do you choose? And what song do you sing to impress the judges disguised as successful recording artists? 

To give yourself an advantage before even choosing which program to audition for, why not be related to someone who is already in the music business? 

Or perhaps you could be someone who has already had a record label and some degree of success, but pissed it all away after your hit song sold a hundred thousand copies and someone you know got cancer or died or both and it changed your life forever until now, because you’ve just hit 40 and realised your life is going nowhere and perhaps you should get your shit together. 

Although your famous and more successful relative may already have the contacts you need in order to pass on demos or meet with record label executives, there’s nothing quite like being reminded you are so-and-so’s brother, daughter, sister or fifth cousin twice removed, and that’s all you’re likely to stay, on national television. 

And while this method will do little to propel you out of the shadows of your famous father or brother, it will guarantee you get through your first audition, because isn’t Kyle already enough of an arsehole without prematurely squashing the dreams of one of the offspring of Australian Rock Royalty™? 

Do you have the X Factor? I’ll give you the hot tip - if you answered yes, you probably don’t. You see, the beauty of someone actually having the x-factor is that they don’t realise they have it. 

And we don’t really know what they’ve got either, that’s why we call it the ‘x-factor’ and not ‘talent’, ‘a great voice’ or ‘a ripping six-pack’. The irony of this program is that practically no one who is on it actually has the x-factor (judges included), and if they do happen to be crowned the winner they end up living in a cave or performing at Westfield shopping centres. So if that’s where my x-factor takes me I think I’ll keep it to myself thank you very much. 

Are you Australian and do you have talent? Why not go and get judged by an Irishman, a Minogue and a Kyle? I can think of plenty of good reasons not to, but if you have shit-for-brains and can stick knives down your throat while singing a Whitney Houston song then all the power to you. 

I’m sure the people behind this show had Jack Vidgen specially made and kept waiting in some sort of cryogenic coffin until the day came for the world to be exposed to be a small blonde male with helmet hair, frighteningly white teeth and the voice of a woman. And that’s just the host of the program. 

So if you still haven’t been given the ‘opportunity of a lifetime’, consider this. When you sing, do people listen, or do they turn their backs and pretend you aren’t there? Do you have the voice of an angel but look like Shrek’s love child? If so, you should audition for The Voice, and when those judges turn around to say they want you but are simultaneously repulsed by your oily skin, missing teeth and rat’s tail, you can have the last laugh my friend. But please don’t because we viewers at home don’t want to be put off our dinner. 

If you still haven’t made it by now, just look into the camera and tell us your journey doesn't end here, and this isn’t the last we’ve seen of you. Even though we know it is. Until they resurrect Australian Idol where Marcia Hines can sit on the fence and give you a glimmer of hope that you still have a chance of making it in the biz.