He may have received his start on Australian Idol, arguably the progenitor of modern reality singing competitions, but Shannon Noll isn’t a fan of today’s TV singing competitions.
“In our year it was all about the contestants. The judges were unknown,” Noll recently told AAP. To be fair, he has a point, the focus of the first season of Australian Idol was squarely on the contestants.
There were no big-name celebrity judges simply there to plug an album and collect a check. The judges — Marcia Hines, Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson, and Mark Holden — were veterans of the music industry, and besides Hines, had little name recognition.
“Now they bring Americans out who announce a new single and a tour,” said Noll. “I think I heard one of them go ‘You can win this for me’ and I’m going, ‘Who is this supposed to be for?’ It’s supposed to be for the kids, not for the judges.”
According to Noll, not only do the judges rob the contestants of the spotlight, they may be harming them and their careers. “These kids believe every word that they’re getting told and I worry about them because it’s a bit dangerous for them.”
“I’ve sort of been through the highs and the lows of it and it’s hard until you get there to be able to handle the part where people don’t give a s**t about you anymore all of a sudden.”
Back in May, Noll spoke to News Corp about the meme-born career resurgence he’s experienced in recent years, revealing that he loves the new attention he’s been receiving and the new opportunities it’s given him.
After enjoying a string of chart hits with ‘Drive’, ‘Shine’, and ‘Lift’, Noll largely receded from the spotlight and was relegated to punchline status for many Australians and he became the subject of many popular memes.
The memes eventually turned to thousands upon thousands of people RSVP-ing to his gigs on Facebook and calling for festival organisers to add Nollsy to their bills. The attention effectively reignited his career.
“They’re not just saying ‘interested in coming’ on Facebook, they’re making the effort to get out from the computer and come along to the shows,” Noll told News Corp, opining that many of the fans coming to gigs remember him from his Idol days.
