Coming in second again, the Scottish talent sensation has lost to teen pop star Taylor Swift for selling the most records in 2009. Her debut album I Dreamed a Dream sold 3.1 million copies, narrowly missing the 3.21 million of Swift's self titled album. Poor Susan, just shy of number one...
But is the comparison particularly fair? Boyle's debut album has undoubtedly been one of the fastest selling to date, having only just been released in late November - so she certainly takes home the prize for highest selling release for 2009.
Yet, news outlets have been eager to cover the possibility of the Britain's Got Talent discovery to overtake best-selling albums, like Swift's that were technically released in 2008. The set up and comparison seem grossly unfair, and remembering Boyle's collapse earlier this year after losing the top spot in the final episode of the reality show, it seems hardly appropriate and quite insensitive.
Princess Diana, the Tiger Woods - in this age of instant news media, reporters are way too keen to headline a story to sell news. And if we're going to start paying for content, like media mogul Rupert Murdoch suggests - there's no telling what sort of "quality news" will be put out in the future. I'm just hoping that audiences prove to be too smart to continue to fall for these sensationalist stories.
Meanwhile, I certainly hope that Boyle doesn't succumb to the pressures of media expectations this time. Hopefully, after her last experience, she's gained more insight on how to handle the media. As there's no doubt that she'll stay in the spotlight for a long while to come.
She has so much to be proud of, reaching number one in Australia, the UK and the US. She's certainly acquired quite a strong fan base here in Australia, with
music CD sales topping 400,000 albums over the course of a few weeks, which is 6 times platinum by our measures. We're certainly hoping she makes it out this way soon.
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