The fact that no one in this country gives a flying one about the five thousand or so gobsheens who turned up in Dublin, Galway, Cork and Belfast to be publicly humiliated and generally ridiculed by Louis, Linda and Bill has done nothing to deter the Irish newspapers from avoiding relevant current events and shamelessly chronicling the non-event that is the mass media exploitation of innocents by the series we all know as "Popstars". It seems that Irish journalists, having been spat out the bottom of UCD or DCU journalism and communications, cannot resist the lure of free drink, free feels and maybe even a quick quote that's on offer at Popstars press conventions, thus the reason for absolutely NO news in the papers over the past weeks.
We at NEW RIOT, have of course, decided to sell out completely and follow the crowd. This decision came in a moment of clarity last Sunday night as I watched Popstars for what I thought was the last time, until I heard Nadine's shocking revelation. At that moment I knew RTÉ were going to milk this one for all it was worth. God knows the 'Big Bosses' were already sweating up a storm with the end of the 'fab' series looming and the vast expanse of barren TV wasteland being all that was left until the new series of Bachelors Walk gets underway. Huge sighs of relief were heaved in semi-d's all over south county Dublin, they had another hour, at least, of delightfully crappy TV, to pay for their dirty weekends away in Clonakielty with the office interns.
Anyway,
a TV phenomenon, Popstars certainly is, pulling one third of this country's
population each week, it has been pronounced by... ahem... my granny as "better
than Gaybo", and has been compared, by another intellectual (not myself,
of course) with other "Trash TV" legends such as Jerry Springer
("we're not worthy") and When Kid's Entertainers & Church Goers
Go Bad 3 (hats off to Sky, we saw it there first!). As I've said before and
I'll say it again, there is nothing that can make compelling, hard-hitting
TV better than the ritualistic dream-crushing of fragile young trendies, by
the vicious, back-stabbing ego that is, two time Eurovision Song Contest winner,
Linda Martin. (We would like to point out that Linda is actually a lovely
woman, who is being unfairly painted in an unflattering light for the purpose
of this article.)
Of course, the real star of the show is not Linda 'drunk on power' Martin or pop 'Svengali Louis (the press must have the memory of goldfish, as Mr. Walsh had three pop successes and exactly 3,452 flops. Does anyone remember the Carter Twins, last seen in a horrific 'live' set at Whelans?? Apparently the crowd turned ugly when twin no1 caught a whiff of cider and sang a horrendous, drunken rendition of "Ride On". While his brother tried to fend off the crowd with futile pleas for mercy, Louis made his escape out the back), the real star is of course Nadine.
Drama queen of the show Nadine, should surely be remembered for all the make-up she wore throughout the series. Frankly I can't believe the stupidity of the producers, she looked like a girl queing outside the Avoca on a Friday night... "yeah, hi, stupid producers??... she's UNDER-AGE!"
Well, in fairness to her she made an admirable case, no she wasn't born in '85, it was '83... no I mean '87 - make up your mind girl! Anyway fifteen year olds country-wide were taking notes on how not to get served as Nadine blundered around haplessly on screen 'fake-passport searching' and throwing out random dates... I think we've all been there. Obviously the best possible career move at this point for Nadine, is to make a deal with RTE, in exchange for a solo contract with Louis as her manager, she will fake her own death. Thus even further prolonging the current series of Popstars and perhaps even spawning a spinoff series entitled "Life of Nadine" or "Six do Sorrow Sorrowfully" for the band.
Ahh... what the hell, they could even get The Sun to play along, for a similar recording contract to be signed for their political correspondent, and do a cover story depicting kids weeping in the streets for the "loss of our brightest star" and such like. Actually, as far as I can see this has all been a forgone conclusion.
How else
could it have ended
but in tears? -ya spend all day coked up, singin' to yourself, dancin' around
with a hairbrush... Makin' a fool of yourself on national TV is all that gets
you through the day.
