Il Divo

Il Divo is an “opera boy band” put together by Simon Cowell from American Idol fame. Michaela, Mel and I went to their “Media Launch” at Pyrmont last night.

Although none of us had heard of them before receiving the invitation, they’re obviously doing well having sold millions of records overseas already.

They sang just five songs but the show seemed to last for hours. Most interesting was an Italian version of Toni Braxton’s “Unchain My Heart” and most controversial was a version of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”. They look good and they sing well. However, they can’t move – it was like watching a black and white fashion ad – and there wasn’t all that much passion in their performance. That’s why I thought they were a little boring.

Afterwards I spoke with a few people who work at other radio stations, with the consensus being they’ll find radio airplay difficult to obtain. The music radio market in Sydney is sufficiently predictable enough to prevent the inclusion of an opera boy band in any of the current available formats. They might, however, rate an occasional play on some of the talk stations. This, of course, might be a good thing since, if they’re not being played on radio the only way people will be able to hear them is if they buy the CDs.