Pencil Tin Faces

Sure the idea of instant stardom is attractive. It is more than attractive, it is almost ideal. Why not skip the hard yards? the financial stress? Not to mention the risk-take and the trust in strangers. TV reality show, Popstars, began in April 1999. Joe Cotton, Keri Harper, Erika Takacs, Carly Binding and the hugely relevant Megan Alatini were chosen throughout a fifteen episode season. These five talented and attractive females formed the first ever Popstars group and NZ had huge expectations of their outcome. Yet they barely reached the stationary faze. A little faze I find determines the success of a group in all respects. After all who couldn’t be defined successful when a given the choice a child desires your face on their pencil tin more than Barbie’s.
Alas, what happened to them? As a pubescent teenager I too fell into the many numbers of NZ citizens waiting for the next single after ‘Tonight’, the next single that in my mind never came. Of course there was a second release but I will give fifty dollars to the person who can tell me the name of it and/or the lyrics without looking up wikipedia.Exxxactly!
Perhaps their lack of success lay in the nature of the series. I know it’s not an original suggestion but it does have some relevance. Following the huge amount of eliminations and built up tension throughout the series there didn’t appear to be any type of closure for the audience. The program seemed to build and build but then have nowhere to go and just simply… discontinue. Essentially I guess they wanted to prepare their audiences for the public appearance of the pop group but their seemed to be fault in this method. This could also explain why the idea was sold for millions globally but did not continue past two seasons unlike their reality TV offspring NZ Idol and Dancing With the Stars.
(BTW Megan was robbed)