Amazon to Critics: Nyahh, Nyahh, Nyahh

Susan Boyle notches the most CD preorders in history while pundits fume...

By Fred Mills

With Britain's Got Talent/YouTube sensation Susan Boyle's debut album I Dreamed A Dream officially released today in the UK and tomorrow in the US, pundits across the globe are in a mad race to see who can bend and elongate their necks and gaze at their navels the closest. Early returns suggest that bloom is off the rose, with reviewers generally weighing in negatively.

London's Guardian was downright catty, calling the album "no mere bunch of songs; it is a commemorative mug of a major national event, rendered as a silver gewgaw that plays music. It would be instructive to see a Venn diagram showing the overlap between purchasers of I Dreamed a Dream and those buying Lady Gaga's album, The Fame Monster. Or, indeed, the overlap between SuBo and any other record at all... The very best thing about I Dreamed a Dream is that Boyle is mercifully restrained throughout. A little vibrato is as close as she comes to over-emoting."

The NY Daily News actually seems unnaturally preoccupied with Boyle's sex life (or lack thereof), writing, "There's something placid and naive about most of these performances. Despite her age, Boyle's voice carries little experience of yearning and less of sex. It may not be the voice of someone who's never been kissed (to paraphrase her), but it's clearly one of someone who seldom has."

And CNN.com, though typically even-handed (there are no true "critics" at CNN, just reporters who occasionally insert an opinion into their news stories), calls the record "something of a hotch-potch crowd-pleaser... Technically, Boyle does the job. Her voice. Can she sing? Yes. Is she outstanding? No. She's ... fine. And that's the problem. Listening to Boyle's record feels strangely monochrome. Her fame's roots lie not in her talent, but in the few short minutes that she overturned our perceptions of those who deserve fame: she is a foil to the young and the beautiful."

Talk about damning with faint praise. Well, in a unique twist that could only happen in 2009, Boyle gets the last laugh - preemptively. Amazon.com is reporting that the album is their most preordered CD to date; that is, in history. Apparently preorders began coming in months ago, while the buzz was still, er, buzzing about Boyle, and while actual sales figures won't be announced until the end of the week, bets are that the record will hit platinum status pretty early on.

In a statement, Columbia Records chairman Steve Barnett noted, "One of the things that is so unique about Susan Boyle is her ability to touch people around the world."

With over 300 million YouTube views and counting, that's what you call the kind of global reach that no music critic could every possibly hope to impact. Sheesh... my fellow scribes and I think we need to find another career path.