Another season of Canadian Idol starts tomorrow and the talk among insiders is this will be the most talented group yet.
Canadian Idol executive producer John Brunton says this year’s group is the strongest the singing competition has ever seen.
Sure, we’ve heard this before, but Brunton says he can’t stress how true this fact really is this year.
“It will sound like it’s a cliché, that this is the best season of talent we’ve ever had … and everybody will say, ‘Well, you say that every year, don’t you?’” Brunton tells Metro. “I haven’t said that every year, and I think one of our strongest overall years of talent was Season 2 with Kalan (Porter) and Jacob (Hoggard) and Theresa (Sokyrka).”
This year’s auditions drew musicians from places such as Los Angeles and London, England. These are people who have been gaining enough success to get them gigs and allow them to get their names known in the music industry.
“These were not the types of people who would normally turn out for our show in the early years, but (it’s) the credibility and also the fact that it’s so difficult to get a record deal these days,” says Brunton. “We’ve cut a good 50 people that in previous seasons may have made the top 22 … we really have an interesting group and for a whole bunch of different reasons.”
Canadian Idol judge Jake Gold echoes Brunton’s opinions regarding this year’s competitors.
“The problem is that every time we say it’s better than the year before, people go, ‘Yeah, you’re supposed to say that,’” says Gold. “But the reality is on an overall basis, it’s like miles above any other year. It’s not just, ‘Oh it’s better,’ it’s like a whole other level of better.”
The challenge though came down to the final day where Gold and fellow judges Farley Flex, Sass Jordan and Zack Werner chose the top 22 this year.
“We actually sat down and said, ‘How can we actually, in good conscience, send this person home?’ and it was that difficult,” he says. “There’s an overall confidence among them that we’ve never seen before. This level of knowing who they are and the fact that they’re very sure of themselves.”
