February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The colorful Mayo-born magnate has a finger (at least) in every little music industry pie, and an opinion on every performer, big or small. And the best part is, he’s not shy about airing his views, especially if there’s a journalist in the vicinity.
This week’s Walsh rant involves hunky pop icon Robbie Williams. The former boy band cutie-turned-solo star recently commented that shows like “Popstars: The Rivals” are “cruel television.”
“These shows are [rhymes with trucking] with people’s lives for entertainment,” Williams charged.
Ooops. Louis Walsh is a member of the “Popstars” judging panel. A very proud member. Predictably, he went for the jugular.
“How can he say the programs are bad?” sneered Walsh. “He is [just] a jumped-up karaoke singer.”
Walsh was underwhelmed, to say the least, by Robbie’s recent album, the wildly popular “Swing When You’re Winning.”
“Frank Sinatra fans wanted to murder him,” sniped Walsh.
The volatile manager, who guided the careers of acts like Boyzone, Westlife and Samantha Mumba, says that he thought Williams was crap back when he was with the British boy band Take That.
“[Back then] he wasn’t very good. He was simply the one with no clothes on,” said Walsh. “[Williams was] the silly one, not the talent.”
Now, far be it from us to point out that it was the “silly one” of the bunch who shot to stardom, and not the front man, Gary Barlow. Walsh insists that if Williams had auditioned for “Popstars,” he’d never have made it through. (Though we suppose Ronan Keating would be a different story . . .)
In more Walsh news, we hear that evergreen ’60s pop kitten Lulu, she of “To Sir with Love” fame, has joined his stable o’ stars. And, in a bit of corporate synergy — or in a show of esprit de corps, if you will — Walsh protege Ronan has recorded a duet with Walsh protege Lulu. And what’s more, the twentysomething former Boyzoner has declared that recording this duet was something he had dreamed of all his life. (No, really.)