Review: The Girl in the Band by Belinda Chapple

One of the first reality television programmes in Australia was Popstars and, as many would know, the girl band that the television programme created, Bardot, was exceptionally popular and sadly short-lived. The Girl in the Band is the memoir of Belinda Chapple, one of the five young women who out of the thousands of talented hopefuls gained a spot in the band. For Chapple the band, and the show, was not what she hoped it would be. She soon found herself exhausted, struggling with body image and earning just thirty-five dollars a day. 

The Girl in the Band is an interesting glimpse into the entertainment industry. Chapple details her experiences, with false starts, all kinds of unusual gigs and then an opportunity of a lifetime that soon turned sour for her. The memoir showcases the fickle, ruthless nature of the industry and how big dreams can so easily be shattered. There is a bit of behind the scenes gossip, though fortunately the author refrains from being mean or cruel, even though from her perspective she was very much stabbed in the back by one of her bandmates.

This one is very short, though it makes for interesting reading. On a personal level I remember not only when the series aired, but there was a lot of talk in the time leading up to it. I recall a top rating local radio station talking about how the Adelaide auditions for the show were happening that day, and how Jackie O, who at the time was co-host of the Hot 30 Countdown was somehow involved. In other words, something big was happening. Then the show aired and it became a huge phenomenon. I was at an age where I felt like I was a bit too cool for it, yet still wanted to know everything that was going on--I didn't own the album, but I knew all of the songs, and I just "happened" to be passing and found myself in the crowd when they performed at Marion Shopping Centre. I always thought of Belinda Chapple as the band member with the amazing smile. My heart breaks knowing what I do now, that it wasn't a great experience for her. Chapple speaks honestly about her experiences. I found the writing itself to be very sanitised and light--in many ways it feels like an extended article from a magazine like That's Life. 

An interesting glimpse into the career of someone who was at the forefront of reality television. 

Recommended.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more

Who Else Writes Like V.C. Andrews?

Image
Are there any other authors out there who write similar novels to V.C. Andrews? This is a question I see asked frequently in excellent fan run V.C. Andrews Facebook groups like Attic Secrets and The Dolls Club. In times gone by, The Complete V.C. Andrews webpage (which is no more, but the best bits are archived by Lorraine at the Attic Secrets blog,) had a comprehensive list. Today, I thought I would put forward a few of my own thoughts and recommendations. (Note: This will focus mainly on the series and novels written by the actual V.C. Andrews and not ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman, who has a distinctive writing style of his own.) The Classics This is probably the best place to start, as it is likely that some of these novels influenced V.C. Andrews herself. Andrews was a fan of Charles Dickens, mentioning the author in the prologue of her most famous novel Flowers in the Attic. I have yet to read all of Dickens novels (I've read about half,) but I can feel a slight V.C. Andrews vi
Read more