there is no comparison

will is good at what he does
michelle is good at what she does
girls aloud are good at what they do
and steve is good at what he does

I'll assume that pun was unintentional, Angie.
But it does remind me of the Will/Gareth situation.

Yes I take you point the problem I have with it is both Gareth and Michelle are not doing anything at the moment where as Will young is.
Now Steve may be good at what he does at the moment however will he still be doing it in 2 years???

Has the pop reality bubble burst

they won't go away...
sooner or later they will be flavour of the month again
they are only as good as the material they are given

There is NO comparison between Steve and Will, Steve wins hands down! He has a warm and soulful voice and I could listen to him singing for hours. Will Young sings through his nose and I find his voice very jarring.

I am a fan of Will and have attended all his tours except this winter one. That's because I was a bit disappointed with the July one.

It's a bit difficult to compare Will to Steve as Will is 2 years into his career whereas Steve is only at the beginning of his. When Will won, he was also called the housewives choice and Gareth was the one viewed in many quarters as the natural PI who would have more success. They were wrong.

Voice wise, I think Steve has more of a natural soul voice than Will. Nowadays, Will sings too light for my liking and I get the impression that he concentrates on being technically accurate. I'm not so keen on the way that he now sings but I think that his voice is more distinctive than Steve's.

I always felt confident about Will right from the outset. One of the reasons is that during the PI show, he nailed every performance to perfection. Another reason was his strength of character, he was determined to prove his detractors wrong and he had a clear idea of what he wanted to do. Under the management of Simon Fuller he has now established himself as a credible artist. Steve needs to develop more confidence and I think that winning the competition is the first step.

I expect that Steve will have a fan in me so long as he sings his songs in a soulful way e.g. Smile but ultimately, I think Steve is best with the upbeat numbers.

Although Will may sing more technically accurate, I actually prefer the tonal quality and huskiness of Steve's voice.

Yeh I agree with you there. I didnt' think Will was all that really after Pop Idol, but it was his 2nd album and Leave Right Now that really showed him to be a credible artist. I really like his 2nd album and am delighted he went on and had big success, as he did win Pop Idol. It looked for a while Gareth Gates was going to get all the glory anyway, and I definitely didn't like Gareth.

After Will won Pop Idol there were loads of comments about how the wrong person had won and he would have one hit record and we'd never hear of him again. Well he took his time and found his direction and is doing pretty well. There are still people who say he's on his way out but because he has such a broad fan base from young people to much older ones, the chances of his long term survival are much greater than someone like Gareth who appealed mainly to young girls who quickly move on to someone else. Steve could fit into the same broad fan base as Will if he does take his time and ignores all comments about being finished because we don't hear about him 24/7 - but none of us know this, it depends what material he comes out with, how he copes with fame etc. Only time will tell and he and the public need to be very patient.

Casting my mind back to Pop Idol 1 ... I recall a lot of people resenting Simon's blatant preference for Gareth and I'm sure Will picked up a few votes as a result of it - much in the same way as Sharon's outburst and an anti-Louis faction would get Steve some votes.

As others have said, you can't compare the two as they are a) two different artists (luckily, as I like Will and can't stand Steve!) and b) at very different stages in their professional careers.

I think where Will does stand out from Steve is that he won the contest on the night of the final with very convincing performances and I'm sure the sane Gareth fans (i.e. not the type who would now be saying things like "G4 can't sing, Steve can't sing, Rowetta can't sing" etc. etc. etc., whilst disappointed, would not have been left feeling cheated that a lesser performance had beaten their boy on the day. It's also worth noting that at the time of winning the competition Will would have been aged a good 10-12 years younger than Steve, and I really would have expected someone who has been singing in pubs and clubs for that many years to be a bit better prepared for Saturday and subsequent hostile audiences - he has already faced some pretty harsh audiences as that's the nature of the pub/club circuit and I would expect a little more professionalism from our winner.

Steve will never compare to WILL YOUNG - sorry! also Steve does not have the personality, who heard him on Radio being interviewed?

Some people say how Mum's like his single, yes they will go out and buy it with the excitement of the final, but Will the Buy the next signe and the album and single after that??

No I see another Michelle - I just don't see how you can market Steve, all this has been is politics by Simon, to protect his Ill Divo, I think he felt he could also tempt Jonathan to go solo, no way! and would he have signed for Simon??

Once again Simon will take the money and run, do you hear him ever talk about michelle these days?? or Gareth??

J

Steve v Will – my opinion (long post).

Will won Pop Idol almost 3 years ago based on a delicate balance of an unusual, distinctive voice, strong interpretative abilities with any song and a great sense of humour and ease with interviews and the public, in addition to a small quantity of anti-Gareth votes. Steve won, as far as I can tell, on a pleasant, soulful voice, a winning smile and a huge backlash against outspoken and vitriolic judges like Sharon and Louis.

Both are worthy winners of their competitions, whatever anyone says (even though I wanted G4 to win). What happens now is dependent entirely on Steve’s ability to be a true artist. Will has survived and been extremely successful for one reason only – he has found his ‘sound’. He has a pop-jazz-soul fusion going on that may not appeal to everyone, but he has a large and loyal fanbase who love what he does. And just let me say, if he started churning out crap, I doubt that there would be blind loyalty – no artist (except maybe Michael Jackson!) enjoys that.

Here’s my controversial bit – I don’t think Steve has sufficient artistry to be a success. I will give him until his second album to prove me wrong. His short term popularity will be based on people liking him (Will and Gareth were endearing and people genuinely liked both of them). I really do hope that Steve gets the single and album sales that everyone is expecting (although he is about to be vulnerable to suffer from David Sneddon’s downfall of releasing both of these during the legendary ‘dead period’ when no one buys records). Whatever people thought about Will vocally, there was never any doubt that he was one of the nicest guys around. Steve has had almost unending criticism from all quarters calling him rude, false, obnoxious and arrogant. Whilst there was only occasionally evidence of this on screen (he was completely obnoxious to Sharon on a couple of occasions – the singing and eye rolling during his critiques come to mind), I doubt he has quite the goodwill of the public that Will enjoyed. Lets face it, Will came out only a few weeks after the show ended and there was barely a bad headline written about it. Does anyone think Steve (and I figure he’s not gay so this is a hypothetical!!) would have the support of the press if it were revealed he was?

wow dizzy you have though long and hard about that and I agree largely with what you say.
Unfortunately the press can make or break a career, and for some reason Steve has offfended a few of the press, hopefully this will be just a blimp, whilst I am not a fan I do wish him all the best!

Steve V Will Young.

Steve to win in the 1st round.

You can't really compare Steve at this stage to anyone, Will Young, Michelle, GG or David Bowie. Just because they both came from reality shows is neither here nor there. Sting started singing in pubs and clubs. Went down a storm in some places. I've played in pubs, and got good reaction, does that mean we should compare Sting and me?

Robbie Williams didn't leave Take That and become a megastar overnight, and Will's first few songs did ok but he didn't find his audience level for some time.

With Robbie, I think it was the song Angels which really made him take off. Someone has suggested Leave right now for Will. If Steve can find a song, an original song and make it his own and the public take to it, he's in there. If he just does a few covers and a couple of fillers, he's going to struggle.

The importance of the material cannot be overstretched. Kylie wasn't doing too well a few years ago until Cathy Dennis wrote can't get you out of my head. Britney's career looked similarly in decline until again, Cathy Dennis, wrote Toxic for her.

If I was in BMG, I'd be looking at people like Cathy Dennis, anyone involved in Will Young's songwriting team, Guy Chambers etc.

Steve vs Will??????? l

Like HELLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOO?????????

more like Steve vs Tom Jones?

or Steve vs. Michael Bolton?

will is leagues apart form steve.

will - talented, distinctive, very special, gorgeous

steve - average singer, nice voice, looks alright

when did steve become scottish?

Actually, I don’t think Will’s first few songs ‘only did OK’. Evergreen was one of the biggest selling British songs of all time, Light My Fire was huge, and The Long and Winding Road went to number 1 too. Then he went away and produced an even better album. Sure, NOW he has his loyal and constant audience, but it’s not like he didn’t have huge success in the immediate aftermath of PI.

As for Kylie, well she had her ‘dark’ period punctuated only by weird collaboration choices like Nick Cave and the Manics, but she was already one of the biggest stars of the late 80’s. Post Cathy Dennis and CGYOOMH is just the second, even bigger phase for Kylie’s career. As for Robbie, again, he was a star before he went solo, you can’t really compare him to talent show winners like Will or Steve. Robbie was a complete f*ck-up for the first 12 months of his solo career and Angels (literally) saved him. For Robbie and Kylie, once golden careers that were on the downward slide were rescued by stellar songs. I’m not sure this applied to the PI or XF lot. Of course, a megahit doesn’t hurt anyone’s career, but I’d say that Will hasn’t had a megahit (Evergreen was on constant replay for Pop Idol reasons only) and still his career is a resounding success. The only reason he needs a big hit song is to crack the States.

BTW, Cathy Dennis wrote Toxic for Kylie, who rejected it for being too poppy. Britney is still in the Top 5 artists in the world despite her perceived downward slide.

Well said!!

I really like Will Young and voted for him a few times in PI but am ashamed to say I never bought any of his records. I will definately be buying Steve's on Monday though. You can't compare these two artists as Will is an established artist 3 years down the line, when Steve has been going for 3 years then we will be able to compare.

I voted for Will, but i have to admit i was a little skeptical about how successful he would be. I was pleasantly surprised and ended up going to see him in concert in June. He was fantastic.

my point is, when people expected Gareth to win and he didnt, they doubted Will. On the X Factor, G4 were expected to win and they didnt so people are doubting Steve.

I do think Will is the better of the two, but if Steve got 5.4 million votes (which if i recall is more than Will got when he won Pop Idol) he at least deserves to be given a chance to prove himself before people start writing him off.

x x

Will young has the range, Steve doesnt.

But well done to him for winning the competition.

Will Young has his onw style I have yet to see this from Steve as doing covers does not show him in his best light, hopefully when he does something original we will see the real steve

I was one of the Gareth fans (still am) who did not appreciate Will at that time (the covers were awful to me), I don;t also appreciate Steve at this time and he has gone along the same soul covers route. However if Steve manages a Leave Right Now like Will then I will admit I was wrong, Will has found his niche, thanks to being strong enough to stand upto BMG, I don;t think Steve (after years of rejection) will.

Well as a Gareth fan, don;t I bloddy know it, an example of the lack of recognition that a finalist gets and precisely what I don't want G4 and Steve fans to get suckered into. You don;t have to hate either, they are both winners in the end and as I have learned with Will, reserve judgement, Leave Right Now was superb