This day in history: On this day in 2003, while auditioning for the third season of American Idol, William Hung performed a lively, but really bad rendition of the Ricky Martin hit "She Bangs."
Despite this, Hung rapidly gained a cult following. A William Hung fan site, set up by realtor Don Chin and his wife Laura, recorded over four million hits within its first week. Remixes of Hung's audition performance topped song request lists at a number of radio stations.
Hung subsequently appeared on several television programs including Jimmy Kimmel Live!, On Air with Ryan Seacrest, Entertainment Tonight, George Lopez, the Late Show with David Letterman, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Howard Stern Radio Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Dateline NBC, Arrested Development and CBS's The Early Show. Hung was featured in several national magazines and newspapers; he was parodied on Saturday Night Live, Mad TV, Celebrity Deathmatch, and The Fairly OddParents. He was reportedly invited to perform at MTV's Asia Awards held in mid-February.
William Hung was offered a $25,000 advance on a record deal from Koch Entertainment in 2004, and released three albums on that label in 2004 and 2005. His first album was Inspiration. Produced by Giuseppe D, it was recorded over a March 2004 weekend with Hung singing vocals over karaoke music. To promote it, Hung performed before nearly 20,000 fans during half-time at a Golden State Warriors basketball game on April 6 and performed "She Bangs", included on the album, on such shows as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The album received highly negative reviews, but ultimately went on to sell about 200,000 copies and reached Number One on Billboard's Top Independent Album Chart.
Buy: And the Word was a god: A New Book on the Most Disputed Text in the New Testament - John 1:1 and The Dark History of the Trinity, is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and both are only 99 cents
No comments:
Post a Comment