Australian Idol 2023: Top 40 songs take a back seat thanks to licencing fees

Australian Idol contestants are restricted in their performances despite a catalogue of 1000 songs “to choose from”. Here’s why.

Don’t count on hearing too many of your current favourite top 40 pop hits on Australian Idol this season.

While the contestants have an estimated catalogue of about 1000 songs to “choose” to perform, new copyright arrangements for the 2023 reboot mean Seven has to pay for a licence for particular tracks.

So while a couple of contestants had a crack at Falling, from Harry Styles’ 2019 album Fine Line, it is unlikely anyone will tackle his monster 2022 hit As It Was. Or probably would have been advised not to as 15-year-old Angelina Curtis who divided opinion with her jazzy interpretation of the Styles chart slayer on the Judges Choice live show on Sunday.

And fans hoping to hear an Idol version of Miley Cyrus’s No. 1 smash Flowers will probably have to settle for her early career classics The Climb or Party In The USA.

Television talent shows such as Idol, The Voice and X Factor seek a blanket licence for permission to perform any song during a season.

This year some Australian music publishers, who oversee the copyright for the track’s songwriters, agreed to full access to their catalogues, but it is understood some of the major companies insisted on clearing each song request.

Lizzo’s About Damn Time was one of only 11 popular singles from the 2020s to have been attempted by contestants this year. Picture: Getty

That move was to maximise the fees payable to their songwriters, whose earnings from performance royalties were decimated during the pandemic shutdown of live shows.

A blanket licence is a cheaper alternative for show producer’s but its fees are distributed across a big pot of songwriters, dramatically reducing their potential earnings for their song’s performance.

New songs are more expensive to licence compared to older hits, which can occasionally enjoy a boost in their streams after an Idol or the Voice performance if it goes viral for being exceptionally good or car-crash bad. A 90-seconds performance is also cheaper than licensing the entire song.

A breakdown of the songs which have aired from the auditions to the top 12 episodes reveals only 11 popular singles from the 2020s have been attempted by contestants this year including the all-in rendition of Lizzo’s About Damn Time in the first elimination show.

Other recent hits on 2023 Idol have included Cold Heart (PNAU remix) by Elton John and Dua Lipa, which ended up sending Maya Weiss home this week, Josh Hannan doing Joji’s Glimpse of Us to advance from the top 24 round and Tones and I’s Cloudy Day and It’ll Be Okay by Shawn Mendes during the top 32 cut.

Josh Hannan sang Joji’s Glimpse of Us to advance from the top 24 round. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Maya Weiss was sent home this week after singing Cold Heart (PNAU remix) by Elton John and Dua Lipa. Picture: Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Instead the young Idol hopefuls are leaning heavily on hits from the previous decade to strike connection with the television talent quest’s powerful teen voting bloc.

More than a third of almost 200 songs performed during 2023 Idol thus far were hits during the 2010s, with Sam Smith, Billie Eilish, Sia, Bruno Mars, P!nk, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, and judge Meghan Trainor among the artists who have had more than one of their big singles from that decade picked by contestants.

2010 hits on this season’s Idol included Billie Eilish. Picture: Getty

Blasts from the past included contestants choosing songs by Bruno Mars from the 2010s.

Only one Ed Sheeran song has been performed, his 2017 smash Perfect. And zero from Taylor Swift’s extensive collection.

Some song selections in 2023 have been ancient, from Slim Dusty’s 1957 signature song A Pub With No Beer and Ike and Tina Turner’s 1966 classic River Deep, Mountain High to 70s faves by Led Zeppelin (Immigrant Song) and ABBA (Does Your Mother Know).

Several famous chart stars refuse to allow their songs to be covered on the talent shows. Prince was opposed to clearing his hits, Bruce Springsteen is believed to be picky about his tracks and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl is famous for his epic rants against the television franchises.

“Who’s to say who’s good or not? Imagine Bob Dylan standing there and singing Blowin’ in the Wind in front of those judges. ‘Sorry, it’s a little nasally and a little flat. Next!’,” he said during a 2014 interview.

Idol contestant Josh Hanna sang Tones and I’s Cloudy Day and It’ll Be Okay by Shawn Mendes (pictured) during the top 32 cut. Picture: Jeremy Piper

This year’s judges, especially Kyle Sandilands and Harry Connick Jr, have been brutally critical of song choices, levelling most of the blame unfairly at the contestants.

While the aspiring Idols may have a “repertoire” to choose from, producers often steer the singers to a particular song or arrangement to build drama into the episode.

After she was booted from the top 12 show last week, Weiss said it was “hard to say” who ultimately called the song choice shots, the singers or the producers.

“We are all given a repertoire of songs, and Cold Heart was within my repertoire,” she said.

“If I could go back, I probably would have either done it differently.”

Weiss said the Idol song choice tussle served as a lesson learnt as she presses on with her music career.

“It’s a huge lesson. Artists can so easily get influenced (by the industry). I just want to make sure if I really feel like something’s not going to work, I say it’s not happening, that’s not who I am as an artist.”