News / Entertainment
American Idol: Simon Cowell Declares Himself to be Bigger than Bruce Springsteen
In an interview with Anderson Cooper on the popular CBS program “60 Minutes,” American Idol judge Simon Cowell shared his thoughts concerning his importance to Sony BMG. To illustrate the impact he has had on the music industry Cowell stated, “I sell more records than Bruce Springsteen. I mean in the last five years, I've probably sold over 100 million records.”
Cowell shared with Cooper the particularly advantageous role he has in American Idol. As an executive for Sony BMG, Cowell is able to sign each Idol winner thus producing some of the biggest names in the music business. Cowell revealed that the Idol competition is staged in over 30 countries thus producing a constant flow of musicians for varying markets.
The 47-year-old Brit has recently found huge success with Il Divo, a musical group that features three opera singers and a pop singer, all from different nationalities. The group has toured with Barbra Streisand and performed at the World Cup. They groups 2004 debut album went quadruple platinum in the UK and triple platinum in Canada, Spain and the Netherlands.
