July 02, 2004

Ian “Dicko” Dickson - A Biography

Ian Dickson, or “Dicko” as most Australians prefer to call him, was born in Birmingham, England in 1963. He has worked in the recording industry for twenty years with such names as Ozzy Osbourne, Alicia Keys, Pearl Jam, Pink, Avril Lavigne and Natalie Imbruglia - but we won’t hold a lot of those against him. During an argument on Idol, Mark Holden even went so far as to accuse Dicko of managing defunct boyband 5ive, but I refuse to confirm or deny that rumour.

Dicko - I adore thee After moving to Sydney to take on the role of General Manager of Marketing for BMG, Dicko was picked up by the producers of Australian Idol because they needed a surly, venomous British man to take Simon Cowell’s place on the judging panel.

What the producers didn’t count on was former pop star Mark Holden saying most of the objectionable stuff, whilst Dicko himself was funny, occasionally harsh, but generally fair.

Dicko’s biggest controversy occurred when he told contestant Paulini to “choose more appropriate clothes or shed some pounds”. The media went ballistic at Dicko, and perhaps rightly so - it wasn’t the world’s best comment to make on national television. However, I suspect that what Dicko meant to say was something along the lines of “Only an anorexic supermodel could pull off an unflattering dress like that, don’t get conned into wearing something that makes you look ridiculous”. In any case, Paulini did look shit, despite being a lovely girl, and the stylist who put her in an outfit like that should be shot.

Even though he was occasionally booed for it, you could always count on Dicko to be brutally honest with the contestants. However, his criticism was always constructive even when it wasn’t pulling any punches, and that’s important to remember.

Dicko’s fame hit new heights when he was chosen over Marcia and Mark to represent Australia at World Idol. Thank Christ. Can you imagine Mark Holden representing our country? Anyways, at the World Idol show, Dicko managed to upstage Simon Cowell in front of an international audience. It was our Dicko’s hobbit comment directed at Norway’s Kurt Nilssen that became the headline around the world, not Simon’s uninteresting and nasty drivel.

Various polls conducted in my head have concluded that Dicko is a rather awesome person, and should be treated like a God at Idol HQ. He was the major star to emerge from last year’s program (oh, and some Guy Sebastian fellow apparently) and there’s no doubt he’ll make this year’s show worth watching too.

Fact - Dicko’s finest hour was when he said to someone at the Idol auditions “If the BeeGees heard you sing that, you would finish the other brothers off.” Absolute gold.

You can find more quotes of Dicko’s here.

Posted by Jess at July 2, 2004 12:29 PM
— Filed under Part of the ausculture.com Idol 2004 Blogfest.

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On August 2, 2004 08:51 PM, tugfe wrote:
dicko dikson

why di you wear that gold dress that Paulini wore last year? And why did you do that again last year?

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July 02, 2004

Ian “Dicko” Dickson - A Biography

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