Shoulda been huge: Delta Goodrem’s career in the UK

I’d like to start out by making it clear that Delta Goodrem’s career is very much a thing of the present. In her native Australia, she has achieved huge success with each of her four studio albums, and in the process has set numerous ARIA Chart records. Her debut album Innocent Eyes went 15x platinum and shares the title of best-selling album by a female artist in Aussie chart history with Shania Twain’s Come On Over. It also spent a record 25 weeks at the top of the charts. She’s served as one of the star judges on Australia’s version of The Voice, and has proven herself as a friend to the gays by putting on spectacular shows at Sydney’s world famous Mardi Gras. In addition to notching up eight number one singles, she’s written for the likes of Celine Dion (you can listen to the brilliant Eyes On Me here). Basically, Delta Goodrem is kind of amazing.

However, her career in the UK was short-lived and limited to her first two albums, 2003’s Innocent Eyes and 2004’s Mistaken Identity, and even the second of those failed to make much of an impact on the charts. There are a number of reasons why Delta’s star faded after the release of her second album. One was the extensive break that she took between the release of Mistaken Identity and her self-titled follow-up, which didn’t arrive until 2007, and another is the fact that Delta hasn’t really bothered to promote her music in the UK since 2004. The frustrating thing is, since 2004, Delta has grown into an artist who’s much better than the young girl who scored five UK top ten hits a decade ago with songs like Born to Try and Lost Without You. Her two most recent albums, 2007’s Delta and 2012’s Child of the Universe, are great pop records that feature her strongest songwriting to date.

Funnily enough, fellow Neighbours alumnus and early noughties pop sensation Holly Valance returned to music this week, and one Attitude reader said that he would prefer to see Delta Goodrem make a comeback. I’m not saying that this is reflective of the entire British public, but there’s still a fanbase here for Delta, even if she doesn’t top the charts. If she ever came over to perform a one-off show or brief tour for her loyal following, it would surely sell out.

Delta’s style of music doesn’t particularly fit in with what is selling in the UK right now, but to be honest that’s no bad thing. Listen to high-quality adult pop songs like Believe Again, In This Life or Sitting On Top Of The World and tell me that they aren’t better than some of the basic bangers littering the UK’s Official Singles Chart at the moment. Perhaps she could jump on a David Guetta or Avicii track and get her name out there again, but in a way I’d rather she carried on doing what she does so well. Chart success isn’t everything, but as a Delta fan I would love to see her get the credit she deserves internationally.

Delta recently proved how far she has come by re-recording her debut album Innocent Eyes as an acoustic set to mark its tenth anniversary. Watch her perform a reworked version of her 2003 single Lost Without You below:

[youtube height=”350″ width=”650″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiFjhchsL9Y[/youtube]

More Shoulda been huge:

> Shoulda been huge: Kesha’s flop second album ‘Warrior’
> Shoulda been huge: Spice Girls’ third album ‘Forever’
> Shoulda been huge: Madonna’s ‘Girl Gone Wild’