"...If The CMA Gets Wind Of Her, We're Talking Best New Artist of 2010..."

Three things we all love.

Back in a minute...


(CNN) -- Susan Boyle, a 48-year-old unemployed charity worker who became an international sensation after her audition for "Britain's Got Talent" in April, can now lay claim to a new achievement.

Her debut CD, set to come out on November 23, has become the most pre-ordered CD in the history of Amazon.com, the online retailer said Thursday.

Eager fans began ordering copies of the CD, "I Dreamed a Dream," as soon as its release was announced late summer, pushing it to the top of the online retail chart ahead of Whitney Houston's much-anticipated comeback CD.

"One of the things that is so unique about Susan Boyle is her ability to touch people around the world," said Steve Barnett, the chairman of Columbia Records, in a statement.

Before she sang during her audition in April, the unassuming single woman with a loose mop of curly hair drew snickers from the audience, including notoriously hard-to-please judge Simon Cowell.

The scowls and eye-rolling were replaced by wild cheers as soon as she sang the first line of "I Dreamed a Dream."

Even though she eventually lost out to a dance troupe in the TV competition, her pitch-perfect rendition of the "Les Miserables" number catapulted her into an overnight sensation with a string of global television appearances.


No man is an island, it is written, but I have spent what seems like a lot of my life being one of the few people I know who believe that you don't have to be "the same" or "predictable" or, God forbid, "safe" in order to win the hearts and minds of audiences, be it with a song, painting, novel...or blog.

And the stunning (and by that I mean sensory and not undeserved) success of Susan Boyle is one of those events that I file away on the off chance that I might actually someday get to plead my case for recognizing "outside the box" as a legitimate path of artistic travel and not an indication that the applicable traveler should be branded and, or worse, ignored.

Susan Boyle is the first witness I would call to the stand.

Because she bitchslapped the conventional wisdom trumpeters by effortlessly offering up the three things people love.

An underdog.

A winner.

A surprise.

Now, that's something to sing about....