Reborn in the USA is a British reality television show broadcast on ITV, in which ten British pop acts were transported to the US, where they were supposedly not known in the hope of revitalising their music career.
Each week, the American audience voted for their favourite act. The two acts with the fewest votes would then face the vote from the British public, where the following week the act with the fewest votes was eliminated from the contest and sent back to Britain. The series was presented by Davina McCall and the eventual winner was ex Spandau Ballet lead singer Tony Hadley, who was awarded with the prize of a recording contract.[1]
Further controversy arose in the second week when acts Dollar and Sonia had received the fewest votes and were both up for the public vote. Sonia elected to leave the tour due to stress, but then decided to return to face the vote. Dollar (David Van Day and Thereza Bazar) accused her of pulling a publicity stunt to gain votes, resulting in a heated argument between the two acts, where Sonia ultimately told Van Day he was "a nasty piece of work". In the end, Dollar were voted off and Sonia continued in the show for a few more weeks.[2]
The format for the show had the artists travelling on a tour bus to a new venue each week.[3] Each would perform one song which would relate to the city they were performing in (e.g. the concert in New Orleans would have each perform a well-known song about New Orleans). All songs performed were cover versions, until the final show where the final two (Hadley and Gayle) each sang one of their own hits. Despite his late entry to the show, Peter Cox was the favourite to win, but he finished in third place after forgetting the words to the song he was performing.[citation needed]
The show's theme music was composed and produced by Stuart Hancock for London-based music production company Mcasso Music, and variations of this theme music were used to accompany the on-screen action between song performances.[citation needed]
Following the show's transmission, a book and an album was released.[4][5] The album contained studio recordings of various cover versions by the acts, comprising 17 songs.
Live shows
Results summary
Colour key
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Singer was up for eviction from the tour bus and had to face the weeklong British public vote
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Singer received the fewest public votes and was immediately eliminated
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Singer received the most votes from the live American audience
