Welcome to the article where we celebrate pop groups that you may of completely forgot about their music or may not of heard of them before and want to listen to something new!

Today we look at an artist that started their career and rose to fame through reality television. Rik Waller was part of the first season of Pop Idol where he reached the finals and appeared in the live shows. Rik had to pull out of the show early however due to severe laryngitis and was replaced by Darius.

Even though Rik had to dropout of Pop Idol, it did not mean it was the end of his music career – he was very popular face on the show so many were sad that he left early. EMI Records signed him up to a contract that was worth £400,000.

In 2002, Rik Waller released his debut single ‘I Will Always Love You’ which was a cover of the Dolly Parton hit single. The song went straight into the charts at number 6. The next single that Rick released was called ‘(Something Inside) So Strong’ which was a cover of Labi Siffre song. The song reached number 25 in the UK Charts.

Rik was dropped by EMI Records so he formed his own band and took his own music on the road. This lead to a record signing with Red Admiral Records. Even though this sounds like it was a turn of his career, three months into his contract, three of his concerts were cancelled due to poor ticket sales – one of them only two tickets sold.

In September 2005 he released his second album called Innoncence – it was re-named two more times once as ‘Rik Waller Mighty Soul Band’ and then again as ‘Rik Wallers Unfinished Business’

So lets have a look at his career today.

I Will Always Love You 

(Something Inside) So Strong