Jason Donovan

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Jason Donovan was born on 1 June 1968 in Malvern, a suburb of Melbourne. Both his parents were actors, and after their divorce his father raised him alone. At eleven he stood in front of the camera for the first time. In 1986 he was cast as Scott Robinson in the Australian soap Neighbours. The wedding of his character to Charlene, played by Kylie Minogue, made the series popular in England too.

Music and breakthrough

Like Minogue, he chose pop music and signed to PWL, the label of Stock Aitken Waterman. The trio at first hesitated to take on a second soap star, but soon recorded his first single, Nothing Can Divide Us (1988), a song that Rick Astley had turned down. Then came the duet with Minogue, Especially for You, which reached number 1 in January 1989 and became the trio's biggest British hit. In March 1989 he had his first solo number 1 with Too Many Broken Hearts. His debut album Ten Good Reasons became the best-selling album of 1989 in England, and for a time he was at the top of both the album and the singles chart, with Sealed with a Kiss.

Influence

Donovan is a textbook example of the Stock Aitken Waterman method: a familiar face from television sings a song that is already largely finished in the studio. The second album, Between the Lines (1990), sold far fewer copies, and his popularity as a pop star declined. In the early 1990s he found a new role in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1989Ten Good Reasons
• 1990Between the Lines
• 1995All Around the World
• 2008Let It Be Me
• 2010Soundtrack of the 80's
• 2012Sign of Your Love

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 7: The 1980s^NL Reader
• Mixtape 12: The Hit Factory^NL Reader

See also

• Let It Be Me