Super 'Kelong' Star

I've never been a fan of the local talent show Superstar. Talk to me about the contestants like Silver and you'll find me as lost as a polar bear that suddenly finds itself in the middle of the Sahara desert. I've always thought it was a waste of time, a show that found more goofballs like Steven Lim or Ruhua than real talented singers.

Look at Singapore Idol and you'll get what I mean. The winner, Taufik, was my ex-trainee during my stint as a swimming instructor in NS. He can't really sing well enough to make it big in the international music scene. He doesn't possess any special vocal qualities like Stefanie Sun. He doesn't possess any charismatic aura. His songs ain't lyrically sublime like some Lin Junjie songs can be. His rather inflated ego led to him being transferred out of divisional duty to TRACOM (he gave his autograph to an accused in handcuffs, no less), and upon arrival at the Academy, proceeded to introduce himself to every single occupied table, like they cared. And he has natural eyeliner.

Even the runner up Sylvester doesn't raise too many eyebrows with his vocal accordion. Looks wise, slightly above average to accord him the occasional obese groupie, but that's it. And so, looking at all the winners for this facade, and hearing rumours spun about how the rejects of Singapore Idol were signing up for Superstar, I didn't bother wasting my time with that show. I don't even spend much time on the tube for that matter, and besides, watching one of my secondary school senior (who'd always gotten consolation prizes for such talentimes) try out at this shite in the trailer caused my confidence in the ability of this programme to seek out unpolished diamonds in the rough to plummet to new depths.

I simply couldn't care less about this thing. Especially when half the contacts on my MSN list had little lovey dovey messages about who and who would be their superstar in their hearts and stuff. To me, this was groupie shit most girls of around secondary school age would partake in, something I never was into and by now, would have been way beyond anyway.

But when our resident cutie Weiling asked me if I wanted to watch the semi finals with her sister, I obliged. Partially out of curiosity; I assumed the semi finalists wouldn't be that bad...by then they should have had filtered out all the dross.

We queued at the lobby for over 2 hours, having this old fogey harangue at everyone in general, giving no-nonsense instructions like 'if you dare to take photo I kick you out!'...When we finally got our seats, even the initially chirpy Cailing had lost her enthusiasm. Fans were generally treated like trash; the old fogey yelled at a group of girls who'd started screaming when their preferred contested (who'd been eliminated already) appeared onstage, and attempted to eject them from the premises. All this dampened my mood even more, reminding me of my plan to go to a autograph session for some singer or group I don't care for, and then retaliate when the usher/bouncer tries to hustle me while I'm in the queue. Their behaviour towards fans is sickening to say the least. If that old bugger had yelled 'hoei' at me in that manner, I'd have given him a bloody tight slap.

The recording started, with multiple bloopers from the hosts, and the first contestant, Junyang came out to sing. He zhao sia-ed during parts of the song I myself could've reached...(due to a sore throat, he claimed) mixed up the lyrics (something the judges didn't seem to pick up on) and basically made a bungle of the David Tao ballad 'Ai Hen Jian Dan' (Love is very simple). The blind chap Wei Lian did a little better on his number, some song by Ocean I recognised but don't know the title. According to the judges, he didn't catch the rhythm, although I couldn't spot any mistakes (heck, to me, the only person I've heard sing this song better is Ocean himself). And he had difficulty with his breath management. All in all, those sitting around me agreed that Wei Lian did a better job overall, even though both performances were filled with fumbles, especially since Junyang's mistakes were more plain to the eye to see.

The judges gave Junyang 0.5 points more than Wei Lian.

The second song was an english number. Junyang started again with Blue's 'If You Come Back'. It was well sung, but I feel he failed to dominate the stage, to use the space given to him; he kept standing in the quarter of the stage nearest to his fans, and kept facing them. C'mon, a superstar's supposed to keep every member of the audience entertained! Not just his fans. His rendition of the song wasn't too bad, but he was rather stiff, and after a while, I stopped singing along because he simply flowed with the music for the sake of completing the song, and didn't give any special umph into it.

The judges however, thought that since his vocal prowess was much better represented, he had done much better. Junyang was back...to quote more than one of the judges. He got fantastic points...8.5 from more than one of the judges.

Wei Lian picked Rick Price's classic, 'Only Heaven Knows'. My God. If his visual impairity kept him from moving around the stage, his voice and the pure feeling he injected into that ballad more than made up for it, giving him tremendous stage presence. This time, I stopped singing along because I didn't want to spoil the song. Fantastic. Amazing! God is fair after all...giving him such a fantastic voice to make up for his lack of sight. I think if he sang in a park, the birds would've stopped to listen. No. I'm not exaggerating. His vocal rendition of that song was so soulful, my hair was standing long after the judges had given their comments and he was waiting for the points to be awarded. Everyone, including the eliminated contestants, stood up to give him a standing ovation. And the applause lasted easily over three times as long as what Junyang got.

The judges thought otherwise though. Oh, Wei Lian was 'back' too..but only in the first half of the song. One felt he didn't put in that much feel in the second part. Another felt he pushed too hard, like he was rushing for the song to end. WTF? I am no connoisseur of music, but I think I know good music when I hear it, especially when it makes my hair stand; not many songs, with the exception of L'Arc~en~Ciel's music can do that.

The average points each judge awarded was a paltry 7.0.

What?!? After such a soul-stirring performance, 7.0? In what way was that performance inferior to Junyang's?!? I was outraged at this bias. Even Junyang's supporters were shocked at the low grades. What? Are they planning to make Junyang the winner because they perceive that he is more marketable than a blind man, rather than on vocal talent? Singers like Grace Chow and Ocean have produced countless best selling albums without holding concerts or putting their faces on the cover....so why is Wei Lian left out?

I stayed for Junyang's final song, 'Tong Hua'. His voice was good, and he gave a pretty much applaudable effort. But the marks they awarded him...9.5 and such...nauseated me. I somehow knew that, no matter how well Wei Lian sang later, he would be criticised and given points way short of what he deserves. In fact, I felt so disgusted, I walked out of the auditorium.

So this is how the competition works, like how Rachel Lee was forced to choose someone else as the winner by the producers when Mark Zee was the lad she fancied in 'Eye For A Guy'. Kaoz.
I'm quite tempted to appeal to everyone out there to sms and vote for Wei Lian, to do justice to his singing abilities. But then again, after everyone has spent 60 cents, the people who count the votes are, again, the producers. They could easily tell us Junyang won even if Wei Lian had a million more votes.

So, utterly disgusting. Is it a surprise, then, that Mediacorp hasn't warranted international acclaimation after so long? That only a few of our local artistes make it big overseas? That only one or two of our local productions are aired abroad? What for, when everything is a staged fallacy? I wonder how heavily edited the version they are going to air on TV will be like.

Well...on the high side, I went to Club Momo for the NUS bash. We got lost initially, but managed to find the place. The music was good, and the initial drink was pretty strong as well. Had loads of fun thrashing myself out on the dance floor. Definately a place I'd go back to again.

Riding hard, fast, safely AND taking a few corners.