Deep inside my heart, I feel it too
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 @ 9:45 pm.
Before my recount of the day,
I just watched the Singapore Idol Piano Show 1 today. Here is a quote from my Plurk account.
Singapore Idol tonight: In my opinion, two good performances only: Tabitha and Syltra. I'll blog about this later.
Now on to a detailed analysis.
Charles "Stitch" Wong: The amazing beatbox-guitar-singer, singing "Collide". He started his performance with fancy beatboxing (which is good by the way) so I hoped that his performance would be a good one. But it kinda wasn't. He was quite happily singing away and seemingly rather unaware of his audience. In the end he started beatboxing
again, which just made it worse in my opinion. Like it was added on with desperation and a square of duct tape. Why is there a need for so much beatboxing?
Frances Maria: "So What" by Pink, which in the end turned out too raucous for my liking. She didn't hit the low notes in the "I wanna start a fight" parts, so I found it quite clever that she changed it to ascending notes rather than descending. I thought it was okay. It would have been okay if it hadn't been her singing it. It doesn't match.
MJ Kuok: "These Walls" (had to look it up on the SI website because I couldn't remember what it was). He started out with leaping all over the stage with his guitar which immediately threw my mother off, but I thought it was okay at first, because again I've never seen this guy before. But in the end it just turned out rather juvenile. I'm not exactly sure why.
The judges liked all three of these performers but hated their performances, pretty much. From here, it isn't going to be in the exact order.
Jannah Shaharuddin: "No One" by Alicia Keys. I don't really like the song, especially sung by other people, so obviously this performance didn't sit well with me at all. The judges liked it, though. But, whatever. So much can be done with that song yet so little, most of the time.
Ryan Lee: "Moondance" by I'm not sure who, but I think it's a Michael Buble song among others.
This guy's face reminds me of the Japan HRC delegate from RMUN. Don't you think so? The same face!! I love this song, Moondance. And Ryan likes jazz. Overall, I did like it. But apparently it's not strong enough, or brassy enough, according to the judges. In my opinion, as an inexperienced consumer of music, Ryan should have gone acoustic with this song. Even though he can't play the guitar. He still can. I think the brassy impression was created with the blaring trumpets in the background, which drowned out Ryan's voice a bit.
Farhan Shah: "When You Look Me in the Eyes" by The Jonas Brothers (had to look it up on the SI website because I couldn't remember what it was) boring. It's like he's stripped down to nothing but his vocal cords. Butter scraped too thin. Not even spread, really. Dollop of butter. Basically, smooth vocals without much variation of tone and not much feeling either.
Malaque Mahdaly: "The Voice Within" by don't know who. Overall it was a good performance. Malaque clearly deserves to be in the Top 24. In my opinion. But apparently not special enough? I don't know, at least it wasn't horrible. Middle-ish. And considering half will be eliminated tonight she might have a chance.
Nurul Huda: "Rehab" by Rihanna. Personally, I don't think people should cover Rihanna songs. Rihanna has a timbre and a sick vibrato that people can either not have or have them and be accused of imitation. Anyway, Nurul didn't have it, and I kinda didn't like it. She didn't do enough with the song. Strange dancing. Credit to her, voice is great. But not for Rehab.
Theodore Teow: is such the politician-mummy'sboy-pillowhugger. Reminds me of Eleanor. I don't know why. "Bless the Broken Road" by Rascal Flatts. His words were really marbled. He was singing as though he was kinda sleepy. So I didn't like it.
Douglas Wong: "How to Save a Life" by The Fray. Again, rather marbled vocals. I'm not sure why. Anyway, not one of the performances that stood out to me. The judges were complaining that he had to appeal to the public, and since they thought he looked appealing I suppose it was the song. They said he was indulging in the song. But isn't the song itself already popular? Maybe it's just me and my bubble.
Tabitha Nauser: "One Night Only" by I don't know who. I liked it until I realised it was a disco song. I don't really like disco. Tabitha and Syltra convince me that this year's Idol will be female. According to Ken, she has both looks and voice. Which I have to agree with.
Syltra Lee: "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" by KT Tunstall. Excellent. Great guitar, great vocals. Dick Lee said "I have three words: Best Performance Tonight" and I thought he was going to get it wrong like
someone I've seen before. Great.
Anyway, results now. I'm gonna go see.
EDIT:
CHARLES AND MJ ARE IN THE TOP TWELVE. I'm quite surprised, actually. I don't know if I like this; it'll have to do with the remaining contestants who get in. But I didn't really like the two of them.
EDIT:
FARHAN SHAH JOINS CHARLES AND MJ IN THE TOP TWELVE VIA PUBLIC VOTING. Meanwhile,
SYLTRA LEE AND TABITHA NAUSER JOIN THE TOP TWELVE VIA JUDGES' VOTE. One spot remains. Again, Farhan's rather of a shocker. Wonder what the public thinks. I obviously don't think like them.
EDIT:
MALAQUE MAHDALY ENTERS THE TOP TWELVE VIA JUDGES' VOTE. I didn't watch this myself. My mum just said "Oh, the girl, the rather pretty one" and I thought she might have meant Frances or someone before I went to the SI website.