Project Superstar

Okay, I must say I wasn't very into the whole Project Superstar thing. Having witnessed the miracles that were brought about by the first Pop Idol of the UK producing Will Young and Gareth Gates (both of their debut singles sold over a million copies), and watching talent search formats cross over to US and Singapore, I was pretty sure that Project Superstar would just be another tiring remake of the entire concept.

Well, I've been proven wrong. Under the influence of my bunkmates and the general public and media, I've been a sucker for the show. I wasn't a fan since day one, but I got caught up in it. Let's just say that I was pretty interested to see who would take the title. Of course, it is kind of entertaining to listen to people complain or show so much love for the yet-to-be-idols, and even funnier to hear people with amateurish views on the music industry telling me their two-cents worth on the singers' future successes etc. I'm not one to be easily impressed; I've observed the industry for about almost a decade already. Hmph.

I must, first of all, thank my platoon sgt who lifted the ban for one night to allow us to go watch Project Superstar (PS). Now, isn't it a big deal when a punishment has been lifted for the sake of watching the competition between the finalists of PS? It's a good judge of how huge the show has become. Anyway. The pic above of Jeff Wang and Quan Yi Feng. They were FAB. I can't imagine anyone being better hosts. Yay. So on Thursday night, we got to witness the highly publicised showdown between Kelly and Wei Lian. (Who haven't cut an album yet, so their names don't deserve to be in bold.)


Wei Lian vs Kelly

I must say that the standard of singing was pretty good for PS. The first song they sang was pretty ordinary (with Wei Lian obviously singing better) and then it was followed by an a capella one. I was amazed at them both being to stay in key before the instrumental began playing. That is one tough thing to do, and I'm not sure if the average uncle/auntie who voted realised the difficulty of performing the song, but I did. And both Wei Lian and Kelly were very impressive, but Kelly was kinda wobbly at the beginning. (Hey I noticed it and one of the judges mentioned it to. Crown me.)

However, after the duet with Lin Jun Jie, the tide was turned and Kelly undoubtedly ruled the stage. To be honest, Wei Lian's duet with JJ was uncomfortable to watch, it was out of tune when he was singing the harmony... and it just seemed awkward. All of us thought that Kelly would be as nervous. I mean, can any ordinary civilian soul imagine singing next to JJ, who sounded even better live than he does on CD? He's my new C-Pop Idol! Kelly pulled off the verse of Mu Nai Yi with the RnB feel, which was fantastic. Sounds like the female JJ!

I suppose it went downhill from there for Wei Lian performance-wise. I was downright unimpressed by the songs writted by the judges for the two performers. Obviously, they weren't able to come up with gems because of the time frame they were working with. The melody for Wei Lian's song was predictable; the lyrics were well written but still cliche. I thought Kelly would sing something like Stephanie Sun's Man Man Lai. The song was good performance-wise but there wasn't a strong enough hook and the english lyrics got me cringing everytime. If you ain't an ABC (David Tao, Wang Lee Hom, Edison Chen) for god's sake DON'T put English lyrics to Chinese songs. It is uncool. Damn.

Sadly, I've only watched till that part because we were supposed to be back in bunk by 10PM as we had a 15km run the next day. And my legs are still aching from it, but that's beside the point. The next morning, I woke up and Daniel told me that... Wei Lian won. I wasn't surprised because I saw it coming. But I urge all Kelly fans to stop feeling so utterly resentful at Wei Lian winning. Or Jun Yang fans for that matter. As long as they had a chance to secure a recording contract, their future in the music industry is theirs to create. The title does not FUCKING MATTER. So, if you're a huge fan of theirs, buy their albums! When it gets released of course.


Kelly needs to fire her hairstylist. Pronto.

Anyway, I got to see photos of the duo at the press conference that happened immediately after. I'm also glad to see that Kelly was fine with Wei Lian winning and in truth the fact that we all got to witness both of them perform 5 songs beautifully is good enough for me. The fact that she knew she did her best was good enough for her too. Now we wait for their albums. I'm bored out of my ass listening to them sing songs by other people. Bah.


The red carpet!

The red carpet was not shown on TV. Instead, the bloody thing started at 730PM and it was just clips combined from the previous episodes. What about the famous people walking in and all with commentary to match? Looking at the photos, I think all the PS contenders have a certain amount of charm and the potential to make it big. In fact, it's not easy to look glamorous on the red carpet and they make it look so easy! They're no longer the newbies who would've freaked out just being in front of the camera. So I hope they get the chance to do something worthwhile, even if it's hosting or acting or singing. They've already become faces that would be recognised on the street.

Well, I should stop commenting like I'm not bias and I don't have a favourite. I'm supposed to be objective when commenting, but to hell with that. My favourite Idol is Jason.



It's the same as when I saw Ben C's poster on all the walls of KBox around Singapore. He makes me want to listen to his songs. You could say that he has guan zhong yuan with me. So before I even heard him sing, I thought that he was pretty good. Of course my friends thought otherwise and he was widely slammed by the media when he got through one round even when he got low scores. I admit he isn't polished but when I heard him sing last week when they brought all the PS contenders back for a summary episode, he sounded very good. So it's a matter of working on it for him. I hope he releases an album of something, although it's not likely.


Jun Yang and Xin Hui

In my ideal world, the finals would be him (Jason) up against Xin Hui, who was absolutely gorgeous and sang like an angel on the finals (where she didn't compete). I had my jaws on the floor. As for Jun Yang, I'm interested to see whether he will cook up a storm when he finally has the chance to release his album. He's good looking and he can sing, but I don't idolise him. Not yet.

Overall, the format of the show is on by public voting. No one person (even if his family called 900 times) can control the outcome of the show. For whatever reason Wei Lian has won, he is the Superstar, so I think people should stop being so bitter over it, and be nice and congratulate him. It is kind of shocking how he's blind and yet managed to get so far. I admit I used to think that he wouldn't last like 2 rounds but he came all the way till the end.

Winning PS is not the goal. Breaking into the mandopop industry is.