Friday, June 17, 2005

Malaysian Idol 02-04, Airdate: 17/6/2005 – Kuala Lumpur Auditions

(Image courtesy of malaysianidol.bluehyppo.com)



OMG!

The audition show this week started off with a good singer singing “Masquerade” from my all time favorite singing group, The Carpenters. I am just beside myself with joy for the first time this season. I’m really sure that whatever I said about the show last week has no bearing on the way it was presented this week since I’m sure no one, much less anyone from 8TV, is reading my blog but I’ll take this improvement as a shout-out to long suffering fans of the show like me.

BTW ... guys if anyone is actually reading this, don’t be shy about leaving your feedback on the comments link.

Side note aside, the show really stepped up this week. There were a lot more good showing than the bad which made it more enjoyable to watch. Is it because there were better singers in KL compared to the other audition venues? I wonder what was the percentage of people go through in KL compared to those from the other locations. I wished that they had made all the audition shows that came before for this season like this. I would have saved me the migraines and physical pain of being aurally assaulted by bad singing the past 3 weeks.

Among the many that showed up, a few did stand out to me. The first must be the girl who was cut from last year’s top 30 for forgetting her lyrics. It was heartbreaking to see her fail and I must say that I really cheered for her when she sang the same song at the finals last year. This year she’s back and sounds as good as she did before. She looked much more polished and confident this time around. I’ll definitely be watching out for her to see how far she can go.

Another person that sticks in my mind was the girl who had dyed her hair Ronald McDonald red. I don’t know why but her appearance, minus the red hair, reminds me of Misha Omar. I thought that she has a good voice and sang very well although she would have to work on her breathing techniques while singing. The way she had to loudly take a breath after each verse was a bit too distracting to me.

I was quite excited to see someone from the Soliano family trying out for the show. I was surprised that they didn’t try it last year. If there is a local musical dynasty family in Malaysia, the Soliano family has to be it. I remember growing up listening to the grandfather conducting the RTM orchestra on the old time radio show back when I was a small boy. I thing some one in my family must have been big fans of him back then as I remembered always having the big radio on when his show was on the air. It would be interesting to see how far the 2 Soliano ladies can progress in the show.

For all the good singers there were also a few really bad stinkers that were shown on the show tonight. I usually avoid pointing out anyone in particular since my motto is if I don’t have anything good to say best that I don’t say anything at all but I just have to put that aside for this time. First and foremost, I have to point out the really bad Michael Jackson impersonator. He had the moves down pat but he just couldn’t sing to save his life. The strange thing was that one of the judges had to come back and do this PSA (public service announcement) thanking him and praising him on his courage for being himself and what not. I know you mean well and might be doing this to avoid looking mean but I beg you don’t encourage them. Lets avoid having people who don’t believe in themselves enough to have their own identity in the show.

The other thing that I just have to bring up was that guy who sang Britney Spear’s “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman”. It is not a good song to begin with and to have a guy giving his best impression of Britney and singing this particular song on public TV is hilariously embarrassing to watch. Even the judges were doubled over by the ridiculousness of the situation. I think that he might be better served by doing “Crazy” instead if he absolutely must sing a Britney song for his audition. Wouldn’t anyone at the audition registration tables have to screen the constants first before the let them through? We even had a person just screaming instead of singing a few episodes back when it is clear that this was suppose to be a singing competition and not an outlet for some people to get TV air time.

Well it was a really good show from Malaysian Idol Season 2 this time around. Lets see if this momentum carries on in the theater elimination stage show next week.

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