posted at 8:58 PM
How should one win the Singapore Idol this season?
Be a guy – and a pretty one at that.
Given the trend of the audience votes this season, this pretty much seems to hold true.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to take a stroll through our short history of Singapore Idol to find out what went wrong.
In Season One, the contestants who sailed through the piano show rounds contained a fair mix of guys and girls, all of whom could hold their voice pretty well.
In fact, it was a relatively peaceful season. The ones who should have stayed stayed, and the ones who should leave left without as much of an outcry from the public. Everything went well, Taufik and Sylvester went on to cut their albums with Sylvester falling flat on his face, Olinda appeared in slimming ads, and Maia Lee’s fame continued rising even after her departure mid-season for all the wrong reasons – including a supposedly quickie marriage to Sylvester, and fiery posts in her blog spiced up with raunchy photos.
Everyone was happy. Perhaps the only surprise – I remember shouting at the TV in indignation – was Jeassea Thyidor’s meek exit out in the first round, after storming through the competition being hotly touted as one of the season’s best voice. The producers tried to reason that she was too private and cautious with her persona, and it didn’t connect well with the audience. I say it’s just because she’s an angmoh and Singaporeans were not used to the idea of foreign talent yet. The government should have looked into this back then.
“That was a pretty good season, considering it’s only our first one,” everyone thought, “we should all be looking forward to the second one!”
Boy, oh boy, did we enjoy our second season.
Season Two started off on a different note. Not a bad note, just a different one. Season One was perhaps better known for its strong and steady contestants. Season Two had its share of good singers who sailed through the piano shows too, but on top of that, we started to notice a different breed of contestants also going through hand-in-hand – the popular, good-looking ones.
Nothing wrong with that, you think, considering popularity is probably as important as talent in a show like Singapore Idol where the audience is king. Sure there’s nothing wrong, but something must definitely be wrong when you soon realize that better singers – Mathilda D’Silva would be the name most uttered on people’s lips – start tumbling out of the competition one after another like dominoes, leaving nothing but a trail of dust and smoke. And, you also realize, the popular singers who can’t sing well would emerge, Hollywood-style, from the confusion and the chaos, virtually unscathed and brushing the dirt off their shoulders.
It got to a point when Joakim Gomez, one of the contestants who brushed so much dirt off his shoulders his hands probably had blisters, was appealing to the audience to vote for talent instead of popularity (ie. him), because round after round, he had become the victim of media attacks and online criticisms for staying longer than he was worth.
It makes me feel mean to say this because it’s not their faults at all, but popular contestants like Joakim Gomez the good-looker, Paul Twohill the goofball, and Jasmine Tye the sweet little pie, tainted Season Two and the image of Singapore Idol when they were placed 5th, 4th and 3rd in the competition, outstaying more talented contestants like rock chick Rahimah Rahim (8th), drama queen Mathilda D’Silva (7th), and soul princess Nurul Maideen (6th).
Thankfully everything panned out in the end – vocal powerhouse Hady Mirza prevailed – while Joakim and Paul went on to craft their careers in showbusiness doing what they do best – looking good and being funny respectively.
But as they say, once the seed is planted, you can’t stop the plant from growing.
Season Three is happening 3 years after Season Two, and you would’ve thought that with the lack of attention, the plant probably would have died. But has the plant has been growing strong this season.
I’ve said before that thankfully the format is changed this time, so the judges have as much of a say as the audience (only for the piano rounds). Because imagine what would happen if voting was left entirely to the audience!
The voters never seemed to have learnt their lessons – instead, they seem to be burrowing a deeper and deeper hole, as if they are all out in full force in a show of intransigence.
For the piano shows this season, 6 slots were given to the audience to decide who gets to progress. The audience successfully voted for all of them to be guys. While these guys might not all have cookie-cutter images or necessarily be bad singers, every of them is definitely a popular, personality contestant to a considerable extent. Meanwhile, the judges had to save the asses of contestants with the raw talent – 6 girls and 1 guy – to form the final Top 13.
What we are seeing now is an incongruity that runs almost parallel between the audience and the judges’ choices. While this was never something new in competitions like this, it is something that’s becoming worryingly pronounced as seasons pass. This season, the audience is voting for the pretty and popular male contestants, while the judges are fighting to retain the talents, most of whom happen to be females, and the credibility of the competition.
Instead of becoming wiser and more mature as seasons pass, it seems like voters are becoming more juvenile. It doesn’t matter if this season has been heavily promoted as the strongest season ever with the possibility of a female winner – you can say that documentary films are good with the professional authority of an adult, but the kids will still stick to watching their cartoons and MTV programs.
It has been such a mockery that even before rounds for the Top 13 have began, TV advertisments are already singing to the tune of “Remember to vote for talent!”
What’s worrying is how it would spell the future of Singapore Idol. Detractors have all along sounded the death knell by saying that we have no local talent – but objectively speaking, we have seen rather strong contestants in all three seasons. The problem lies in the voters – do they know how to vote wisely? Do they know who they should be rooting for? If they don’t, future potential contestants would see that popularity is valued more than talent, and they would be deterred from joining the competition. The result is that there would be a dearth of good voicers in future season, detractors would be proven right, and Singapore Idol would have failed to achieve what it aims to do.
My unprofessional opinion is that the producers should analyze the demographic of the voters. My hunch is that a large majority are teeny boppers, and once that’s proven, measures could be in place to reduce the strength of their votes, like perhaps the price of each vote could be raised.
If results show that the demographic consists of people of all ages, genders and races, then sadly, perhaps all Singapore is looking for in the Singapore Idol is a pretty boy.
You might also have heard that good-looker MJ Kuok has resigned from the Top 13, paving the way for Rihanna-singing Nurul Huda’s entrance. This can only be a good thing – the more females there are, the more buffer there is against the predicted exits of the female competitors in subsequent parts of the competition.
This season, it’s the pretty boy brigade against the girls with the big voices. Who will be our next Singapore Idol?
Be a guy – and a pretty one at that.
Given the trend of the audience votes this season, this pretty much seems to hold true.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to take a stroll through our short history of Singapore Idol to find out what went wrong.
In Season One, the contestants who sailed through the piano show rounds contained a fair mix of guys and girls, all of whom could hold their voice pretty well.
In fact, it was a relatively peaceful season. The ones who should have stayed stayed, and the ones who should leave left without as much of an outcry from the public. Everything went well, Taufik and Sylvester went on to cut their albums with Sylvester falling flat on his face, Olinda appeared in slimming ads, and Maia Lee’s fame continued rising even after her departure mid-season for all the wrong reasons – including a supposedly quickie marriage to Sylvester, and fiery posts in her blog spiced up with raunchy photos.
Everyone was happy. Perhaps the only surprise – I remember shouting at the TV in indignation – was Jeassea Thyidor’s meek exit out in the first round, after storming through the competition being hotly touted as one of the season’s best voice. The producers tried to reason that she was too private and cautious with her persona, and it didn’t connect well with the audience. I say it’s just because she’s an angmoh and Singaporeans were not used to the idea of foreign talent yet. The government should have looked into this back then.
“That was a pretty good season, considering it’s only our first one,” everyone thought, “we should all be looking forward to the second one!”
Boy, oh boy, did we enjoy our second season.
Season Two started off on a different note. Not a bad note, just a different one. Season One was perhaps better known for its strong and steady contestants. Season Two had its share of good singers who sailed through the piano shows too, but on top of that, we started to notice a different breed of contestants also going through hand-in-hand – the popular, good-looking ones.
Nothing wrong with that, you think, considering popularity is probably as important as talent in a show like Singapore Idol where the audience is king. Sure there’s nothing wrong, but something must definitely be wrong when you soon realize that better singers – Mathilda D’Silva would be the name most uttered on people’s lips – start tumbling out of the competition one after another like dominoes, leaving nothing but a trail of dust and smoke. And, you also realize, the popular singers who can’t sing well would emerge, Hollywood-style, from the confusion and the chaos, virtually unscathed and brushing the dirt off their shoulders.
It got to a point when Joakim Gomez, one of the contestants who brushed so much dirt off his shoulders his hands probably had blisters, was appealing to the audience to vote for talent instead of popularity (ie. him), because round after round, he had become the victim of media attacks and online criticisms for staying longer than he was worth.
It makes me feel mean to say this because it’s not their faults at all, but popular contestants like Joakim Gomez the good-looker, Paul Twohill the goofball, and Jasmine Tye the sweet little pie, tainted Season Two and the image of Singapore Idol when they were placed 5th, 4th and 3rd in the competition, outstaying more talented contestants like rock chick Rahimah Rahim (8th), drama queen Mathilda D’Silva (7th), and soul princess Nurul Maideen (6th).
Thankfully everything panned out in the end – vocal powerhouse Hady Mirza prevailed – while Joakim and Paul went on to craft their careers in showbusiness doing what they do best – looking good and being funny respectively.
But as they say, once the seed is planted, you can’t stop the plant from growing.
Season Three is happening 3 years after Season Two, and you would’ve thought that with the lack of attention, the plant probably would have died. But has the plant has been growing strong this season.
I’ve said before that thankfully the format is changed this time, so the judges have as much of a say as the audience (only for the piano rounds). Because imagine what would happen if voting was left entirely to the audience!
The voters never seemed to have learnt their lessons – instead, they seem to be burrowing a deeper and deeper hole, as if they are all out in full force in a show of intransigence.
For the piano shows this season, 6 slots were given to the audience to decide who gets to progress. The audience successfully voted for all of them to be guys. While these guys might not all have cookie-cutter images or necessarily be bad singers, every of them is definitely a popular, personality contestant to a considerable extent. Meanwhile, the judges had to save the asses of contestants with the raw talent – 6 girls and 1 guy – to form the final Top 13.
What we are seeing now is an incongruity that runs almost parallel between the audience and the judges’ choices. While this was never something new in competitions like this, it is something that’s becoming worryingly pronounced as seasons pass. This season, the audience is voting for the pretty and popular male contestants, while the judges are fighting to retain the talents, most of whom happen to be females, and the credibility of the competition.
Instead of becoming wiser and more mature as seasons pass, it seems like voters are becoming more juvenile. It doesn’t matter if this season has been heavily promoted as the strongest season ever with the possibility of a female winner – you can say that documentary films are good with the professional authority of an adult, but the kids will still stick to watching their cartoons and MTV programs.
It has been such a mockery that even before rounds for the Top 13 have began, TV advertisments are already singing to the tune of “Remember to vote for talent!”
What’s worrying is how it would spell the future of Singapore Idol. Detractors have all along sounded the death knell by saying that we have no local talent – but objectively speaking, we have seen rather strong contestants in all three seasons. The problem lies in the voters – do they know how to vote wisely? Do they know who they should be rooting for? If they don’t, future potential contestants would see that popularity is valued more than talent, and they would be deterred from joining the competition. The result is that there would be a dearth of good voicers in future season, detractors would be proven right, and Singapore Idol would have failed to achieve what it aims to do.
My unprofessional opinion is that the producers should analyze the demographic of the voters. My hunch is that a large majority are teeny boppers, and once that’s proven, measures could be in place to reduce the strength of their votes, like perhaps the price of each vote could be raised.
If results show that the demographic consists of people of all ages, genders and races, then sadly, perhaps all Singapore is looking for in the Singapore Idol is a pretty boy.
You might also have heard that good-looker MJ Kuok has resigned from the Top 13, paving the way for Rihanna-singing Nurul Huda’s entrance. This can only be a good thing – the more females there are, the more buffer there is against the predicted exits of the female competitors in subsequent parts of the competition.
This season, it’s the pretty boy brigade against the girls with the big voices. Who will be our next Singapore Idol?
