As predicted Sonia and Vivekanandan win ISS 2008

Didn't watch the show though I was able to hear the proceedings from the adjacent room. I asked Chaithu and Jaya to mute whenever Ranjini would do the talking. It was terrible to watch or hear her bragging and screaming "..one crore..one crore..".
The show sucked as usual and the winners were anyone's guess.

By the way when I received a "Happy Vishu" SMS from Roopa, last year's SSG winner on Amritha I was glad I was still there, somewhere in her memory.

Poor competition at ISS 2008

Maybe the people behing ISS 2008 are wondering why they had to have seperate prizes for the ladies and the gents. In the ladies section there is hardly any competition. Instead of running the show any further they simply can give away the award to Sonia. Gayathri seems content with second position (I believe the second prize is 100 sovereigns of gold) and is offering little or no competition.

As for the gents though Prashob did well in the Kutchery round it wasn't really the show of someone fighting for the first prize. ISS fans will recall last years' masterpiece from Thushar that left the judges crying. It was Thushar's leap to the top 5 position.

In fact last year's show was good enough till the end though everyone knew that Najim would eventually win. Last years winners and participants would also find this years competition and prizes a little hard to digest.

Meanwhile, today is Somadas's acid test as he is singing the Kutchery round. May God help him.

Another exciting thing. We just came to know a couple of weeks ago that Vivekanandan is Jaya's second cousin's son. I have a great song for Vivek to perform live on the violin but will that happen. Let me try.

Poor Arya bears the brunt of someone else's fault

Vivekanandan is ony getting better with each performance. The melody of yesterday's "Samyamagannoru Udyaname.." was beautiful particularly in the words "..Deviyundodevi..". Sonia's was good if not excellent.

Here is Vivek's performance.


But the real tradedy was in Arya's performance who unfortunately is getting poorer with each performance. Selecting the techno version of Ilayaraja's "Inji Iduppazhaga" maybe was a bad choice but judges took off on the poor thing because they hated the techno version of the original. Why blame the poor girl if someone else did the Techno version? Then the judges tell her that she must have consulted them for a better song. Why? Why can't participants choose their own song. I indicated this a few posts ago. The poor thing even confessed that she hadn't listened to the original or even know it existed. But the damage was done. One by one they let their fury on her who took the scolding with a brave face.

Don't miss today's Gayathri's performance as it looked so good. She is singing one of Gayathri's songs that the latter dueted with Venugopal (who is judging) the show.

Vivekanandan continues ISS with another stellar show

Yesterday Vivekanandan delivered another stunner in his smooth voice by singing a tough composition from "Bharathom". Singer Venugopal was right when he said Vivek had added his own meat to the difficult number originally sung by Yeshudas. Vivek is back in the competition and at the top.

Vivekanandan delivers a stunning pro-performance on ISS 2008

It is only recently that I have been watching ISS more frequently unlike ISS 2007. Vivekanandan was my initial favourite but later fell out in favour because of poor performances. But he is slowly making a comeback and yesterday was a smashing comeback performance.

In fact I was surprised at the low praise that Sharath and Venugopal gave for Vivekanandan after yesterday's awesome performance in the Fusion round of the competition. Being proficient on the violin Vivekanandan used it to enhance the total effect of the fusion song where he stretched his vocals to the limit including even a little pop-like vocal. The video actually showed judges completely blown by the performance. At one stage Sharath's mouth was literally open.

Vivek's long performance is in two parts.





Highly appreciative was Didi's comments but when she said something about George Benson, that was when I was really fell for what she said. So obviously I am going to explain what George Benson does and how Vivekanandan performed a similar thing.

George Benson is more popularly known for making hits such as "The Greatest Love of all" which became a huge hit for Whitney Houston in the late 80's. But what many don't know is that George Benson is one of the greatest guitarists around. His style is predominantly jazz but his style seems to transcend all genres. He plays a custom made Ibanez guitar and besides his melody and virtuosity what he is popularly known for is his "scat" singing, i.e singing along with his guitar licks and solos the same note that he is playing on the guitar. He does it with precision and speed. Check out his song "The world is a Ghetto" from the album "In Flight".

So what George did using his guitar Vivekanandan did playing his violin and Vivekanandan did go another further step in that that he was singing Carnatic swarams simultanesouly playing the same notes on the violin. Vivek's was difficult because he had to use his vocals while simultaneously supporting his violin below his chin.

Earlier Gayathri's ghazal wasn't bad either. She could have slowed down a bit.

I feel somewhat embarrassed about my previous post

Was I flattered so badly? From the dismal reviews I have been getting when I showed the video to sis, who didn't even want to waste one moment on it I am beginning to wonder whether there was really something good about the Gayathri-Vivekanandan performance I wrote about in my previous post. The same old cringe-material did take me for a ride. Gayathri sure gave a good singing performance. She acted well too but the whole thing still sucks, making her enact and perform all those sensuous things. After all what is this competition about? Acting, Dancing or Singing?

In fact Asianet seems to be doing more damage than good to these young singers. I am told they are made to sign contracts that doesn't allow them to perform for non-Asianet programmes for up to two years. And on top of all this act, dance, mimic, do comical things. Roopa, last years SSG winner on Amritha channel told me how participants had to undergo gruelling hours of orientation and grooming. How many of today's singers did all this to reach their current status in the world of music. For almost an entire year (the entire duration of the ISS competition) these kids will have to forgo their careers, be that even music. No wonder several participants left half way to get back to school and college. They might have realised that ISS is only ruining even their singing careers.

I feel sad for not only Roopa but all the other top singers too. Where they just pawns in a game where television channels are at war with one another for selling more products/services, getting advertising and sponsorships via more viewership.

God save these kids.

A sensuous performance on Idea Star Singer 2008

Unlike Idea Star Singer 2007, the 2008 season completely fell out of favour on me for the following main reasons -

1. It started too soon without giving us a break from the 2007 episode.
2. Ranjini is the host.
3. Other stereotypes like dancing, acting that are getting on the nerves of everyone these days.

8:30 and the T.V at home is invariably tuned into the Asianet channel telecasting ISS but I stay in my room doing my work on my computer. There are songs that impress me and I come out and watch occasionally but most of the time everything sucks and disgusts so bad I stay away from it all. The new stars of this season are emerging but somehow the talent is not like we had last time. Prashob, Vivekanandan, Rahul, Parvathi are names that come to mind as the cream of the crop. Somadas has replaced and even overthrown Sunny of ISS 2007 for the sympathetic vote but Somadas is certainly the better singer. His rendition of Shankar Mahadevan's "Varaha Nathi Karai Oram" during the earlier part of this ISS was splendid. Catch it on YouTube if you missed the show. What a relief to see Ramya in the place of Renjini. Those days are gone.



These days better singing has been tempting me to watch some of the performances. I am going to write about one such performance, the duet between Vivek and Gayathri that was telecast last Friday. Jaya was already shouting from the hall, "Come and take a look at what's going on." and I knew instantly that cringe-material was being shown. But the female portion of the song was so good that I couldn't help listening to the song. I stayed away from watching but I didn't know what I missed. But the comments after the show was so good I realised I may have missed something.

I finally saw it on YouTube last night and I don't know how many times I watched the concluding portions of the performance. Yes, these days ISS is simply pushing their performers but it was not so bad as I thought it would be. Anyway it was simply too good to watch Gayathri. She exuded such sensuousness, honesty, bashfulness and grace that it was difficult to not fall for her. It looked as though she was really in love with her co-singer Vivek who faltered many a time during the performance. Was it because of her moves? Except for some breath control her voice was sweet and perfect. She sang with total ease, something that I have been observing of her in her previous performances too. She not only sang her parts well but did other non-singing parts too which as Sharath pointed out were done by other artistes in the original. Her gaze throughout her performance was a movie Director's delight. Her concluding parts of the song, where she sensuously says her lines and emotes as Vivek approaches her was the real killer. Take a look at the video below.



Certainly I will be looking forward to her next performances but this kind of acting/emoting may not be something we'll get to see.