Monday, July 24, 2006

Lifeline episode of Airtel Super Singer

The lifeline episode was stretched to two whole episodes for no apparent reason. The first episode of showing the singer that have been recalled and given a lifeline was extremely long and painful to watch at times. Too much time was spent on nothing. Silly antics of Harish and his friends (they are the ones who needed the kick in the behind!) and the "surprise" enactment of Harish and Archana in the cafe in Bangalore all had nothing to do with their singing abilities. In fact if they had shown them singing something their chances of getting some votes might have increased.

Now lets come to the actual singing Lifeline episode.

First Sowmya sang the Chandralekha song. She was good but as one of the judges said she was not as brilliant as she was in the earlier episode when she was rejected. But still she sang the song very well and had some of her own variations. She has been trying to improve throughout the competition and show her versatality and range. (she was unsure of her range in earlier episodes). She deserves to be in the final.

Harish singing Ennavale was very much below par. He made several mistakes. His singing is essentially flat with some surprising improvisations. His brilliance comes in flashes. But that is about it, overall the song is not impressive and he sounded off key in a lot of places. He doesn't stick to the beats as well. He seems very average. We have not seen a lot of Harish in this competition, but if this song was his best then clearly he did not use this recall chance very well and will not show up in the finals (or win it for that matter).

Was suprised that Archana was recall that too by Unni. Her singing is inconsistent (within the same song). The volume of the song changes at will without any warning! She seems to yell out and there is no melody in her voice. Also she sang a song that we have heard several times from her and other participants. She did not attempt anything new. The song itself was mediocre. She will not get through unless she controls her "volume" and "volume variations" in her singing, to put it mildly.

Vijay Krishnan botches up yet another one of his many "recall" chances! He got into the song and lost himself. His singing was off key. He chose a very popular song "nilave va" and made several obvious mistakes even to a layman. His friends are the only hope of him getting into the final not his singing.

Nitin Raj was the only one who seemed to have done a good job. He is good imitator of the original song. He did no variations and created a good replica of the original "kana kandenadi". He seemed to show confidence. But he is not versatile enough to win the competition. There was nothing flashy in the singing that the viewers could connect to.


Maybe the original voters who gave Sowmya her Lifeline will get her into the finals as well. The other singers did not hold up to the promise.

Lets see what the final rounds have in store for us. Hope Vijay TV does not waste the episode in unwanted "drama" like this lifeline episode and actually show some real singing from the participants.