Have been following Airtel Super Singer 3 but have not written much about this in the past year. It was long drawn out process to get to the pre-finals. I particularly enjoyed the performances in the wild card round. The performances from Praveen and Srinivas in these wild card rounds have been phenomenal. They both really gave their best in these rounds and it was a pleasure listening to them in these rounds.
In the pre-finals my pick will be Sathya Prakash. Before the prefinals round I would have picked Pooja or Saicharan, but Sathya has proved why he is in the finals.
Peppy Songs
Santosh and Saicharan were extremely dull for me in the first round with their peppy numbers. Saicharan sounded very offkey and uncomfortable in the "Something Something" song. In some portions it felt as if he was just reading the lines and not singing. For Santosh the choice of song was very bad. There was nothing enjoyable in that song "dho da" -- that song is at best a filler in a stage program, and it has no place in a competition like this. A wasted chance for Santosh here. Pooja made a good attempt at the "September maadham", but it was extremely bad in some places where she was trying to sing Asha Bhosle's line. Also she seemed to struggle switching between the male and female portions. Totally bad choice of song here.
Then comes Sathya Prakash who make a brilliant choice of a rarely heard song in competitions from the movie Mr.Romeo. He brought the whole house down with his singing. The switch between Udit Narayan and Hariharan voices were scintillating. He added a lot of improvisations not found in the original and it sounded very appropriate for this peppy song. Absolutely delightful and he seemed very comfortable in the song.
Classical Round
First the song that I absolutely loved: Chinnan Chiriya Vanna Paravai! Sathya Prakash's histronics (esp. when he starts of the TMS portion) combined with his control of the final portions lifted the song to great heights. He was so much at ease that it didn't feel like he was actually singing a difficult duet (S Janaki-TMS)! He handled both the singers lines very well. He made is look so easy. His command over the singing style was very apparent.
Compared to that the others were not that impressive. Pooja with "Marairundhey Paarkum" seems a little forced; the feel of the original song was not captured well by her singing. Santosh sang a often heard track in Super Singer: "Isai Kettaal". Unfortunately his version did not stand out when compared to the others we have heard before. Saicharan choice was good (a song that clinched the junior Super Singer finals a few years ago), but it sounded a totally different song when he sang it. There were artificial breaks introduced and things he added to the song that deviated from the beauty of the original classic song.
Unplugged Round
Saicharan's rendition of "Meera Varuvaala" (Manadhil Urudhi Vendum) was very interesting. I loved some portions esp. when he says "Meera varuvala" in the first line -- everytime he said it I was totally moved. But the choice of song was kind of odd for this unplugged round as the original was classical and it seemed a little forced into this round. I can listen to his version just for the way he sang the word "Meera" throughout the song.
Pooja and Santosh stuck to common songs and so the freshness factor was lost the moment they started their song! Also Pooja was just about okay in this song. We have heard better singing from here before. The same song "Kalvarae kalvarae" have been sung better by other singer (guest singers in fact) before. So she does not get high marks here from me. Santosh went with a song he has sung probably attempted in the earlier Super Singer. His voice is great and this performance was a pleasure to listen to, but nothing extraordinary or new that takes your breath away. So unfortunately Pooja and Santosh ended up not impressive because of the choice of songs.
Sathya again scored in this round. He captured the core of the song "Aaruyirae" (Madraspattinam) with his version. In some portions he sounded much better than the original (Sonu Nigam) by adding expression to match the meaning of words (which probably the original singer could not understand). I was lost in the middle of the song listening to the orchestra and Sathya's singing. It was very effective and convincing. He could have easily sung the original song in the movie! If any current music director was listening to this why wouldn't they call Sathya to sing these types of songs?
My Pick
Having seen the whole season, my pick would be Sathya Prakash. He is unique to this Super Singer. All other singers have been on other channels and other programs before, or they have been in super singer and lost out. Sathya is the
fresh deserving finalist of this season. He is
the find of this season -- Congrats to the various judges who have identified him and groomed him to get to this stage! He deserves his share in the industry and shower us with many great songs in the future!
Looking forward to a great finals the coming weekend!
