Project "Superstar"

Let me call it now, weeks before the actual event. The winner of the Project "Superstar" Grand Final will be a male singer.

Last year, I predicted that Singapore Idol would be won by a guy, although the female finalists outnumbered the males and all the early talk was about the female power-houses (Jessea, Beverly and Olinda, I think). My logic back then was that the voting demographic skewed heavily towards younger girls, probably the tweens and teens. Unless there is a future Stefanie Sun among the contestants, guys are going to have a natural advantage. Particularly young, cute guys with nice smiles, that seem relatable and non-threatening. Witness Taufik, Christopher and Sylvester (not that I find Sylvester cute at all, but hey, I'm not in the typical voting demographic).

Applying that same logic to "Superstar", a guy is going to win. The female contestants do not quite fit the teen-idol mould that appeals to the tween and teen female demographic (typified by Stephanie Sun's winning combination of sweetness and youthful energy). A couple of them have the looks, but seem to be suffering from nerves, rendering their performances rather anaemic.

Even without the logic, I think the male contestants in "Superstar" are generally MUCH superior to the females. If they did not structure the show such that the two genders compete separately, we might have had 7 males and only 3 females making up the 10 semifinalists. The only female singer that can compete with the top guys is Kelly Poon and she might not have the votes to carry her through to the final 2. I think she suffers a bit from being perceived as the judge's favourite, which might not endear her to those who are predisposed to disliking "teachers' pets".

Project "Superstar" is grandiloquently named, even more so than Singapore "Idol". The title says it - this is a search for a superstar, not just a reasonably talented performer. It's a tall order and I think the producers have set their sights much too high. The contestants seem likeable enough, but there is not one "superstar" in the whole bunch. Nobody quite has that spark which marks a "star", never mind a "superstar". When a few are still struggling with the basics of singing, the "superstar" part is really a stretch.

To make things worse, the format of the show seems to encourage them to be generically sweet and nice. I guess coming across as a nice person helps to rake in the votes. But the end effect is that they seem interchangeable - the guys all have non-black spiky hair, the girls all have sweet, toothy smiles and all of them have colourless personalities. I am sure that these people are very lively and fascinating and interesting in real life, but we are not seeing ANY of this on the show. Everyone seems to love everyone else, every one hugs each other and cries at each result show, everyone says basically the same thing when he/she is not eliminated, everyone who is eliminated says basically the same thing on his/her farewell video.

It's a pity, because there are several things about Project "Superstar" (sorry, I just cannot leave off the " ", because they are absolutely necessary) which I think are better done than in Idol, which Superstar has a lot in common with.

I like that the judges usually give in-depth critiques, often alluding to the technicalities of singing. In fact, I think they spend just as much time on "breath support", "head voice", "chest voice" and "relaxed jaw" as they do on things like performance and "feel". It's an acknowledgement that singing is much more than sounding rather okay in a karaoke bar; it requires training, skill and technique. In four seasons of American Idol, the closest we ever got to a technique-related critique was the oft-mentioned "pitchy".

I also like the fact that the judges' scores count towards the final scores of the contestants. At least the professionals have a small say. But having the audience know the judges' marks can have its drawbacks. Fans of low-scoring contestants could go on a voting rampage to save their darling. Fans of high-scoring contestants could be lulled into a false sense of security. Or, like I suspect with William Tanoto Tan and Kelly Poon, people could just dislike them because the judges so obviously favour them. It might be better that the judges' scores only be revealed during the result show.

The idea of making the contestants sing duets is also a great one. Singing harmony is a great way to expose weaknesses and also a great way to develop musicianship. And the sadist in me enjoys about watching these attention-grabbing famewhores having to work together and share the limelight with a competitor. If they weren't all so boringly nice about everything, this could have been a recipe for screaming matches and temper tantrums. See, if they did this on American Idol, we would get to watch backstage footage of contestants quarrelling over line allocation, trying to upstage each other and hurling assorted accusations and insults. Perhaps the "Superstar" producers were aiming for this. They just underestimated the good breeding (and incurable need to be liked) of Singaporean youngsters.

So, as Project Non-Offensive Nice-Looking Singer enters its semi-final rounds, let me stick out my neck about the grand final: it's going to be a nice-looking boy versus a nice-looking girl, they'll both sing at least one love-themed ballad, the judges will be very nice, the guy will win and be very nice about his victory, and the girl will lose and be very nice about her defeat. The show will do nicely in the ratings and everyone will get a nice feeling from watching it.

This post brought to you by the word "Nice".