Airtel super singer junior’s season two began yesterday and the schedule in the USA seems to be in sync with India this time. This week it’s just a fun round with the last year’s junior contestants going against the best from 2008 Airtel super singer seniors.

It’s a great thing for the super singer fans that the junior version begins just 2-3 weeks after the 2008 competition ended. So this gives us nice filler and also a chance to see the kid talent of Tamil Nadu before the Airtel Super Singer 2009 begins again later this year.

From the next week onwards we are going to see the auditions starting first with Coimbatore. I will be watching it for sure as yesterday I got a glimpse of how the last year’s juniors were. The two kids who sang were brilliant and were really confident on stage. Mahati and Anitha were the judges and we had Ajeesh and Raghini competing yesterday with the two kids. The hosts were Malini and Yugendran as usual.

I am waiting for the main competition to begin as its going to be a fun few months with the best kid talent on view. Vijay TV talent shows are the best and it has become a trendsetter for the other channels to follow.

Airtel Super Singer top 6 (Before the Recall round) Top (From the left): Ranjani, Prasanna and Renu; Bottom (From the left): Rohit, Ajeesh and ravi

Well at last the Airtel Super Singer winner was declared yesterday here in the US after almost a year of the competition. The week began with Prasanna being eliminated and the final three remaining were Renu, Ravi and Ajeesh to compete for the title. It was a really good run for Prasanna and he surely won many hearts with his entertaining performances.

Monday and Tuesday of the competition was basically a tribute to the top 22 contestants and awards were given to best performances in a particular genre. Ironically all the award winners were from the top 10, Santosh, Prasanna, Raghini, Vijay and Ranjani. Even though the others did not win any awards, it was nice to see all of them together in the Airtel super singer set for one last time.

Now coming to the actual finals which happened on Wednesday there were three contestants and it was good that the results were announced on the same day. I unfortunately was not aware of the change in timings and missed the entire performances of the contestants. I just saw the final song sung by Ravi which was from Dasavatharam.
Yuvan Shankar Raja was there along with other celebrity singers such as Chitra, Mahati, Karthik, Krish, Sunitha Sarathy and few others to grace the live event. Finally after few performances from the other super singer contestants the results were announced and Ajeesh was declared as the winner based on the viewer votes. Ravi came second and Renu ended up in the third position.

Personally I would have preferred Ravi to win the competition as he was a better all round singers but Ajeesh wasn’t too far behind. I am not that disappointed with the actual result as Ajeesh also has had a wonderful super singer 2008. Renu for me did not make the cut and I did not expect her to win the crown. I know that I have been really harsh on her in my previous articles but to be frank she did not possess the variety the other two brought to the table. She is a good singer but one dimensional but I think she will be successful in play back singing in the Sujatha mould.

Coming back to Ravi, he is a fantastic talent and has a great range. He has proven his caliber in western as well as folk and classical and would be very successful in the music industry. I wish him all success and hope to hear him sing in the movies.

So the Airtel Super singer 2008 winner was Ajeesh, a fantastic singer with a great voice. Had some issues with the open singing at the beginning of the competition but overcame the same with the help of the voice trainer Ananth I guess. Great future ahead as he is guaranteed a song in Yuvan’s music.

All in all it was an incredible journey which lasted for almost a year. I enjoyed watching the same and I hope that everyone following Airtel super singer had a blast too. I think next we have the super singer juniors and hope it’s also as entertaining as the senior version. Till then this is Giri signing off.

The week 1 of the finals completed here on Wednesday and the third day was very impressive. It was a round where the contestants had to sing classical compositions in movies. The two contestants who I was very interested in were Renu and Prasanna as they were the least trained in classical music.

It was a brilliant night with Sudha Ragunathan as the chief guest. Ravi was brilliant in this round as expected. This is his forte and he did not disappoint. The judges were all praise for him and Sudha Ragunathan said that he has a bright future in music.

Ajeesh was also brilliant. I would say that this was better than the new song round on day 2. Even though the judges were over the top and praising Ajeesh on day two, I thought that it was a okay performance. But in the classical round he was brilliant. He was rightly appreciated by the judges and the chief guest.

Ranjani was good too. Ranjani is a versatile singer and is a trained classical singer like Ravi and Ajeesh. She gave a good performance too. Sudha Ragunathan called is great and so did the judges.

Okay now for the interesting part. Before the round began I knew that the above mentioned three singers will not have any issues in this round as they are all classically trained but Renu and Prasanna were not. I was very interested to see how they would perform.

The first one to perform was Renu. She sang pretty well. Sudha Ragunathan said that her voice was sweet but she had some issues with the classical part of it. She felt that all the Sangadhi’s did not come out well. The judges too felt the same but they kept on saying that her good voice masked the errors. I have never heard more absurd comment in a talent show. The judges are there to judge a singer in comparison with the other singers in the competition. Yeah it was a commendable effort from Renu considering her little training in Classical music but that does not mean that the judges find excuses for her.

I am fed up of Srinivas saying that Renu has a good voice. I think we have heard that thousand times and I am basically fed up of that line. Anyways it was a good performance by Renu.

Next came Prasanna, who like Renu has limited classical training and he sang a not so classical song. The judges rightly criticized him but said that he is a good entertainer. Srinivas also said that it’s not easy to dramatize a song in front of an audience as Prasanna does so successfully. This time I totally agree with the judges and the chief guest that considering how the other singers performed, Prasanna’s song choice was little bit off. Anyways that ended the week 1 of the finals.

I saw few rushes of the performances from the week 2 and the notable absentee is Ranjani. It seems like the contestants are going to be paired with a playback singer. Karthik, Harini, Tippu and Mahati seemed to be the play back singers. Anyways the rushes seemed brilliant and I am really looking forward to week 2 and I hope that the competition crowns the super singer pretty soon as I think that we are nearing 1 year since the 2008 auditions began.

So we are in the finals week at last. American Idol which started way after Airtel super singer just crowned their winner last week. That shows how fast AI has moved since it began. Airtel Super Singer though has been stretched a bit too much and I did not even bother watching the show last week where the contestants met Yuvan for the first time.

Coming back to this week, the competition is going to be interesting. To be honest with you guys I did not get a chance to watch the show on Monday as I was not in town. I heard from one of the regulars to my blog that Ranjani has been eliminated after the classical round which is rather surprising and shocking to say the least.

Ranjani is one of the better trained singers in the pack and it’s rather surprising that she has to leave after the classical round. Well I will be watching the show from the second day and will comeback with a better post tomorrow. The singers left in the show are Renu, Ajeesh, Prasanna and Ravi. Even though Prasanna is my favorite, I would like Ravi or Ajeesh to win the competition as they are the most talented of all the finalists.

Anyways best of luck to all the singers for this week and let’s hope the best singer wins.

Well the long drawn out Wild Card round was over and the results were finally announced this Wednesday. Prasanna and Ranjani were the two finalists chosen to join Ravi, Renu and Ajeesh. Sadly it was the end of the road for Vijay, Raghini and Santosh.

It seemed like they already knew that Prasanna was going to be the popular choice of the audience and had this Judge’s choice thing added in a hurry to choose another contestant besides him. I was in no doubt that Ranjani will be joining Prasanna when the results were announced as there was no suspense in the decision even though the judges thought that they were creating one.

It was three days of singing which wouldn’t have made any difference to the final decision as the judge’s were never going to choose anyone else. Anyways this means that Raghini, Vijay and Santosh sang one last time on Airtel Super singer and I wish them very best of luck for the future.

Hariharan and Leslie Lewis being there might have been an advantage for the Super singers as the duo has started composing for films now and might pick up someone if they like the voice. All in all the results week ended with my predictions coming true and I hope that the final is a cracking one and we get the results pretty soon. As long as the judges don’t decide to have two super singers I am fine with it.

It seems like next week is going to be some light hearted round with the finalists singing with their friends and relatives. So the finals might be couple of weeks from now, unless the organizers decide to push it on a little bit.

Second day of the wild card round finished yesterday and it seems like there is very little to separate the contestants. Vijay TV’s gimmick continued yesterday as the rest of the three singers also had their admirers coming in with the gifts.

The first performer of the evening was Vijay and he sang “Athiradee” from Sivaji and it was a brilliant performance. It is a difficult song and tough to sing on stage leave alone a competition. Vijay gave a brilliant performance and rocked the stage. Vijay once again showed that he is a versatile singer and can sing any type of song with lots of energy and grace. The judges liked the performance and Srinivas called this round as Vijay’s territory.

The second singer was Santosh and like on the first night with Ranjani and Vijay, he had his admirer/supporter coming in with a gift. It was Malgudi Subha who came in and praised Santosh and gave reasons as to why she wanted to support him and handed over the gift to him. Santosh then sang “Ennadi Muniyamma” song and gave a fantastic performance. He had lots of energy in his performance and was brilliant in the way he was enjoying and performing at the same time. The judges enjoyed his performance and called it brilliant and rocking.

The third singer was Ranjani who sang “Enaatha Solvenungo” song from Sivakasi and gave a decent performance. It was a good performance and compared to the previous two singers before her I would call this as just okay and nothing great. The Judges though felt that it was brilliant and there was the honorary mention of “Porale Ponnuthayi” from Srinivas.

The next singer of the evening was Raghini who had Deepak (Jodi No1 fame) coming in and wishing her good luck and giving her a gift. Raghini sang “kaana Karunguyile” from Sethu and did a brilliant job. She is very good in this type of songs and she nailed it yesterday with another fantastic performance. It has been two consecutive good performances from Raghini this week. The judges said that it was brilliant and one of Raghini’s best till date. Unnikrishnan said that Raghini has a good future in play back singing as she has a unique voice. I like Raghini and I don’t mind her reaching the finals.

The final contestant of the night was Prasanna and he had DD (Again Jodi No1 fame) coming in and giving him a gift. Prasanna sang “Sorgam Madhuvile” and as usual gave a brilliant performance. He is always fantastic and yesterday he was just great. It seemed like he was trying not to imitate the original very hard, which threw him off at couple of places in terms of pitch but overall it was another rocking performance from Prassi. The judges liked the performance and that ended the show yesterday.

The second day was much better than the first and the singers seemed to have warmed up to the occasion. It was a brilliant night and I hope that it continues on the third day too. That’s all for now and I will be back with the review of the third day tomorrow.

So the wild card round got underway last night here and it was good. I wouldn’t call it spectacular though. It was melody round and the singers probably were just getting the feel of it. Santosh especially would have been little bit rusty as he was the one eliminated long time back.

The judges were there as usual and the hosts Malini and Yugendran started the show in their usual style. I don’t understand the need to walk through the tunnel after every break, anyways that’s me. Well the evening began with Santosh and this is the first time in Airtel Super Singer the verdict will be based on the viewer votes rather than the decision from the judges.

Santosh started the melody round with “Thendrale” song from Kadhal Desam and he gave a good performance. We can excuse him for being little rusty. The judges liked his performance and Sujatha said that she liked the innocence in his voice.

The next performer was Ranjani. Well before she could sing there was a surprise waiting for her as Mahati came in to praise Ranjani and handed over a gift to her. She said that Ranjani was her favorite contestant in the competition. I am not sure if this was genuine or Vijay TV’s way of promoting their favorite contestant. Anyways that’s beside the point. Once that was done Ranjani sang the sad version of “Porale Ponnuthayi” from Karuthamma and gave a good performance. The judges called it her best performance till date and Sujatha went one step further and said that it got tears to her eyes. I felt it was a good performance and nothing spectacular. I for sure did not have tears in my eyes.

The third performer of the day was Prasanna and my favorite contestant in the competition. He sang “Iyappa saranam Iyappa” (I am not sure which movie the song was from) song and gave a very good performance. Even though I wouldn’t call it brilliant, I wouldn’t rate it below Ranjani’s performance either. The Judges though seemed to be jealous of Prasanna’s popularity or something. It was really irritating as the judges instead of commenting on the singer’s performance, kept saying how popular he has become with the audience. This was unnecessary as every competition will throw one contestant who will be liked by the public. Anyways Prasanna gave a good performance and told the judges that he was trying to get himself out of the entertainer mould about which the judges were complaining before he got eliminated. When Prasanna said that it seemed like Unnikrishnan and Srinivas felt a little bit embarrassed.

The next performer of the night was Raghini and she sang “Siva Rathiri” from MMKR and gave a brilliant performance I thought. The judges felt the same and told that it was a brave song choice. Sujatha said that she would have found it difficult to sing such a song in concerts and praised Raghini for singing it on stage. They said it was a good performance.

The final contestant of the night was Vijay and Uma Padmanaban came to wish him and praise him for his performances in the competition like Mahati did for Ranjani. She also handed him a gift. Once the Vijay TV gimmick was over Vijay sang “Oru poyavathu sol” from Jodi and gave a decent performance. The judges felt the same and praised him for the improvisations but also said that he had some pitching problems throughout the song.

So that was that for the wild card round day one. All the singers gave a good performance on day one and I hope that the trend continues on day 2 too. I will be back with the review again as usual after day 2.

Tonight is the wild card round here in the US and I am eagerly waiting for the same. Prasanna is back and I am really happy about it. I guess he shouldn’t have been out in the first place. Anyways coming back to today’s wild card round, it’s going to be between Prasanna, Vijay, Raghini, Santosh and Ranjani.

This time its not the judges who will be choosing the finalist but the audience will. I am thinking considering the popularity Prasanna has among the viewers it should be him but you never know what these votes come up with. Even though I want Prasanna back I wouldn’t mind Santosh, Vijay or Raghini making it to the finals either. All the five of them are very good singers and I hope that it’s going to be a great three days.

It seems like an eternity before Santosh was eliminated from the competition and here he is back again to have one more shot at the Airtel Super Singer crown. Prasanna and Raghini were ones recently eliminated, so I assumed that they will for sure be there in the Wild card round. Let’s hope that the competition is tough and let the best contestant go forward.

I personally will be rooting for Prasanna and hopefully he gets through.

Finally I got to see who the wild card contestants were in Airtel super singer yesterday. I knew that Prasanna and Raghini would be there as they were the last ones to get eliminated before the Semi-Finals but I was more interested in finding out the third. The judges threw in lots of names and the two which came regularly were Santosh and Aruna.

So each judge could get one contestant back in the competition and the first one was Srinivas. He chose to review Aruna and Santosh and after reviewing a few tapes, he decided to go with Santosh for the wild card round. I guess it was a good choice as Santosh is a very good singer and a great character on the stage. He will for sure entertain the crowd next week.

The next was Sujatha who did not deliberate too much before announcing Prasanna as her choice. I am really happy for Prasanna as he gets a chance to perform again and this time with a chance to go to the finals. I am guessing with the audience in charge he has very good chance of making it.

Finally it was Unni’s turn and he deliberated between Aruna and Raghini, reviewed few tapes and finally chose to go with Raghini. So that was that and we have our 5 wild card entrants. I guess this week’s show was little bit boring and unnecessary as I did not see a point in having a show to profile the finalists so early. Since there is going to be another finalist added pretty soon they should have had this before the finals. Now there is an unwanted break before the Wild card which was uncalled for and this is where I get irritated with Airtel Super Singer. I guess a talent show going on for 1 year is a bit much I think but that’s just my opinion. Anyways I got my wish as Prasanna makes it to the wild card and now I hope that he makes it to the finals though.

I don’t mind if Santosh or Vijay end up in the finals either. So it’s going to be an interesting wild card round with lots of my favorites being there. I will for sure enjoy next week’s show.

Semi Finals this week and its going to be predictable I feel. I already saw some promos and it seems like the top three are Ajeesh, Ravi and Renu and I guess those are the three who for sure will go through to the finals. The elimination is going to be between Vijay and Ranjani. That’s the predictability of Airtel Super Singer as the decision is still in the hands of the judges.

I personally think that Renu doesn’t deserve to win the competition and so should not be in the finals. To be frank the best 3 singers are the male contestants and I would place Ranjani ahead of Renu just for her ability to sing different genres. But the problem is that the judges don’t think so. When I was seeing the Promos on Vijay Tv, it seems like the top three are Ajeesh, Ravi and Renu and this gives us a peek into the judge’s thinking.

Anyways it seems like Renu will for sure be through to the finals if there are going to be more than 2 finalists. I would prefer that the judges test her really hard and at least in the finals they should have three separate rounds making the contestants sing different genres with melody not being one of them. Hopefully this week will be good but I am not that interested regarding the outcome as my favorite is already eliminated.