My Thoughts

Posts Tagged ‘Sujatha

Well at last I got to see the finals and it was the “New Songs” round and what a great night it was. 5 finalists performed with professionals providing music around them and it was absolutely brilliant. Especially Stephen on Piano was unbelievable.

Coming back to the competition itself, the first singer of the night was Ravi and he started off with “Uyirile” (Movie Vellithirai I guess) and he was brilliant. It was one of his best for me. Expressions were so good and the way he carried the entire song was awesome. Overall it was a mind blowing performance and the judges were all praise for him.

The second singer was Ranjani who sang “Ulundhu Vithakkaiyilae” from Mudhalvan. She gave a good performance. The judges liked her performance and called it brilliant.

The third singer of the night was Ajeesh and he sang “Poi Solla” from Run and gave a good performance. I for once thought that it was okay and nothing extraordinary but the judges though gave him a standing ovation. Well I would say that in comparison to Ravi, Ajeesh’s performance was just okay. But that’s my opinion.

The next singer was Renu and her performance was ordinary last night. I don’t even remember what song she chose. She had severe breathing issues and it was very obvious that she was nervous and it did not sound that nice to me. Srinivas was honest in stating that this was not one of Renu’s best performances.

The final singer of the night was Prasanna and he sang “Piraye” (I don’t know the movie) song and gave a soulful performance. The judges were all praise for him and Sujatha took a cheap shot at him saying that he could have avoided the humming at the start. Unni though said that he liked the performance overall and Srinivas said that he could feel Prasanna’s sincerity towards music in this performance.

All in all it was a brilliant night with some great performances. I would say that Ravi’s was the best performance of the night and Renu’s was the worst. All in all looking forward to the day 3 of the finals as Ananth said that it’s going to be better.

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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.

It was a sad day in Airtel super singer as Prasanna was eliminated in spite of giving good performances over the 3 days. It seemed like it was already decided what they were going to do. It was like he was being punished for not having classical training and them constantly testing him in that genre to make sure he is eliminated. It’s frustrating that the same sort of tests was never done on Renu and I am almost sure that the next elimination is going to be either Raghini or Vijay.

Renu it seems has to just show up and sing to get selected and the others have to constantly sing different genre of songs to impress the judges. It’s becoming more and more obvious in the last few rounds as to whom the judge’s favorite is. It was rather sad that Prasanna was eliminated from the competition and really hats off to him for the way he dealt with the result.

He bowed away in style by singing his signature “Kuthu” song and entertained the audience for one last time in Airtel super singer. Srinivas said that Prasanna needs to train himself but can still become a play back singer by singing Kuthu songs. It was I thought an insult to the most versatile singer in the competition. If Srinivas is trying to say that only classically trained singers can survive in the industry then he is wrong. Ask SPB about it. I guess if SPB as a youngster had participated in super singer he would have been eliminated too. Prasanna is a good performer in most of the Genre and probably with experience can learn to sing classical better and can also train and become better than even the judges.

Anyways keeping my frustrations aside yesterday’s competition followed a familiar pattern, Unni Menon came as the chief guest and the remaining 4 singers performed. Renu sang “Deivam Thanda poove” song and gave an ordinary performance. She struggled with the breath and the judges said that it was a difficult song. Renu almost did justice to the song. Well if “almost” can win you a competition then people don’t have to try at all. All the contestants can choose difficult songs and give okay performances. I am sure that if any other singer had given such a performance he wouldn’t have been praised as Renu. It seems like the judges just say few negative points to keep the audience happy.

Srinivas has already started an excuse that Raghini does not have a voice to sing normal heroine sort of songs. So we can expect her to get eliminated pretty soon with that as the reason. We saw the judges started complaining about Prasanna in the last round itself to set the tone for this week’s show. Anyways I did not delve too much regarding the performances this week as it wasn’t that important.

I just want to congratulate Prasanna for an impressive journey in this competition. After being eliminated and coming back in to the competition he hardly had a bad round. He gave the viewers around the world watching the super singer many memorable moments. He was the most liked contestant in the competition and will for surely be missed. Good luck to him and I hope that he succeeds in whatever he decides to do from this point. Airtel Super singer through its bias has lost a good singer and a great entertainer.

Airtel Super Singer began yesterday and I haven’t written anything about it as I did not follow it from the beginning. I missed Prasanna and Renu on the first day, so thought let me wait for the day 2 to complete. Well Day 2 completed yesterday and it was a good round.

All the singers were in their elements yesterday and the best performances came from Ravi, Ajeesh and Prasanna. The Uravugal round required the contestants to sing about friendship the first day and about Mother the second day. The first day saw Raghini immunized. She sang “Magic Journey” song from Anjali and gave a good performance. The rest of the performances were also good on day one. Vijay was very good with Veyil song and so was Ravi with his “Oh Nandalala” song.

The second day had 6 singers to perform and everyone did a good job. Ravi and Ajeesh were very good and Ravi was rightly immunized after yesterday’s Mother’s round. Again Vijay and Prasanna were good. Ranjani and Renu though gave ordinary performances as far as I am concerned. It seems like anything Renu does is fine for the judges. I keep hearing the same phrase every time from the judges that “Renu has a good voice”.

It’s getting boring now and it’s high time that she tries something different. She seems like a Sujatha type singer and the one who does not like to experiment too much. Most of the times you see her singing the same way without much improvisation but still the judges praise her like anything. Yesterday I can tell at least twice in her performance she had breathing issues but the judges completely ignored that in their comments.

For some reason even though Prasanna gave a good performance they were making some huge deal about his acting on stage. I thought it was a very unfair comment. Prasanna is one of the singers who are able to bring life and emotion to a song which is essential for a play back singer. Ask SPB he will say so. It’s not like Prasanna was all over the place with his singing but still the comments were not required yesterday. It seems like they are already finding a reason to eliminate him so that their favorite Renu can go all the way.

I call it biased but I am thinking that Prasanna is being punished for not learning music. Anyways that’s my opinion. Let’s waits and see how it goes today. Five singers still to perform one more time before the elimination happens. I will be back with the third day’s review tomorrow.

There wasn’t much to look forward in the western round day 3 for me as it was just Ajeesh to perform in the competition. I guess it was a total boredom tactics by Vijay TV last night as most of us already guessed that there will be no elimination. They made all the singers sing again and few of them to repeat what they already sang.

As I said in the preview article Anupama finally made it to the competition as the chief guest and I guess Vijay TV did not expect just to have one contestant not spot selected. Surprisingly they started with Ajeesh, who sang an English song which was decent and everyone liked it, praised him a little bit and the chief guest said that she wanted to hear everyone sing.

Here started the total disaster for the day 3 episode. All the singers performed to make up the 45 minutes to complete the show and finally Anupama decided that Ajeesh is safe. Then there were some meaningless conversations between Srinivas and Anupama praising Ajeesh’s performance. Finally the show ended with Ajeesh joining the group again and yes there are 7 contestants left in the show for the third consecutive week.

This is just getting frustrating as after Aruna and Rohit there has been no elimination in the show. If you consider that Rohit was out only because he pulled out is even scarier. I am also getting irritated with the favoritism of the judges. It seems like Renu is one of them. The song which she sang yesterday was so bad and when we compare that performance to Raghini’s Tamil version the previous night the difference was even more visible. I am starting to wonder if Renu has to just turn up to get selected. She is monotonous, doesn’t experiment, Sings mostly P Susheela and Chitra songs and still keeps getting spot selected because the judges feel that her voice is good.

In spite of a legend like Chitra telling her to memorize the lyrics in a competition she still carries the lyrics in the hand. I think Raghini and Ranjani are far better singers than Renu at this moment. At least they try to experiment and sing different genre of songs. I have nothing against Renu but since I saw her first in the competition I would say she is the most unimproved singer of the pack.

Anyways let’s hope that at least next week we have some progress in the competition and there is some elimination. It’s almost going to be a year and we are not even close to identifying the top 3. I love the competition and hope that it goes for ever but it’s time to start the new season and finish 2008. Let’s hope the organizers get the point.

The Airtel Super Singer day 1 was impressive with all the three contestants getting spot selected. Day 2 had four contestants to perform and it was an interesting prospect with Renu and Ajeesh not being that comfortable with this genre. I wasn’t that bothered about Prasanna and Raghini as I thought that they will be very comfortable with this round.

The first performer of the evening was Ajeesh and he sang “Girlfriend” song from Boys and sounded horrible. I am not sure if he had any issues with his voice or something but it sounded horrible. He did not have any energy or enthusiasm to carry a song which was beautifully sung by Karthik in the original. It was a bad performance and the judges felt the same. He was rightly not spot selected.

The second singer of the night was Renu. She chose “Mudhal Naal Indru” song from Unnale Unnale. She gave a decent performance but I did not like the choice of song. The judges felt that Renu had chosen a safe option and a clever one. In the western round they were hoping for something different and peppy but were disappointed in that regard. Even though the song choice did not impress the judges at least Srinivas and Unni, Renu was spot selected.

To be frank I am just fed up with Renu and the bias the judges have towards her. I understand that she has the best voice among the female contestants but still her song selections have been one dimensional. She does not take any risks and overall I would rate her below Raghini. Anyways that’s my opinion. I was hoping that the judges would anyways make her sing on the final day so that she can actually sing a proper western song. The only time in this competition she sang something different was “Vaa Vaa pakkam Vaa” song.

The third contestant of the night was Prasanna. He chose “Something Something” song from “Something Something Unakkum Ennakum” movie. He did a fantastic job. There was lots of energy and spirit in his performance and the judges liked his performance. It was a great effort by Prasanna after being in the verge of elimination last round. He was rightly spot selected.

The final contestant of the day was Raghini. She sang “Unakenna Naan” song from Kadhalil Vizhundaen movie. It was a brilliant performance I thought. It was fantastic and she did a great job. I am growing to like this smiling version of Raghini. She is been performing brilliantly since her return. She is smiling more these days and has been giving stunning performances in the last few rounds. She was spot selected too. It’s funny that every time Srinivas has to say something good about Raghini he looks in total disbelief. Unni though seems to like Raghini and called her “Rags” yesterday after her performance. He was the one who called Prasanna “Prassi”.

So finally 7 contestants perform and just one of them not spot selected. It was unfortunate for Ajeesh. Before this round began I had singled out him and Renu to struggle and it became right in his case. I am not sure what the judges have in mind for the final day as there is no competitor to Ajeesh. He is all alone on the final day and I am sure unless he turns in a brilliant performance he will for sure get eliminated. I hope he gives a better performance tonight.

It seems like recently Malini Yugendran isn’t speaking that much in super singer. Yugendran seems to be talking a lot more. Probably due to some feedbacks received. Whatever may be the reason it happened for good. Anyways I will be back with the review of Day 3 tomorrow.

Airtel Super Singer began yesterday and I haven’t written anything about it as I did not follow it from the beginning. I missed Prasanna and Renu on the first day, so thought let me wait for the day 2 to complete. Well Day 2 completed yesterday and it was a good round.

All the singers were in their elements yesterday and the best performances came from Ravi, Ajeesh and Prasanna. The Uravugal round required the contestants to sing about friendship the first day and about Mother the second day. The first day saw Raghini immunized. She sang “Magic Journey” song from Anjali and gave a good performance. The rest of the performances were also good on day one. Vijay was very good with Veyil song and so was Ravi with his “Oh Nandalala” song.

The second day had 6 singers to perform and everyone did a good job. Ravi and Ajeesh were very good and Ravi was rightly immunized after yesterday’s Mother’s round. Again Vijay and Prasanna were good. Ranjani and Renu though gave ordinary performances as far as I am concerned. It seems like anything Renu does is fine for the judges. I keep hearing the same phrase every time from the judges that “Renu has a good voice”.

It’s getting boring now and it’s high time that she tries something different. She seems like a Sujatha type singer and the one who does not like to experiment too much. Most of the times you see her singing the same way without much improvisation but still the judges praise her like anything. Yesterday I can tell at least twice in her performance she had breathing issues but the judges completely ignored that in their comments.

For some reason even though Prasanna gave a good performance they were making some huge deal about his acting on stage. I thought it was a very unfair comment. Prasanna is one of the singers who are able to bring life and emotion to a song which is essential for a play back singer. Ask SPB he will say so. It’s not like Prasanna was all over the place with his singing but still the comments were not required yesterday. It seems like they are already finding a reason to eliminate him so that their favorite Renu can go all the way.

I call it biased but I am thinking that Prasanna is being punished for not learning music. Anyways that’s my opinion. Let’s waits and see how it goes today. Five singers still to perform one more time before the elimination happens. I will be back with the third day’s review tomorrow.

There wasn’t much to look forward in the western round day 3 for me as it was just Ajeesh to perform in the competition. I guess it was a total boredom tactics by Vijay TV last night as most of us already guessed that there will be no elimination. They made all the singers sing again and few of them to repeat what they already sang.

As I said in the preview article Anupama finally made it to the competition as the chief guest and I guess Vijay TV did not expect just to have one contestant not spot selected. Surprisingly they started with Ajeesh, who sang an English song which was decent and everyone liked it, praised him a little bit and the chief guest said that she wanted to hear everyone sing.

Here started the total disaster for the day 3 episode. All the singers performed to make up the 45 minutes to complete the show and finally Anupama decided that Ajeesh is safe. Then there were some meaningless conversations between Srinivas and Anupama praising Ajeesh’s performance. Finally the show ended with Ajeesh joining the group again and yes there are 7 contestants left in the show for the third consecutive week.

This is just getting frustrating as after Aruna and Rohit there has been no elimination in the show. If you consider that Rohit was out only because he pulled out is even scarier. I am also getting irritated with the favoritism of the judges. It seems like Renu is one of them. The song which she sang yesterday was so bad and when we compare that performance to Raghini’s Tamil version the previous night the difference was even more visible. I am starting to wonder if Renu has to just turn up to get selected. She is monotonous, doesn’t experiment, Sings mostly P Susheela and Chitra songs and still keeps getting spot selected because the judges feel that her voice is good.

In spite of a legend like Chitra telling her to memorize the lyrics in a competition she still carries the lyrics in the hand. I think Raghini and Ranjani are far better singers than Renu at this moment. At least they try to experiment and sing different genre of songs. I have nothing against Renu but since I saw her first in the competition I would say she is the most unimproved singer of the pack.

Anyways let’s hope that at least next week we have some progress in the competition and there is some elimination. It’s almost going to be a year and we are not even close to identifying the top 3. I love the competition and hope that it goes for ever but it’s time to start the new season and finish 2008. Let’s hope the organizers get the point.

The Airtel Super Singer day 1 was impressive with all the three contestants getting spot selected. Day 2 had four contestants to perform and it was an interesting prospect with Renu and Ajeesh not being that comfortable with this genre. I wasn’t that bothered about Prasanna and Raghini as I thought that they will be very comfortable with this round.

The first performer of the evening was Ajeesh and he sang “Girlfriend” song from Boys and sounded horrible. I am not sure if he had any issues with his voice or something but it sounded horrible. He did not have any energy or enthusiasm to carry a song which was beautifully sung by Karthik in the original. It was a bad performance and the judges felt the same. He was rightly not spot selected.

The second singer of the night was Renu. She chose “Mudhal Naal Indru” song from Unnale Unnale. She gave a decent performance but I did not like the choice of song. The judges felt that Renu had chosen a safe option and a clever one. In the western round they were hoping for something different and peppy but were disappointed in that regard. Even though the song choice did not impress the judges at least Srinivas and Unni, Renu was spot selected.

To be frank I am just fed up with Renu and the bias the judges have towards her. I understand that she has the best voice among the female contestants but still her song selections have been one dimensional. She does not take any risks and overall I would rate her below Raghini. Anyways that’s my opinion. I was hoping that the judges would anyways make her sing on the final day so that she can actually sing a proper western song. The only time in this competition she sang something different was “Vaa Vaa pakkam Vaa” song.

The third contestant of the night was Prasanna. He chose “Something Something” song from “Something Something Unakkum Ennakum” movie. He did a fantastic job. There was lots of energy and spirit in his performance and the judges liked his performance. It was a great effort by Prasanna after being in the verge of elimination last round. He was rightly spot selected.

The final contestant of the day was Raghini. She sang “Unakenna Naan” song from Kadhalil Vizhundaen movie. It was a brilliant performance I thought. It was fantastic and she did a great job. I am growing to like this smiling version of Raghini. She is been performing brilliantly since her return. She is smiling more these days and has been giving stunning performances in the last few rounds. She was spot selected too. It’s funny that every time Srinivas has to say something good about Raghini he looks in total disbelief. Unni though seems to like Raghini and called her “Rags” yesterday after her performance. He was the one who called Prasanna “Prassi”.

So finally 7 contestants perform and just one of them not spot selected. It was unfortunate for Ajeesh. Before this round began I had singled out him and Renu to struggle and it became right in his case. I am not sure what the judges have in mind for the final day as there is no competitor to Ajeesh. He is all alone on the final day and I am sure unless he turns in a brilliant performance he will for sure get eliminated. I hope he gives a better performance tonight.

It seems like recently Malini Yugendran isn’t speaking that much in super singer. Yugendran seems to be talking a lot more. Probably due to some feedbacks received. Whatever may be the reason it happened for good. Anyways I will be back with the review of Day 3 tomorrow.

Western round began last night with 7 singers still left in the competition. This round threw up some interesting possibilities as Prasanna, Ajeesh and Vijay escaped elimination last week. This week contestants might not be that lucky. All of them have to perform well to get through and there will surely be elimination this round (At least that’s what I hope).

My guess this week was that it will be tough for Renu and Ajeesh as rest of the pack will pull it off with comfort. Okay now coming back to last night’s show, I knew that there will only be 3 singers performing and the night started with Ranjani.

Ranjani began the western round with “Jillunnu oru Kadhal” song. This was a Jazz composition by AR Rahman, sung by Tanvi in the original. Ranjani did a fair job. Even though there were few errors here and there overall Ranjani’s attitude impressed the judges. She was rightly spot selected.

Sometimes during this season Vijay TV seems to go out of the way to extend or prolong super singer 2008. It’s really very irritating as the viewers have been watching it for almost a year and all of us would want to know who the super singer is. I did not get the idea of making the singers sing the song which they have prepared if they were not spot selected. This was another cheap trick to make sure that there are only three singers performing on the first evening on the show.
Anyways my frustrations aside, the second singer of the night was Vijay. As I mentioned earlier this is a bread and butter round for Vijay “Adams” (As he is called by the judges). Vijay is very comfortable with western songs which he has constantly proven in the previous rounds. Vijay sang “Uyirin Uyire” from “Kaaka kaaka”, the original sung by one of my favorite singers Kay kay. Vijay did a fantastic job. His attitude and improvisations were brilliant and as Srinivas rightly said Vijay knows how to perform on stage. He always displays right energy and attitude required for a western number. Vijay was spot selected and was requested to sing “Hotel California” song on the final night of the competition. That was the song he would have sung if did not get spot selected.

So that makes it 2 in 2. The final singer of the night was Ravi (The classical Guru of the group). Ravi sang “Oh Mama Mama” from the movie Minnale, another Harris Jeyraj song. He did a good job and with the hood pulled over his head he gave a rap song effect to the performance. There were few mistakes or probably I should say some improvements pointed out by Unni but overall everyone liked his performance. He was spot selected too. He was asked to sing his other song choice again and he sang a Linkin Park song.

So three singers perform on the first evening and all three get spot selected. This leaves Prasanna, Raghini, Renu and Ajeesh to perform on the second night. It will be very interesting to see how Renu performs. We have seen her struggle with breath while singing fast numbers in the past and let’s see how she goes. I don’t think that Raghini and Prasanna would have any issues in this round.

That’s all about last night’s show and just before I end this piece just wanted to mention that Malini Yugendran at last gave Yugendran chance to talk last night and hopefully this trend continues. I am just fed up of the bad pronunciations and horrible anchoring by Malini.


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