Reality Shows

Reality shows are often fun to watch, not so much for the actual performance, but for the unusual situations and unintentional comedy that comes out at some weird random moment. Here are 2 examples from popular Vijay TV shows.

Super Singer 2008 - One of participant rendered a female duet and she had so much shrill in her voice it was hard to enjoy the whole song. She should have kept quiet with the judges. Right after she completed, she explained how she can sing high-pitch notes well and how she curbed her voice to accomodate and adjust to the other person's voice in the duet. The other person (who in fact sang the high notes really well) promptly got selected. The judges could have (IMO, should have) rejected this singer, instead they were so nice with all their advise and waitlisted her.

உங்களில் யார் அடுத்த Prabhudeva - This is more of a laughter show than a talent show. The person to watch is one of the judge "Sridhar Master". If Super singer judges are extremely humble, this guy is opposite. He is serious, rude and never say a sorry. This is how he gave his verdict to one of the participant. The participant was wearing a jacket with the hood on and also had sunglasses on and performed for a good 3 minutes. His dance was mediocre, but this was only an initial screening. Right after that performance, Sridhar asked him if he ever considered himself a dancer and the guy replied passionately "Yes". Sridhar followed it up with "Ok, எதுக்கு hood போட்டுருக்கீங்க, அத எடுங்க, எதுக்கு கருப்பு கண்ணாடி போட்டுருக்கீங்க, அத எடுங்க. The participant does everything in anticipation of good verdict. Then comes the clincher from Sridhar "இப்ப எல்லாருக்கும் ஒங்க மூஞ்சி தெரியும், you are rejected". Seriously, this Sridhar guy should never be in front of the camera.

"ஆஹா" moments in music

I recently came across this quote in Chinmayi's blog:

"Though a lot of us have grown up listening to old songs, it sometimes requires some kind of an 'aha' moment for a song to come to us, in a rush and its surprising how we suddenly perceive a certain magic in it that we had previously failed to notice. "

I think that is almost perfect explanation on how we comprehend the true feel of a song at some random moment. I have had similar moments on several songs, not just the old ones but on several recent ones that I have heard multiple times. There are also instances when you hear a tamil version of popular other language song and get "wow"d about it. "முழுமதி அவளது" by Srinivas is one such song. This is the tamil version of "Jashn-E-Bahara" sung by Javed Ali in the movie Jodhaa Akbar. Outstanding melody by Srinivas.

I have also felt that when a male singer render a female version of a popular song (and vice-versa), the transformation is most often phenomenal. I don't know if the singer gets some distinct advantage in such situations or it's truly different perception of the listener or if it is combination of both.

Couple of months back I was watching Vijay Tv's "பாடும் Office" and one of the girls sang 'இசையில் தொடங்குதம்மா' from Hey Ram (Orginally sung by A Chakraburthy). I am not sure what her musical background is, but she sang so well and outclassed everyone else in that show with that performance.

This week I was watching American Idol and one of the contestant, David Cook rendered his own version of Mariah Carey's "you will always be my baby". It sounded absolutely brilliant.

My all-time favorite in this category (male singing female number) is the one from movie "கேளடி கண்மணி" and this one is not even a regular soundtrack in the album. There is this scene where SPB sings "கற்பூர பொம்மை" for his daughter and he will only sing a few lines in that scene.... truly magical!!!

Neeya Naana

I am one of the regulars when it comes to Vijay TVs Neeya Naana, the chat show that is designed slightly differently from the usual Arratai Arangam or Patti Mandram. The topics are usually very interesting and there is a good mix of youth and old when it comes to participation. The highlight of the show is of course the anchor Gopinath, who not only speaks good, easily understandable Tamil, but is very intelligent in just acting as catalyst on most debate. He doesn'y try to steal the limelight or show any bias during the discussion. The other thing that I like about the show is that there is no judgement given at the end. This show is definitely a must see.