Conquering the world with beauty isn't easy when you look like you're made of glass
That’s the choice that millions of competitors and viewers have or will have to make this summer as the three talent shows battle it out. A look at what each one offers:
Conquer the world with beauty
Despite having the shallowest slogan of them all, SMG’s female “My Hero”, Jiayou! Dong Fang Tian Shi, or as we’re going to translate it, Jiayou! Dragon Angels, has a quite deep, if not solid, backing. First up is the big fish – Huayi Brothers. Being a mainly film and drama producer, it makes sense that Huayi would want to go for the lookers over the voices. The Dragon Angels have been promised spots in Disney, SMG and Huayi’s High School Musical and possible spots in Feng Xiaogang movies. And then there are two starring roles in Hai Yan dramas. If the Angels prefered flying over acting (who wouldn’t want to act opposite BOBO?), the top 60 are also guaranteed jobs as air attendants on CE-air. However, I do admire the fact that they require all contestant to audition without makeup. After all, SMG wants actresses, not make-up artists.
Absolute Singing
With the endorsement of Golden Typhoon this year, Absolute Singing is probably the best place for serious singers. Granted, you probably won’t go far in popularity this summer, but you’ll end up in one of the few mainland singing companies that has a proven track record in successfully marketing new artists, famous or not. Also, this is pretty much the only competition that isn’t female-only (though there were a few bold males caught dressing up as girls for Super Girls)
Does this poster hint a method of popular vote on Super Girls this year? One can only hope so.
Happy Female Voice’ Identity Crisis – Happy or Voice?
Despite it being “Happy Female Voice,” many are complaining that the “Happy” seems to take precedent over “Voice” in many cases. For example, how dance teacher Yue Liang or Cecilia Cheung lookalike Gong Mi, with their less-than-superior voices, got into the top 300 is a puzzle to many. Nevertheless, most girls, unless they’re big fans of Chen Chusheng or He Jie, will probably be flocking to Super Girls. So this’ll still be the one to watch for the most talent.
sources: Sina
I think with good direction from the company, He Jie could’ve succeeded. She had enough personal charisma, she can sing, she can dance, and she doesn’t need someone else to get her to talk. Plenty of people similar to her, many even without her talents, in the Taiwanese industry have managed to done well without a clear direction (Cyndi Wang, Rainie Yang, Angela Zhang, etc.)
But I still support my Yi band. We’ve already found guys to match them with.Blue Bird Flying Fish’s 70 is also Yi, and they do choreography. So we have singers, choreographers and a manager. I wish one of them could write songs…hum, I wonder how A-mu would do (not the SuperBoy one). According the anti-evil lawyer blog by Ji Jie, he’s also Yi.
Mm, it’s very easy, however, to make the mistake of picking a person who has personal, but not wide-scale marketable appeal; that’s why these shows usually have a voting section. There are a lot of people who are very charismatic and personable in person, but don’t appeal to a camera audience… I hope they have people somehow monitoring public reception.
I’m starting to wonder about how many artists eeMedia is going to end up with. If they continue to sign at the rate that they are with each competition, considering that it’s not as though all of the ones they sign leave, won’t they end up with an ever rapidly increasing number of artists?
I don’t think individual group members are all that well-rounded – in fact, if they all were, they’d be indistinguishable. They usually have a strong defining trait, but a weakness that stops them from being able to go solo (for instance, in TC, ZY and MXY have musical talent lack sufficient charisma, LM and LZC don’t have adequate musical talents but have charisma, and JES is somewhat rounded but isn’t Chinese). Every group member seems to get slotted into a role of a sort – the stylish one, the cute one, the foreign one, the musically gifted one, the rapper, the dancer, the pretty boy, the tomboy, the charismatic MC, etc. The group as a whole is well-rounded, which is why I think Yue Liang is perfect for a group; she’s got the one defining trait – dancing – but her singing doesn’t seem good enough to go solo. Solo artists are the ones who have to be a bit more well-rounded, in the sense that they have to be able to fill multiple roles by themselves, with charisma.
I mean, if a person is incredibly musically gifted, but doesn’t have a marketable charisma or a personal sense of direction, I think it’s better for that person to go in a group than go solo – then they can be brought out by the charisma of another, or follow another’s lead. Makes me wonder if He Jie should’ve been put in a group, haha.
I think you should give eeMedia more credit than that. They did form Top Combine, and they all mesh really well. I expect them to pick people like Yu Haoming, well-rounded rather than particularly standout in music. That’s what groups are right?
Hopefully if someone amazing in music comes along, they would have enough sense not to put her in a group and let her go solo.
Frankly, the past winners have set followings, but they don’t seem to appeal to the public at large. And that is what Supergirl really needs to produce to get eeMedia more credibility.
So overall I’m glad that it’s not the public voting this time. I’ll be curious to see what happens when they pick girls they know they can manage and develop, rather than letting the audience pick girls that don’t fit their company.
With Super Girls before, at least we know that whoever’s voted first will have a huge fanbase and they’ll be able to make money.
I’m really worried that without voting, the companies won’t know what the audience wants and will pick random people who no one likes.
I do expect the most from Supergirls 2009. Simply because they have a concrete plan for the contestants.
I don’t really mind if the programs pick someone who is both talented and pretty, and fun over someone slightly better talent-wise, but not pretty, and with zero personality.
The problem with Superboys 2009 is that a lot of them simply weren’t marketable, cept their voice, and yet they still signed them. For what reason I don’t know. But I feel like they’re screwing around with people’s lives by having them in their company, but not letting them do anything substantial like Yao Zheng.
They need to pick people they will give actual careers. However, I do hope they will sign soloists who show something amazing in their vocals, something irreplaceable.
@mrpeng
the last one is Super Girls.
2008 had the Sichuan earthquake and the Olympics. It was too depressing to have something like this right afte Sichuan…by the time it wasn’t too depressing, the Olympics came, and no show was going to succeed by competing against the Olympics.
eeMedia head Long Danni has said they were going to make a girl version of Top Combine from Super Girls this year.
So not only is there super girl competition, but 3 other other competitions as well? many people talk about hao nan er, kuai le nan shen, and nu shen. they all occured during different times in the span of 5 years, so is it just a coincidence that 3 new competiions are being broadcasted and occuring at the same time? i just don’t understand why there are so many competitions at the same time in the same year 2009 but no competitions for example in 2008. And btw @ darklight, you mentioned yue liang and supergirls group. I remeber either you or cfensi mentioning something about supergirls possibly making a girl group after 2009 competition in a previous post, are you revering to the same thing.
I think Yue Liang would be great for the Super Girl group, especially since she does her own choreography (saves eeMedia money, and makes them look good). She’s also energetic and peppy enough, and imo, she sings better than Liu Zhoucheng did before joining Top Combine.
Gong Mi’s voice sounds terrible from that song…and from her interviews, she seems too boring to be in a girl group. On the other hand, she’ll generate a lot of publicity for the group. I think she’ll be really great for advertising agencies who want a famous face, but don’t want to spend the money.
Hmm, I think I’ll be checking out Absolute Singing. I’ll just catch the highlights of Super Girls or watch towards the end; no way I’m following their horde of contestants, most of whom won’t amount to anything.
Regarding Yue Liang, wasn’t this year’s Super Girls competition also supposed to be more “all-around”? Her dancing is very impressive, and she would be great as a “backup singer/dancer” for a girl group with her high, distinctive voice. As for Gong Mi… I dunno, but from that video, I can imagine her voice being decent for certain ethnic-styled songs, especially in the lower registers; it’s a very specific sound that doesn’t suit a broad range of genres. However, singing a song like that the way that she did, it does sound pretty awful.
does anyone know where i can watch this beside youku or tudou?
Angel won’t finish until October. Super Girls ends in August. I would say that Super Girls is better organized, though. SMG has all those people signed up, but other than the air attendant job, they’re all speculative roles. Super Girls is the only one who managed to get past the 9 episodes on satellite only rule by having a network of landbased TV stations that air their regional comeptitions.
woah…so many shows…my fave is dragon angels…theyre more idk…organized? experienced?
but the other 2 look interesting too…are there all gonna air around the same time?