Friday night provided a double dose of Shila, with appearances on Day Day Up and I Am A Singer.
Apparently, the Internet has decided that the English title for the popular Chinese variety show 天天向上 Tiāntiān Xiàngshàng should be “Day Day Up.” Day. Day. Up.
I feel as if I should have been consulted on this… I don’t like it very much.
I Am A Singer contestant Shila Amzah was joined by compatriot Gary Chaw in showcasing her dance and vocal talents on the aforementioned television show Friday evening. The Malaysian songstress performed a multicultural array of hits, including songs by Adele, Paramore and Beyoncé, as well as in Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Malay, the Hindi Bollywood number Bole Chudiyan, and the Tibetan-themed Tibetan Plateau 青藏高原.
Tackling the Oscar-winning Disney song, Shila transitioned seemlessly between Let It Go, 隨它吧 (sui ta ba) and Bebaskan, the English, Chinese and Malay versions of the Frozen hit respectively.
Shila further impressed the hosts by belting out Beyoncé’s Halo with the microphone raised above her head. The microphone technique is a trademark of Malaysian Idol Jaclyn Victor who Shila briefly joined to form a three-piece girl group in 2011. (Jaclyn has also had a musical foray into China, winning the gold award at the 2005 Shanghai Asian Music Festival.)
When asked about her I Am A Singer rival, G.E.M, Shila replied graciously: “She’s a great singer.”
“So, do you think you can sing as well as her?” came the follow-up question.
“We’re both 90s kids, so I think we have the same amount of experience.”
Shlia, whose father was himself a popular singer in the 80s, began her career at the age of nine. In that segment, Shila mispronounced the word for same (yīyàng 一样), leading the hosts to joke that Shila was from “Yiyang 益阳,” a city in Hunan.
I wish I knew enough about Yiyang to know whether or not that joke had comedic value beyond a simple pun…
Although carefully choreographed, Shila’s appearance on that TV show nonetheless offers glimpses into the future of her career in China. It is evident that Shila needs to improve her Mandarin. Occasionally interjecting in Korean instead of Chinese, while permissible in some situations, is unlikely to endear her to Chinese audiences. Another much overlooked aspect of Shila’s voice is that she is most comfortable, and sounds her best, in the mezzo-soprano range. Her tessitura is lower than that of the singers Shila, or her team, wants to emulate. It is disingenuous and potentially damaging to ask her to sing beyond her range. As Idina Menzel shows, it’s entirely possible to be a powerhouse vocalist without being a full-blown soprano.
Watch the full episode here:
idk…Shila has an amazing voice to be sure. Anyone with ears can hear that. But at the same time, I’ve never really liked her singing for some reason. Something about the amount of vibrato she adds…and her switching from falsetto and back. I mean she’s good at it…so I guess I love her voice, I just hate her style? It’s not really my thing. So on I am a Singer, I never really got behind the Shila hype. Maybe cuz I’m biased. I loved GEM from the first time I heard her. idk.
Sorry. Bit off topic but…
Drama Promotional Materials Alert: Palace the Lost Daughter
http://cfensi.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/palace-the-lost-daughter-releases-trailers/comment-page-1/#comment-19775
Also, even though it’s technically over now, I was hoping you’d write on the show 中国好歌曲. I thought the show was quite original in focusing on song-writing and arrangements, and I thought every one of the final performances was great, as well as the original compositions by the “teachers” themselves. I am really excited at what doors this show opens for the Chinese music scene, because it introduces such a wide variety of talented musicians, and not just artists, to the general public.
My personal favorite was 明天不上班 by Shady. Maybe it’s also because part of my family is from Chengdu? haha.
Ah, I wish I had followed 中国好歌曲 closely enough to write on it, but I only managed to catch a few clips of it here and there. Perhaps you’d like to do a guest post on it for Cfensi?
I may be wrong, but I believe Day Day Up is a joke on the translation of 好好学习，天天向上, as Good Good Study, Day Day Up used often as joke on bad Chinglish in China.
She’s really cute, although I’d really worry if she sings 青藏高原 in the finals. Her performance of that song here is one of the weakest renditions I’ve heard of that song. The Chinese audience has heard this song so many times as some type of “proof” to be a good singer that they have become really picky.
I don’t know if this was actually played on in the show, but the name 益阳 can also mean “good for virility”… Maybe that’s why it’s funny?
Shila sang a full-length version of 青藏高原 on Happy Camp. She really doesn’t have the range for the high note at the end, but the reverb on her vocals helped mask the thinness of her voice at least.