Jessie J, Coco Lee, and KZ Tangingan won Singer 2018 this weekend with the help of an awesome pipa arrangement of Bang Bang and Dragon Fist. I thought this season was lackluster in general, with even Jessie J having boring song choices and arrangements, but this was easily one of the best performances of the show.
Was anyone else really, I dunno… unimpressed… that this season seemed designed entirely for Jessie J to win it? I have so many Jessie J-related gripes about this season. And they’re not even really about her. It’s more about how Hunan TV finally bagged a big international celebrity for the show, so they decided to soft-ball the entire competition so she could cruise through to the finals.
(From a production standpoint, I get that you don’t want to spend a whole bunch of money to get Jessie J on the show and have her eliminated in the second week. But, gee, a showcase of Chinese talent this season was not.)
Do you think they really padded it for her, though? Her song choices felt like Jane Zhang’s 2006 Super Girls playlist. I wonder if it’s because they got too many artists this year without their own team of musicians, so they ended up with having really boring overall song and arrangements.
Yeah, almost definitely. I mean, it’s pretty normal for reality TV contracts to guarantee a certain number of appearances anyway. But I think, ever since the second season, the show has had a very Chinese, very Confucian approach to the results, in that the most “senior” contestant has always won. And the foreign singer has always come second or third, because they’re regarded as guests, and it would be a poor host who invites someone to visit without honouring them with at least a bronze medal, apparently. Jessie J happened to be a special combination of both, making it a relatively straightforward win for her.
Ugh, I feel the same about musical arrangements on Sing! China. The quality of music has dropped tremendously since Liu Zhuo quit as musical director and went to do The Rap of China instead. Virtually none of the songs from the last season were worth a repeat listen.
阿刁 is definitely my favourite song this season. Some of Hua Chenyu’s rearrangements were pretty creative, but it felt like he was recycling the same techniques for each song.
阿刁 was my favorite, too.
I thought pretty much everyone sounded the same every episode. Hua was the only one who tried but his voice is just not my thing. Most of the other singers are not known for their creativity so I didn’t expect much, but Jessie J and Yu Kewei can be and should’ve been better.
Do you know what was going on with Hua Chenyu’s hair? I thought he must be growing out so he could do something with it, but… nope, he just kept going with that mullet all the way up until the end.
It’s a hideous trend! Kris Wu had that hairstyle recently, too.
Hua Chenyu didn’t recycle the technique but more of he rehashed his old performances from other shows. 天籁之战 is a much more better show, especially season 1. The competitor (contestants) challenge the singer and they pick a song for the singer to sing.