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.
Hwang Chiyeol does a lot of clapping on this show.
After presumably blowing all of this season’s budget on last years’s A-list lineup, Hunan
TV’s I Am A Singer returns for a fourth year with a stable of more—ahem—”affordable” singers.
The I Am A Singer crown has always gone to a Mainland Chinese act. Yu Quan in 2013, and the Hans Lei and Hong in subsequent years. Of course, that’s not a risky bet to make when five-out-of-seven singers are Mainlanders. This year, things are a bit different. There are only two Mainland performers in the starting lineup, and both tied for last place in this episode. A non-Mainland singer could very well take it out for the very first time, and Taiwanese diva Lala Hsu and Cantopop legend Hacken Lee are both in with a good shot.
Haya is something of a folksy, Inner Mongolian Nightwish. Lead singer, Daichintana,
plays a Native American flute in this performance. Oh, they’re a very worldly bunch.
Coco Lee waves as the band enters the green room. “Oh, Haya!” Coco remarks (though she might just have been saying ‘hiya’). Continue reading
Chinese Idol, Li Xiangxiang. (Prepare yourself for a angst-ridden piece of writing).
Chinese Idol 中国梦之声 debuted as one of the most promising reality singing contests of 2013, but suffered from poor formatting during its live performance rounds and everybody lost interest as abruptly as this opening sentence.
Sunday’s three-hour finale, which featured performances from the Idol judges (including a bearded Huang Xiaoming), Show Luo 罗志祥, and international guest star Lionel Richie, saw Li Xiangxiang 李祥祥 upset heavy favourite “Goddess” Yangjima 央吉玛 to become the first Chinese Idol.
Li Xiangxiang, who is kind of handsome but probably not handsome enough to justify his being called handsome so many times on the show, will sign a recording deal with Universal Music Group as part of his winnings. Runner-up Yangjima, an ethnic Monpa folk singer from Tibet who is not actually a real goddess, is also expected to score a record deal in the Idol aftermath.
And if you thought that this reality TV singing contest would only have two finalists in the grand finale, well, you’d be wrong. Entirely reasonable in your assumption, but wrong. At the beginning of the episode, six singers were still in contention for the Idol crown. Continue reading
The group’s diverse ethnic backgrounds (Hui, Mamba, Kazakh, Mongolian) isn’t the only reason they named themselves Tribal Group; the group members all sat down on the floor at the same time, while all other groups are standing during their first meeting. The group chose to do a remake of judge Coco Lee‘s Missing You for 365 Days, which Coco invited the group to perform at her future concerts. Watch the breathtaking performance below.
Left-to-right: Show Luo (host), Huang Xiaoming, Han Hong, Coco Lee, Wang Wei-chung
With last season’s American Idol ratings the lowest in the show’s history, Shanghai’s Dragon TV will be hoping the Idol format hasn’t come too late to impact China’s airwaves.
Amongst the latest in a slew of Chinese reality singing contests, the Chinese version of Britain’s Pop Idol will make its debut on Sunday evening. Hosted by Show Luo, Chinese Idol 中国梦之声 is set to feature a panel of celebrity judges, including singers Coco Lee and Han Hong, actor Huang Xiaoming, and Taiwanese television mogul Wang Wei-chung. The program is one of the few Idol productions to have hosted international auditions, so expect to see American, Canadian, and Australian contestants on the show. Continue reading
