Much ado about Idols
07 December 2004 8:16 pm
I guess I'm a Singaporean after all. I can no longer ignore the media frenzy that has come in the wake of the Singapore Idol grand finals last Wednesday.
Nearly a week has gone by since Taufik Batisah won the much-hyped singing competition, and the public has been surprisingly vociferous about the results. Fans of Sylvester Sim, the odds-on favourite, cried foul and demanded to know the actual voting figures. Mediacorp, the network that produced the show with Fremantle, refused, saying it was not their policy to do so and they had not done so since the beginning of the competition.
The public won. Yay for transparency. After all, 1.1 million votes costing $0.50 each were cast (our population: 4 million). Of course people have the right to know the figures, you creeps.
Surprise, surprise, the Malay guy (that would be Taufik) won by 62 percentage points.
I have to mention that he's Malay because as much as people want to be in denial about it, all this post-Idol drama does have to do with race. This guy was clearly the more talented performer. He has a great voice, an appealing personality, pretty good looks and great dance moves. Sylvester Sim's rocker voice with limited vocal range pales in comparison to Taufik's. What Sly (for that's what they call him) has, though, is that Chinese pop star look that appeals to legions of rabid teenage fans of Mandarin pop. I am not alone in this view. This is pretty much everybody's opinion. Even the papers admitted that Taufik has more talent while Sly has more fans.
Now that the figures have been revealed, some Sly fans are still dissatisfied. Perhaps they see it an a statistical impossibility. Since 76.7% of the population are ethnic Chinese, I assume they're wondering, surely the majority will vote for someone who can sing in Mandarin? Well, they're forgetting that (a) some Chinese are not racist, (b) not all Chinese listen to and/or are fans of Mandarin pop and (c) some people believe Singapore Idol is a TALENT show, and not a popularity contest. So there. Get over it.
At the end of the day, both finalists were offered recording contracts. So everybody wins, no? Vote by buying their albums this time.
Older entries
Ramadan - 08 October 2006
Where I Have Been - 03 October 2006
Baby Talk - 10 August 2006
6 Weeks of Separation - 16 July 2006
Unacceptable Rudeness - 21 June 2006