12.11.2008

Airtel Super Singer 2008 - Stephen Devassy

The dull ‘Airtel Super singer 2008’ bounced back with this week’s Unplugged round. The singers sang melodies with the backing of Piano, performed by Stephen Devassy. What an amazing musician. He is the man behind the orchestration of most of recent Vidhyasagar songs. Listen to the beautiful instrumental album ‘Romanz A’ composed by Stephen Devassy. Stephen’s piano with some amazing vocal performance by the contestants was really goose bumpy to watch. The judges Srinivas, Sujatha and Unnikrishnan also gave beautiful performances with Stephen.

Coming to the elimination this week, it is disappointing to see Arvind being eliminated. I like Arvind’s singing and voice; he has always been a neat performer who doesn’t mess up with the musicality in the name of performing. But that exactly turned out to be his disadvantage. And ofcourse, he isn’t versatile like others. But when singers like Aruna (worst in the present lot according to me) who performed so badly in this round, can stay, why not Arvind? And just because she won some other contest, and she is a good classical singer, how long they are going to retain Ragini Sree, even though she lacks every single quality that a film music singer should have.

Prasanna is a wholesome entertainer, give him any song, he tries to do complete justice to it, though it still has to be seen if he can pull some classical songs that has lot of musical intricacies. Prasanna is one who will sail through the final round. Rohit, a Raajamaniac has a different and deep voice and he sang ‘Kaalai Nera Kaatrae’ beautifully in unplugged round. His best performance so far definitely is the ‘Vathikuchi’ song. Renu definitely has a beautiful voice, but she strains a lot to sing in higher pitches and there is breath control problem also. I didn’t actually like her ‘Munbe Vaa’ performance. Vijay, a Rahmaniac, is versatility personified. He is able to sing all styles of songs with complete conviction, but don’t know how will he approach a pure classical number. I saw him struggling to get the notes right in the grooming session with Sriram Parthasarathy. Anyway, I couldn’t predict how far he could go.

Santosh has cleverly managed with his choice of songs to reach till this round; there is nothing special about his voice or singing according to me. He managed to maintain the emotions of ‘Oh Vannila’ song in unplugged round but musically it was a below par performance. Ranjani is very confident in whatever she sings and she is definitely on my top 3 list. ‘Kannalanae’ rendition in Unplugged round with lot of improvisations was very good but her ‘Muthu Mani maalai’ performance in the duet round is her best so far, according to me. She has a great voice presence and she easily sings in all ranges. If she chooses the right songs; she definitely can reach the top 3. Ajeesh, an ardent Hariharan fan, which is evident from his singing, is a technically sound singer and is versatile enough. His ‘Thoda Thoda’ rendition was superb though he couldn’t match up to SPB’s emotions in the original. He is surely on my Top 3. And Ravi’s ‘Thendrale’ performance was overtly expressive in unplugged round, though he hit every note right. And as I already told, Ravi has that extra edge and professionalism in his singing and most probably he is going to be the winner.

17 comments:

Vinith said...
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Vinith said...

I was planning to write aa post on this. Good to see your post. Happy that you've written. :)

Tuesday was one of the best shows. Great songs and of course Stephen's presence made the show very lively and enjoyable.
I keenly watched his fingers during the close up shots when he plays. Wow... How fast... Mindblowing...
I clapped and whistled when he said that he was the one who played Katrin Mozhi interludes. Wow...
Yesterday, did you listen to "Unnidam Mayangugiren". It wasn't that good. I don't know why. None of them (except few good singers like Santhosh, Ravi) sang in the right tempo. The tempo is totally missing. Its surprising that judges are not pointing it out. Only for the gal who sang Katrin Mozhi, Srinivas pointed out that she has made it like a Keerthana (rotfl).

Yes, I agree with you that few good singers have been eliminated while some avg singers are getting selected. But yes, it is all depends on how they perform on that particular day and that particular round.

But this time, judges did justice. They came to the conclusion by considering the previous perfomances. Thats a point to appreciate. :)

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Yes I listened to Unnidam Mayangugiraen by Prasanna, a good performance with enough expressions... For unplugged round, the tempo is not so important, just if they maintain the rhythm of the song.. it is enough..

Infact, Stephen not only played the interludes... he is the one who composed it and orchestrated the whole song...

Anonymous said...

vijay narain has won

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Anon - How is that Possible? In the finals, they use to take public votes... contest haven't reached the finals yet...

Ramki said...

I hate Airtel shows ..but just heard Stephen 's work in the link !

WOW - very similar to yanni's style o music and i could find his score in VS's music !

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Ramki - Yes. Stephen is overtly influenced by Yanni. And it was a little disappointing to know that Vidhyasagar doesn't orchestrate his songs.

Ramki said...

Suresh ,
Did he say that he orechestrates all VS songs ? Orchestrates wouldnt mean that he composes , but he executes the notes with his choice of instruments ?

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

No Ramki. Stephen didn't say this. I know some people inside who have worked close with Stephen and they told me. He actually composes those little interludes and arranges the whole song, VS just composes the main melody.

shankarganesh said...

Hai This is Balaji. Excellent comment by you about super singer. What is your opinion on raginisri? Y u missed that?
Super Singer is so partial. Though Ragini, Rohit who are regular to the danger zone, they are sent in and though santhosh was not well, he was out. Santhosh is not an extraordinary singer but more or lesst he same like rohit or ragini or aruna according to me. I feel aruna thinks 2 much about herself. Totally worst and partial program...

K.RAGHAVAN said...

Hi! Suresh How are you?? Yeah. Judgements really confusing. If that day's performance is the only measure to remain in the contest, then on 2 occassions Raginisri should have been eliminated. If the previous performances are taken into consideration then Deepshika should have been eliminated. Also to mention, Aravind also good in classical in fact Judges were mentioning that was his weakness too. Rightly said by you, Raginisri and Aruna not good at all to stay. But I contentrate on these four My top Picks are 1.Ravi 2.Prasanna 3.Venu 4. Ajees or Vijaynaryan.

K.RAGHAVAN said...

Sorry Deepshika should not have been eliminated.

RanJan said...
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RanJan said...

Hey - i watch super singer here in US. it was a sad yesterday that Vijay Narayanan got eliminated. But seeing that, it comes to mind how Raghini behaved when she was voted off. Here's the comparison:
Raghini: When she was voted off, she kept nodding her head, the judges and Chinmayee were wishing her all the best in her career and that she has a great voice and she will have good opportunities in her life, and all she could do was nod her head. You can see that episode again, not ONCE did she say "thank you" or was she displaying gratitude for having come that far in the show, when the entire world knew she didn't deserve it and she wasn't worthy of it.
Vijay Narayanan: the guy was extremely sweet, very mature, he thanked the judges, he was very receptive, very humble and also incredibly gregarious to wish the rest of the participants (whom he called friends) the best of luck in the future rounds.
Raghini should be on her hands and knees thanking the judges for letting her come this far, for whatever reason that was, maybe she had some influence in Vijay tv or some political influences. Her arrogance and attitude doesn't help either. I hope she gets a good dosage of her own medicine in her life. With this, I wish Vijay Narayanan and the other remaining six the very best, sorry we'll miss you Vijay.

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

RR - Ragini sure has an attitude problem. Because she is already is like a professional singer though she hasn't entered into film music yet... i have seen her performing in international concerts...

Vijay is the most versatile singer of the show. But I know that his journey will end this way....

Anonymous said...

Suresh,

In the CD credits of Mozhi or anyother Vidyasagar album, is Stephen Devassy's name listed for Arrangment/Programming?

Am just curious to know, cos I haven't bought Vidyasagar albums for a quite a while. If not I wonder how much credit we can attribute to the composer for the stuff we hear these days. Rahman uses programmers and additional arrangers but atleast that's on CD, so you know what's done by whom. Am also hearing one other thing that Raaja these days leaves the orchestration part to Karthick Raaja, is tha true too? If so, it's very sad actually.

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Muthuvel - No it is not mentioned in CD credits. But I came to know if from a reliable insider from the film industry, Stephen has orchestrated all the song in this insider's movie, though the tunes were originally composer by another composer... when we were discussing about composing methods.. I was told by him about this...

But in 'Abhiyum naanum' CD Stephen Devassy and Joshua Sridhar's name are in the credits for programming..

More authentic proof is the use of a piano melody from Stephen's album RomanzA in a song of the movie 'Raaman Thedia Seethai'