Ooh La La La....

This is a raining season of singing talent hunt shows in all TV channels in India. Be it the regional or national channels, all are trying to hit high TRP’s by conducting these talent hunt shows. But the big question is how many of them really give importance to the talent. Except for a few, all the other shows are just shows which could beat any popular mega serial in dramatizing the happenings. After Vijay TV’s Airtel Super singer junior which is the most honest and beautiful talent hunt show I have ever seen closed down a week back, I decided (or rather had a chance) to watch at least two or three episodes of the talent hunt shows currently running in all other channels. Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, Voice of India, Indian Idol, Ennodu Paatu Padungal, Jaya TV’s little masters, Sun TV’s Ooh La La La, Sabtha Swarangal Children’s special are those shows of which I have seen few episodes of each of the show. Every show has its own merits and problems.

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa is comparatively the better one in Hindi. It is mainly because the finalists are awesome singers who keep pushing the bar up in each and every performance making it tough for others. The only problem with this show is the judges. Ismail Darbar, Himesh, Vishal Shekar, Bappida all fighting with each other while passing verdict after each performance is irritating after a point. Sometimes they do have a constructive clash but most of the times, it looks like a drama and the background music given in these moments heightens the dramatic feel of the show. Otherwise, the contesting singers make this show a must watch. Voice of India has only few good singers and even in this show the judges fight with each other unnecessarily. It is a very average show on the whole. Indian Idol is the worst of the lot. With barely few good singers, most of them are not consistent in their performance. It is better not to talk about the judges. Alisha always praises even the worst of the performances and Anu Malik continues his harsh talks and blabbering in the name of cynicism or constructive criticism.

Ennodu Paatu Paadungal conducted by SPB has better to worst singers but what makes this show interesting is the tips given by SPB for the singers and his tidbits and comments about singers, lyricists and the composing styles of various composers. Jaya TV’s little masters and Sun TV’s Sabtha Swarangal children’s special has nothing new to offer. These channels just want to gain something out of the impact created by Vijay TV’s Super singer junior. I also saw an episode of Malayalam Super singer. The judges were very strict and the amount of analysis they do on each performance makes it worth watching. I can’t really comment much about the singers as I saw only one episode.

Now A.R.Rahman joins hands with Sun TV to conduct a band competition 'Ooh La la la' in south India. I think this is the first show of its kind in India. This is really an interesting idea. Hats off to A.R.Rahman for coming up with such a novel concept and making it possible. The great thing is that the winning band will cut a music album in Rahman studios under his music label. It definitely will bring a sea change to the fate of Tamil pop albums in future. Finally, I think people will start listening to independent music albums also. The first episode of the show was well packaged with interviews of A.R.Rahman, Shankar Mahadevan, Vasundra Das, Sivamani, Malgudi Subha, Naresh Iyer and few other music personalities who were a part of some band in the earlier stages of their career. Rahman’s speech about his intentions and the band concept was a treat to watch. The members of all the contesting bands also spoke about how it feels to be a part of this contest and of course about A.R.Rahman and how his music inspired them. Few song bytes of some bands were also shown. The interesting thing is that bands should perform only their own and original compositions. After Vijay TV’s Airtel Super singer, this is one show which I am expecting to watch all the episodes.