Ooh la la la - Second Quarter Finals

‘Ooh La La La’ gets better with each and every episode mainly because the each and every participating band really rock. The bands participated in second quarter finals are Route 10, Innovusion and Oxygen. All the six songs good or better were well performed. Oxygen was declared the winner which again raised lot of questions about what they are really looking for in a band.

The original composition of Innovusion and Route 10 were way better than that of Oxygen. I think it is the collective performance that matters more than the quality of the song. Kalyani of Route 10 gave a jaw dropping performance in the original composition round. Also they dared to choose a classic like Illayaraja’s ‘Nee Partha Parvaikku’ song to remix in the second round and what a remix it was. They jazzed it a bit and created a new tune of the song which doesn’t actually deviate much from the original and yet sounded something fresh. But the reason given for their elimination is the ending of the remix song which I thought was done in a more matured way but not a live performance friendly ending.

If they want only performers then their choice is justified but if they want to introduce someone who could create a new idiom of music then Oxygen is far behind Route 10 or even Innovusion. I liked Innovusion’s original composition which was a pure instrumental throughout with little vocals but that itself turned as a negative point for them. I didn’t like their remix of ‘Poongatru’ song and this is where the Oxygen got an edge over Innovusion. Oxygen performed ‘Thaniyae thanan thaniyae’ song really well. It is nice to lisen remix of the new songs instead of add a bass and rock drum beats to the old song kind of remixing. The little celtic deviation didn’t gel well with the overall sound of the song but liked the jathis running all though.

Can’t wait to watch the next episode.

Btw, Here is my new composition.

Ooh la la la Quarter Finals

I don’t know on what basis they have grouped 18 bands into 6 groups with 3 bands each. The problem of having such groups is that some very good band may fall into the same group and since it is mandatory to eliminate two groups in each episode, some really good talents may get eliminated. If there is any rule or logic based on which the grouping of bands is done, they could have mentioned it.

The first episode of quarter finals rocked. ‘Agam’ who performed extremely well missed out because of tough competition from ‘V3’. (You can listen to agam's bautiful original composition which they performed in the competition here in Harish's blog). Though V3 was good, lyrics were barely audible. For the sake of showing their versatility in singing, I think the lead singers of V3 went little overboard with rough singing in the original composition. If they continue the same rough singing in all type of songs, it may soon become repetitive and boring.