My apologies for the delay because I have been neck-deep in work, meeting up with a VIP friend before she flies off again to another part of the world and I am trying to make time to attend the MOE SYF Event at Ngee Ann City later today at around 3pm.
I am trying to do the following blog post in-between whatever free time I have, so for those who have been following my blog series on the CSS 2 Song List Commentaries, it will be published in stages whenever I finish parts of it. Do check back in here on the blog as I continue to fill in the rest of the song commentaries. So here we go without further ado.
F1 赖嘉琪 超快感 原唱者：孙燕姿
Jiaqi picked one of the difficult fast-track song by Stephanie Sun, which is both challenging but possibly very impressive if she managed to grasp the essence behind the song. As far as I recalled, Jiaqi actually did very well for her song "Ben Lai" in the QF1A with her lush voice and frankly speaking, I will be looking forward to hear how she will tackle "Chao Kuai Gan". The prime difficulties of the song lie not just about the speed of the song, but also the micro-management of the falsetto notes with minimal buildup to them. The song must be sung with an attitude of determination and confidence and Jiaqi will have to shed her previous ballad image in order to score with both the audience and the judges.
F2 杨丽莹 左边 原唱者：杨丞林
Teri picked a slower ballad with inherent emphasis of lownotes and a more distinctive chorus which she will have to emote carefully in order to give the appropriate feel to the song. I hope Teri has improved her enunciation of lyrics since her last performance onstage because the faster-moving chorus will give very little room for mistakes. There is not much impressive vocal showcase available for this song so the performer will have to depend highly on emoting and gesticulation to try and score for the performance. A good buildup will also be necessary to reach such a state of emotions.
F3 张宇璇 那年夏天宁静的海 原唱者：王心凌
Amy chosed a rather difficult song to attempt to impress during the revival round and I applaud her courage. Of course, she will need to be successful to earn her accolades. The song has a good measure of note variation and requires clear enunciation to emote the feeling of the song persona. The lower endnotes must be controlled properly in order to transit to the next verse. There is ample opportunities to showcase vocal capabilities within the song and I will be looking forward to see if Amy can achieve a breakthrough for her revival performance and surprise everyone with what I believed to be one of the best song selections for this round of the competition.
F4 林佳君 有一天我会 原唱者：蔡淳佳
This is quite a difficult song to perform because it has very little lyrical and note variation within the song. I suppose the original songwriter wanted the song to highlight the vocal capabilities of the performer instead because the success of the performance hinge heavily on the clarity and reach of the notes, especially the lownotes and the endnotes. Jiajun will have to also perform the song with a level of maturity and carefree-ness in order to match the persona portrayed inside the song so her usual all-smiles stage image may not be that suitable for this particular song. I will be looking forward to see how Jiajun shed her usual happy-smiling stage image to attemp this matured ballad on anticipation of love.
F5 谢慧娴 C大调 原唱者：张韶涵
I am quite puzzled by Huixian's selection because I thought she would have already heard about the negative comments that she is over-picking Angela Zhang's songs, thus committing the same mistake as Shawn with his JJ Lin's songs. Then again, maybe all their song choices were already pre-determined by MediaCorp and there is nothing these contestants can do. Whatever the case, should Huixian manage to win the revival round, she must learn to pick more songs from other genres and showcase her abilities instead of burying them with songs that are unable to give a sense of freshness to the audience and judges. As with Shawn's familiarity with JJ Lin's song, I presumed Huixian is just as familiar with Angela Zhang's, so I will not dive into the details for the two of them.
F6 黄意凌 好眼泪坏眼泪 原唱者：徐若瑄
Elaine plays a safe card to her revival round performance with the choice of a gentle ballad. The song is very manageable within her vocal capabilities and it will thus depend on how well Elaine can emote this song and bring out the contents of the lyrics. There is also little available opportunities within the song for the performer to interact with the audience. I personally think that this song lacks the necessary impact to impress the swing-voters who will be looking for a stunning performance during the highly-anticipated revival round.
M1 唐伟盛 当你孤单你会想起谁？原唱者：张栋梁
Wilson picked a ballad that was written quite a while ago and I am quite surprised by his selection because he seems to want to remove that rumoured Renfred-wannabe stage image and attempt to move the audience with the newer version of the ballad. This song is not difficult to sing in the vocal department but hard to move the audience if the performer does not know how to interact with the audience and get them to sway to the rhythm of the song. A light singing voice will be needed with a clear distinction to the chorus in order to nail the performance.
M2 温俊杰 忘记 原唱者：林俊杰
I have nothing against JJ Lin himself, his songs or people wanting to sing his songs but I feel that Junjie should have picked another song from another singer to try and showcase to the judges, and audience that he is capable to standing on his own style. Moreover, with Shawn picking the same singer's song, it looks (looks only) like he is trailing in the shadow of Shawn's selections. Oh well, anyway, "Wang Ji" should be performed with a clear emphasis of the two endnotes on each of the verse lines. Junjie should also control the variation of emotions within the chorus carefully because that would be the main feature of the song and pay attention to his enunciation for the lownotes in the song as well.
M3 吴福宽 爱爱爱 原唱者：方大同
Fukuan selected a very recently-penned song sung by a new upcoming singer and I probably can guess that he is trying to make the song his own since audience familiarity with the song is still not deep. But the new song is quite difficult to emote because of its R&B beat and pauses and the performer will have to learn to juggle between keeping to the beat and pauses, and emoting the song simultaneously. The song's falsetto are very subtle and the notes have very smooth, quick transition points and thus making it easily one of the most difficult songs in the revival round. I will be highly anticipating Fukuan's rendition of this very interesting song at this critical stage of the competition and hope he can do justice to this song during his performance.
M4 徐彬 简单爱 原唱者：周杰伦
Xu Bin picked one of the most rhythmic songs by Jay Chou and obviously keeping the beat without rushing the lyrics will be a key thing to note if he is to be successful in performing the song. I will be hoping he can actually impress with a little dance here and there to give the performance a visual dimension rather than standing there rigidly in his last performance during QF 1A. A light-hearted voice and feel will be necessary to bring out the appropriate emotions within the song and since the song is R&B in nature, a performer with a visible attitude to the theme within the song will be even better.
M5 郑全威 给我你的爱 原唱者：TANK
This is quite a bland ballad even though it has a high degree of familiarity with the audience. I am seriously wondering what Javin is going to do on Monday night to make the song truly his and without boring the audience since there is very little room available to showcase any extraordinary vocal capabilities or even distinguish any vocal improvement that Javin might have made. Although the song may have some difficult falsetto and a noteworthy stretchnote in the middle of the song, there is little else to truly move the audience to a climax during the revival round. Whatever the case, I still hope Javin can do his best and at least get a respectable judges' segment for his performance.
M6 卓轩正 木乃伊 原唱者：林俊杰
I know I will be showered with flak for saying what I am about to say but this is my blog and these are my true opinions (which I am not afraid to say out). My first reaction is Shawn's song choice is - Another JJ Lin's song? I am very disappointed. I don't know what he is thinking and whether the song choice is actually his or MediaCorp's but no matter how well Shawn sings JJ Lin's songs, I am seriously beginning to think that he is becoming a parrot singer and his versatility in performance genres is only so little. Maybe he is trying to play safe but I personally (no offense to Shawn or his supporters) believe I can only give him that little credit because he has not proven his versatility, his adaptability and his courage to challenge different songs, genre or singer styles. Good luck to Shawn anyway.
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