Sep

16

15-minute Idols

September 16, 2007 posted by indiatime |

The 3rd season of the Indian Idol show is growing to a close with its finale only a week or so away. The two finalists Prashant Tamang and Amit Paul, have already become tremendously popular in the northeast India. Very soon, one of these wil take home the crown of the ‘Indian Idol’ and a lot of money that comes with it. The question is - then what?

The winners of the first 2 seasons (Abhijit Sawant and Sandip Acharya) got some publicity on the Sony channel for a few months after their initial victories. They graced awards nights and concert shows with their presence for a while. But becoming household names didn’t catapult them above that 15-minute fame thing. We still remember them, but in spite of the massive publicity and instant international name-recognitions, they’ve failed to live up to their promise, at least until now.

Some of the American Idol winners and some of the British Idol winners have done much better. There are several amongst those that have topped the billboard charts and have proven why they got to be Idols in the first place. Previous Indian Idols on the other hand have failed to win the hearts of Bollywood’s composers and music directors.

Some might argue that the public voting system may not be the best way to pick singing talent. Some believe that the Idol show is nothing more than yet another hyped-show that rakes in more money from the cell-phone calls than from the commercial advertisements. Some think that the regional voting favors some of the regions such as the northeast and goes against singers from the south. All those arguments could be sidelined if the Indian Idol produces that one voice, that one talent which could vindicate the premise of singing contests. Saregamapa has already done that with singers Kunal Ganjawala and Shreya Ghoshal, and of course Sonu Nigam and Shaan who weren’t contestants but a big part of the show before.

For now, nobody wants to worry about the real premise and promise of the show. These are fun times to be Idol fans. In a month from now, we all would have forgotten about these 15-minute Idols, and then it will be time to get back to our usual Idol bunch - the Bachchans, the cricketers, and Lalu.


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1 Comment so far

  1. Indian Idol- a farce? at Blogbharti on September 17, 2007 12:20 am

    [...] Indiatime nurses a similar opinion: Some might argue that the public voting system may not be the best way to pick singing talent. Some believe that the Idol show is nothing more than yet another hyped-show that rakes in more money from the cell-phone calls than from the commercial advertisements. Some think that the regional voting favors some of the regions such as the northeast and goes against singers from the south. Linked by kuffir. Join Blogbharti facebook group. Do you know you can follow Blogbharti in Facebook? [...]

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