Culturally Preconditioned

It was one of those rare occassions that lived up to its hype on our local scene, the Malaysian Idol Grand Final results show was certainly one of the most satisfying event on television this year so far.

The pre-show was kicked off by a solo performance by none other than my girl, Shima!I was very happy to see her on stage. It’s quite an honour for her to be the only non-Finalist (good ones, that is) to be invited for a performance that night. Her rendition of Alicia Keyes ‘Fallin’ was good but I still loved her ‘Careless Whisper’ from the workshops. I was hoping they’d bring Yin back but that was not the case.

The other non-finalists to make it onto the show was Lee Kar Wei (the poor girl who messed up the theatres rounds - I was really hoping she wouldn’t forget her lyrics this time and thankfully she didn’t. Her performance was just alright for me though) and Julian (the guy with the quivering cheeks whose performance didn’t show much improvements).

They also did an excellent recap of te show, from the auditions to theatre eliminations to the workshops and on to the spectaculars. We were treated with recaps of some of the colourful characters from the show like Thalia (who told the judges to go ‘down there’), Firdaus (the over dramatic Kelantanese guy who I think really hates girls with flowers in their hair) and the weird JB girl (who is probably the only person in the show who’s more rude than Roslan himself). Oooh which brings me to Fantasia dissing our judges.

Fantasia dissing Roslan : “Hey Roslan, stop shoving pencils up your nose and start judging!”. That was absolutely hilarious. But in all fairness, I really thought Roslan was quite funny with his selamba, couldn’t careless, bored shitless facial expressions during the horrendous auditions with the pencils up his facial crevices. It was also funny when Fantasia dissed Gee by sarcastically saying : “Hey Kak Gee, it’s not ALL about pitching, okay?” Too fucking funny.

And then there was of course the performances by the 10 finalists. Sufiah and Fazly sounded surprisingly good together. But then out came Rydee with Prince’s Purple Rain. WOW! That’s what I’m saying, y’all. This is the kind of song that they really should’ve sand during the 80s week. Rydee’s performance was so fucking awesome. But what was up with the hair? If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought she’s auditioning for Cats. No offense, Rydee.

The performances by Victor and Fahmy was pleasant, though I think they were really trying to imitate Innuendo a tad too much. Zamil came on to sing his best song ‘My Baby You’ - I’m still waiting to hear him sing a fast number. Hee. Much to the delight of many viewers, Nikki came on stage singing ‘Emotions’. She didn’t quite pull it off as well as she did in her audition, but nonetheless it was a damn good performance.

Saiful also sung his personal best song, Yassin’s Mimpi Laila. And finally Vick and Andrew came on last singing Man Bai’s Kau Ilhamku. If Vick wasn’t there to sing the song with him, Andrew would probably put me to sleep once again. Seriously.

After the Final 10 contestants, Jien and Aleya introduced Mohd Izwan, the PBSM guy who sang a dangdut song in the audition. That guy sure got some BALLS! At first I thought it was going to be oh so tacky, and will set a precedent for other people who’s going to audition next year. People who will audition and do the craziest thing just for the sake of getting their 15 minutes of fame, which is just kind of sad. But the PBSM guy’s performance was still pretty comical, and I don’t think Malaysians should start worrying that he will ever get a recording contract like a certain Mr Hung.

Before they announced who the winner was, Jac and Dina had a final duet together, singing ‘Signed, Sealed, Delievered’. I was not at all happy to hear them singing that song. YOu know why? Because it will once again set off alarms in clueless people’s head when they once again satrt comparing Jac to Fantasia (who sang this song in her first round of American Idol). I really hope Malaysians will come to terms and realise that Jac and Fantasia are as different as Monica and Macy Gray. Please stop the comparisons NOW!

Finally the results were announced. Jac winning Malaysian Idol with a staggerring 76% of the votes were simply overwhelming. It’s nice to know that Malaysians have not completely lost their common sense (and sense of hearing) yet. Thank you Malaysia for making Jac our very 1st Malaysian Idol.

And to Jac, a very well earned Congratulations are in order. You totally deserve it!