Happy Girls Round of 6: Review

The theme for this week was 'Ode to My Parents'. Each contestant had to select a song that had some kinda relationship to their parents. First, a video was played detailing each contestant's family situation, then once the air was nice and saturated with emotion, the contestant sang. What struck PP and I the most was that a lot of the contestants were from broken families where their parents were divorced. A sign of the times I guess. The contestants were urged to try uncharted territory this week as well as push the envelop by performing songs with higher degrees of difficulty than their usual selection. Despite the increase in difficulty, the contestants performed pretty well as most of the performances were good.

I could go into detail about how this week's contest worked but the judging just gets more and more complex and nonsensical as the contestants dwindle making it harder to fill up that 3 hour contest time frame so here's what happened:

1. 李霄云 Li Xiaoyun - First repeat as the ELLE cover model. She sang a beautiful song that she wrote herself for her father who had passed away because of cancer for the first round and then did some kinda awesome rapping routine for her ELLE cover model round. She's always struck me as a one-trick pony who was only capable of singing love songs but with this week, it seems like she can do so much more. Her ELLE cover model picture though was ridiculously bad. Whoever did her hair needs to be shot.

2. 刘惜君 Liu Xijun - The big hype for this week for me was that she was supposed to sing "Think of Me" from The Phantom of the Opera and I must say, I was not impressed at all but more on that later. For the first round, she sang this happy little "I don't wanna grow up" type song for her mom. It was good but nothing spectacular. I have to wonder what the heck was up with the fashion designers this week. It looks like she just wrapped herself with some green curtains. Her second song was the aforementioned "Think of Me." I know she was trying something that was way out of her element, but I think her approach was all wrong. For some reason, she felt the need to speed up the tempo of the song A LOT which made it so she didn't have enough time to hit the high notes. She probably missed every single high note in the song which made the entire effect feel rushed and sloppy. Her last song wasn't that memorable. Good enough to get her to the round of 5, but was not anything spectacular.

3. 郁可唯 Yu Kewei - Perhaps she didn't really take the advice of the judges to heart, but she again flopped on her best song. The judges advised that she truly understand a difficult song before trying it, something she didn't do. Her first song was dedicated to her father who was your stereotypical "it's never good enough, glass is always half empty" parent. Her second song was a wildly popular song that I really liked..when I listened to the awesome performance by the original artist (official MV in Sanskrit and in Mandarin. Yes, I am obsessed now). 郁可唯's performance is nowhere near the quality since I don't think her voice is strong enough for the style of the song to come through. Her third song was good enough to get her into round of 5.

4. 江映蓉 Jiang Yingrong - Err, I really can't remember much about her performances. I suppose this is ultimately bad because that means none of them were that memorable. First song was dedicated to her mom, but despite the song name, I still fell asleep during it. Bear in mind we were watching this at like 11:30 at night. Oh wait, I suddenly remember something about her performances. She wore a HORRIBLE outfit for her challenge song. She cosplayed as Janet Jackson and sang Alicia Keys' "If I Ain't Got You." Some people, like the whole audience, probably wondered what the hell she was doing dressing up as Janet Jackson. PP mentioned that the outfit highlighted all the bad features of her body while covering up all the good features. While she did a pretty good job with the song, the audience and judges were not as receptive. She was put into the elimination round where she had to choose her opponent.

5. 黄英 Huang Ying - She continues to develop as a singer and it shows in her increasingly varied repertoire. Originally she was a country girl who could only sing folk songs, but since then, she's certainly blossomed into a great singer. She may still be the dark horse, but I think she may develop into the favorite with the next coming weeks. Her first song was another take on a classic Chinese folk song. It didn't seem like she sang that many words, but the song was pretty good. Her challenge song was an attempt at singing a somewhat pop song that was way outside of her usual selection. She was having a little difficulty adapting her voice to the style, but I think she pulled it off.

6. Eliminated-谈莉娜 Tan Lina - I think her strategy was a little off this week. Usually her routines are dance heavy as to divert the attention away from her rather average singing ability. Maybe it was her back injury or maybe she was doing it for the challenge, but most of her routines featured very little dancing with a much greater focus on singing. Her first song was dedicated to her mom and she actually did a pretty good job. Her challenge song (starts at 3:48) featured this supposedly ultra difficult move where she spins while attached to a wire. I don't quite understand all the hype as she was probably in the air for a maximum of 5 seconds and didn't really perform that many mid-air dance moves. Just sorta spun around like a propeller. She was selected by 江映蓉 to PK in the final elimination and lost.