i interrupt your regular early monday morning proceedings to bring you a little rant about the Asian Idol competition that just ended a while back...
so as you might know i'm kinda like the biggest Idol nut around, and normally the contestant i support isn't the winner, but the judges' choice normally gets voted in...
however, this leg of the Idol phenomenon was slightly different in that the overwhelming favourites (yes, plural, because there were a number of amazing vocalists) lost to someone who, at least in my and the judges' opinion, has little international value...
nonetheless, the Asian Idol is Singapore's Hady Mirza, and while i was getting over the initial shock of him beating out Jaclyn Victor of Malaysia (the HSM2 singer), Mike of Indonesia and the Filipino Idol who in my opinion is the best singer, i've come to understand why it turned out as such...
first off, one of the songs he sang was a Malay one, and that would have appealed to Malaysian and Indonesian voters, particularly the latter because it was the host nation, and these two voting groups combined would have greater numbers than any other support blocks...
but the second, and perhaps more important reason for his victory when he really doesn't have as good a voice is that amongst all 6 contestants, he looks the best...
when you talk about absolute looks, he isn't shoddy to begin with, and when you think in relative terms, he is far more attractive than any of the others (save for the Indian Idol who has that ubiquitous Bollywood charm that unfortunately does not appeal that widely in the rest of Asia)
i dare say it was an example of the efficient commercial machine that in the Singapore media...

so with that out of the way, its back to Barclay's Super Sunday...