point and counterpoint

So my wife and I came back home from church service. We thought we might miss about half of Pilipinas Got Talent because of our long trip. Imagine our surprise when, upon entering the house, PGT was actually starting to air. It’s time to bring the inner critics in us

Having watched just half of the previous semifinal episodes, I didn’t know what to expect. Jovit Baldivino, I heard before (but, no, I didn’t get to see that Youtube video). I also saw the magician, the puppeteer, the piano/violin girl and the Luntayao family before. I had the vaguest idea of how good the other performers were, until last night’s episode. Let me just say that, in fairness to all the finalists (and my personal critiques aside), they did deserve to be there at the Araneta Coliseum, if at least for the only time in their entire lives.

I don’t intend to go over each of the finalists and who I think deserve to win. I’m not casting any votes anyway and I don’t think my votes will stand a chance against the rather obvious crowd favorites. However, one thing that didn’t escape my notice is who got in (or rather, who the organizers/producers think each contestant looked/sounded like when a contestant was auditioning…in particular, the singers), and what the judges were saying during their assessments.

First, the contestant themselves. Or more specifically, the singing contestants. In a variety talent show, it is inevitable that about half of the contestants (more or less) would be singers. With the number of television singing contests on Philippine TV, this isn’t surprising at all — only this time, they are up against dancers, magicians, acrobats and other talents besides other singers today. Watching the audition rounds, I wasn’t surprised having had to contend with singers imitating other singers (and some, unfortunately, coming up with their failed efforts to imitate other singers, with comic results a la American Idol).  I guess, for some reason, this only proves that Filipinos would rather sing than try any other form of recreation, which explains the proliferation of Karaoke machines in almost every sari-sari store these days.

However, in this country, most amateur singers who do make the cut in the final rounds of these television contests take their cue from other singers. In a not so pleasant way. How many singers have you heard who haven’t tried to do another rendition of Regine, Martin, Gary, Erik or Sarah…or Arnel Pineda for that matter? (Let’s not get into foreign acts for now, that’s best said in another blog post.) These days, it seems that the only new thing you see/hear on the radio are the names and faces, but not the voices.

And this is not good for the entertainment industry because if the only voices we hear on the radio are copycats of other singers, what else is there to hear? What else is new? Wouldn’t I be better off  paying to hear the original singer than to waste my monet on some new Youtube sensation whose only claim to fame is that he/she sounded like another established singer? (Or for that matter…how many new singers now brand themselves as the newest acoustic sensation? Let me count their names….) Imitation as a form of learning is good in the beginning if an amateur wants to learn how to be  a great singer, but it will only go so far. These days almost every new singer is a clone of another artists; what I want to hear is someone who is anything but another singer. I want to hear a singer for his/her own voice, for his/her own style and personality, not someone who virtually copied every note from another singer’s recording (whether that came from a pirated CD or not).

The premise of Pilipinas Got Talent and its original counterpart in the UK is that it aims to expose undiscovered and untapped talents in the country. This explains the phenomenal successes of Susan Boyle and Paul Potts (of UK Got Talent). They were up against younger and more energetic competitors, but in the end they won because of who they are, not because of who they were trying to copy. And that is what talent is all about. Martin wasn’t Martin because he was trying to become, say, his dad Bert. Gary was a man of his times (this was during Menudo), but he still came out as Gary, although one of his sons is all but trying to be a carbon copy of himself.  (Regine, Sarah and Erik are different cases, they also started out as clones of other singers. It took them so long before they were able to find their real voices and personal styles.)

Unfortunately, PGT’s own judges themselves are partly responsible for providing a very distorted perception of talent. Notoriously, one of the judges herself proclaimed a PGT contestant as the young Arnel Pineda. Not surprisingly this other contestant received the best comments from all three judges in the subsequent rounds (as if they know any better) — and, not surprisingly again, all of this contestants’ songs were originally recorded by Journey. Wouldn’t I be surprised then if this same contestant ends up with the two million pesos tonight? (And lest I be accused of being strongly biased…one of the PGT finalists was also another clone, this time a Gary Valenciano clone. Another finalist, a group of performers, were trying to be a Dreamgirls clone, only they have boys.)

It is a pity that a talent show like PGT is pitting more deserving candidates with other contestants whose only real talent is not even of their making, but a mere shadow of other greater talents. The PGT judges can talk and talk about how these other finalists were great and how they (supposedly) represented their colleagues in the same talent, but how would these judges expect these contestants to stand a chance against the copycats?

Yes, Jovit Baldivino has a great voice. But I don’t think he’s got te talent. There is only one Arnel Pineda…and his name is not Jovit Baldivino.