A fortnight ago, I wrote about television talent shows dedicated to discovering new artists. The final one I mentioned was ‘The Voice', which many people in the Arab world enjoy watching every week. Just to remind you how it works on ‘The Voice', you have four acclaimed singers sitting with their backs to the contender, forcing them to focus only on his or her singing and evaluate their ‘voice'; hence the name. They act as jury members and, if one of them turns his seat around while the contestant is still singing, this indicates that the star wants the newcomer to join their team. Egyptian singer Shereen is the only female jury member. The rest are Tunisian Saber el-Roba'ai, Lebanese Assy el-Helanni and Iraqi Kazem el-Saher. Apparently, some of them are incapable of evaluating international music genres and the singing styles needed to perform them. It's painfully obvious that Assy does know about these styles, while Saber's knowledge of them is average, Kazem doesn't know much at all and Shereen is a disaster. Even the way English song titles are pronounced by the latter two makes it hard to understand which songs they're talking about. Their limited knowledge has driven them to make wrong decisions – some of the talents they have chosen are just average singers. It doesn't stop at that, as the tracks chosen for some performers have been totally unsuitable for them. For instance, it was very inappropriate to have a male singer sing Whitney Houston's version of Dolly Parton's ‘I Will Always Love You'. Such a song in such a key would massacre most male vocalists. Moreover, the poor guy had to compete with two female singers on that track! Are you kidding me? Another unfair dual pitted a Saudi vocalist with an Iraqi one, as they together sang a song from the Gulf. All in all the latter had better control over his powerful voice, but the other man dominated and still he lost! Other mistakes made by coaches/jury members include choosing a rai song in Algerian dialect for an Egyptian singer to sing. Both the dialect and the vocabulary are totally different from the Egyptian ones and we find them quite hard to pronounce. Frankly, I wouldn't find a rai singing in Egyptian convincing. Leave it to the Algerians and Moroccans, because they are the masters of rai. There was a young Lebanese guy who excelled in singing Elton John's ‘Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word', but, when he used the same soul technique with Queen's ‘The Show Must Go On', he sounded unimpressive. Rock must be sung as rock or should be left untouched. However, this man was praised by the jury members, who should know that it's not only about singing, but also about choosing a suitable style for each track. One of the worst moments on the show was when Shereen publicly expressed her joy when viewers voted for a particular contestant. That was a fatal mistake. As a coach or a jury member, she should have been equally concerned about her entire team. Even if she prefers a certain singer, she shouldn't show it because the rest will simply feel she is taking sides. Everyone must be equally supported and it is nice to be fair. I know there are other negative things I wanted to mention but I just can't remember them right now. Anyway, the show still has weeks left to run and I might be writing another article about it. You will be the first to know. Moving on to something else – it's a song that I wrote and would like to share with you. I could lie and say that it was inspired by those mistakes made on ‘The Voice', but I will not. It's just what I felt like writing when I first heard about a huge problem between some friends. It's a personal issue so I won't discuss it here. All I can say is that it resulted in messing up what was going to be a marriage. I know the details and honestly I am not taking sides. Anyway, I feel really sorry for the couple. I also feel bad that I am not going to attend the wedding party... no free dinner for me! What? I'll try my best to express my thoughts & I'll try so hard not to lose my head I feel I'm tied to a sinking boat & that my life is hanging by a thread No matter how hard I try I will never forgive or forget There's no way you can justify Don't tell me you feel shame or regret What on earth gave you the right to mess my life up? What made you want to choose for me? You simply decided that my life should stop Or be lived the way you want it to be Did you think that it will go unnoticed? Or that it will get me closer to you? I wasn't even given the right to protest Or to discuss my point of you You forgot that this is my life Now I know your real intentions When you backstab someone with a knife Don't say it's in the name of love & affections What on earth gave you the right to mess my life up? What made you want to choose for me? You simply decided that my life should stop Or lived the way you want it to be Now that your plans backfired Now that I will go away Do you feel so empty & tired Of that vicious game you chose to play? What on earth gave you the right to mess my life up? What made you want to choose for me? You simply decided that my life should stop Or be lived the way you want it to be Send me your demos to: [email protected]
