TV singing contest propels Sino-American rivalry into new territory

Chinese candidates on Singer 2024However, seemed less excited when the camera panned backstage. Lambert was showing them the show with his perfect live performance, and if Lambert won, one of them would be at risk of being eliminated.

Some viewers joked On social media, Lambert had come to trigger a bloodbath and teach the Chinese music industry a lesson.

Singer 2024 is a Eurovision-style singing competition where performers are judged by a panel of 1,000 judges, both Chinese and international.

It positions itself as a true international music scene that highlights diverse styles and facilitates cultural exchanges, according to to Zhang Danyang, the program's executive director. This is in line with top leader Xi Jinping's call for promote mutual learning between civilizations and to strenghten people-to-people ties between China and the United States.

But this ambition sometimes goes wrong and even a musical performance can turn into a geopolitical confrontation between East and West.

Chinese audiences are accustomed to a high level of lip-synching and auto-tuning in their live performances. Singers from state-run channels are not to be missed Spring Festival Gala have long been accused of lip-syncing on the show and a hit musical In 2019, it was discovered that he had released a pre-recorded tape to the lead actress who had fallen ill.

Chinese regulations criminalize lip-syncing in paid concerts and other commercial performances, but they do not apply to television and web broadcasts.

Singer 2024 is therefore a rare show, as all performances are live and unedited, and established artists compete to be the best. The show has been met with approval by viewers and critics alike: the first episode alone was viewed 135 million times in the 24 hours after it first aired, sending the parent company's stock soaring.

The decision to broadcast the show live was the right one and raised the bar for other Chinese shows, said Chinese-Canadian music producer JKAI (Jay-Kai), who participated remotely as an international jury member for the first episode. In previous years, none of this really resembled what you see live.

The show brings together seven competitors, four Chinese, one Taiwanese, one American and one Moroccan-Canadian, as well as occasional guest artists like Lambert. A producer for the show said Many of the Chinese artists they contacted lacked the ability or courage to sing live.

The American candidate is Chant Moore, a 57-year-old R&B singer from San Francisco. Moore exudes a kind of ease, freedom and authenticity that you don't see very often here, said Celeste Hua, a 30-year-old Shanghai resident.

Hua became a fan after Moore performed Alicia Keys' If I Aint Got You with a twist: She added some Mariah Carey-style high notes to her powerful rendition.

As if to show that she was aware of her vocal superiority, Moore said In a widely circulated backstage interview, she believed she was joining the show as a judge, not a singer.

The other Westerner, Faouzia, a 24-year-old Canadian of Moroccan descent, has gained a loyal following through her use of opera and Arabic musical elements in pop songs. Moore and Faouzia regularly rank in the top three.

China's performance has not been as consistent.

Silence Wang, one of the country's best-selling artists, struggled with high notes. The folkloric psalmody Liang Long, the lead singer of alternative rock band Second Hand Rose, has attracted comparison to a disturbing shamanic ritual.

After a Chinese singer who has enjoyed three decades of popularity, Na Ying, delivered a relatively solid performance in the first episode, viral memes caricature she as a one-man army besieged by foreign forces.

The unbalanced nature of the contest sparked a wave of nationalist sentiment against a spectacle that was supposed to be pure entertainment.

Music critic Zou Xiaoying wrote It has been said online that the Singer show is not an Olympics and that I would not vote for foreigners, no matter how good they are. And are they really that good? he asked, in a post that received 67,000 likes.

Fans of the show, disappointed with the Chinese performers, have called on other local singers who they say have vocal versatility comparable to Moore and Faouzia, hoping to strengthen the Chinese team and defend the national honor. More than a dozen singers have expressed interest.

I am Chinese singer Han Hong. Send me to fight! A musician affiliated with the People's Liberation Army with 16 million followers wrote on Weibo, tagging Singer's official account. His post received 1.5 million likes and further stirred up nationalist sentiments.

The show's production team thanked fans for their unsolicited brainstorming and the singers who volunteered before urging that everyone focuses on music, friendship and communication rather than winning.

State media also gave their opinion.

Elevating an entertainment topic to a geopolitical battle is both misleading and unamusing, according to state-run Chengdu Economic Daily. wrote in a commentary. The People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, commented that there is no need to exaggerate the rivalry despite the fact that the Chinese singers and the two foreign singers are not up to par during live performances.

While nationalism sells, says Sara Liao, a media expert at the University of Pennsylvania, commercial TV stations must tread carefully because they face risks of repercussions both from the government, which decides what can be broadcast, and from the public.

The Singer series actually has its origins in a geopolitical conflict.

The show was originally called I Am a Singer, after a South Korean show of the same name. But when South Korea chose to deploy the U.S. THAAD missile defense system in 2017, China banned K-pop groups and the show changed its name. Also in 2017, Hong Kong singer Hins Cheung was kicked off the show for allegedly supporting the independence movement, an accusation he denied.

Moore's chances of winning dwindled in last week's episode, when she came in last after her performance of Beyoncé's Halo.

But if she or Faouzia wins, like when British singer Jessie J became The show's first international winner in 2018 would be more about talent, voice and artistry than fame, he said. Rosettea Canadian singer and vocal coach who commentated on the show on her YouTube channel.

The role of these [foreign] “I think the artists are there to create a juxtaposition, to show the different palettes of different cultures,” Rozette said in an interview. “Ultimately, they’re there to be and represent a different sound: American pop music might as well be world music to many Chinese ears.