KOREAN MUSIC: Lee Hayi of SBS’s “K-Pop Star” (4)

케이팝 스타: 이하이 (Lee Hayi, or Lee Ha Yi)

Even though there was some shakiness in her performance hours ago (03/18/2012), Lee Hayi advanced to the next round in spite of it. At the beginning of her “Don’t Stop the Music” performance, she managed to sound strikingly and overpoweringly soulful. But when the slow beat changed into a much faster one, she missed the timing on the first note and her voice turned shaky, though still pleasing to the ear. Things got even worse when she started to dance to the music: She couldn’t manage to produce exactly the right notes – many of the notes were out of tune and off beat.

Yang Hyun Suk said that she’d better choose what she can do best instead of trying to prove she can do it all. He said, “Tonight he didn’t come(which is a Korean slang for “You were not in the zone”). Give me his number ‘cause I gotta give him a call. As the competition is getting fierce, I want you to choose a song that can help you stay in the zone.” (88 out of 100) I think Yang’s advice was right on the money and I also want to see her choose the right genres that she can sing and loves to sing.

BoA criticized Hayi’s lack of confidence. She said, “When I heard Hayi was going to do the dance number, I was full of expectations for her performance tonight. I think she “digested” the song really well. Yet, I want to point out that her performance exhibited some weakness in two respects: She sang looking down all the time and her voice sounded shaky while singing and dancing at the same time.” (91 out of 100)

Park Jin Young said he was willing to give her a score of 99~100 out of 100 for the first half of the song but was not satisfied with the second half. He sighed, “Only if she had just simply enjoyed singing, instead of trying to sing flawless, when the beat got faster!” (88 out of 100)

I don’t know why but the quality of the “K-Pop Star” contestants’ singing is going downhill as a whole – a majority of them performed below par. Plus, maybe I am being subjective here, because I have absolutely been rooting for Hayi, but I think the judges gave relatively low marks to her. And even though the ratings of MBC’s Widaehan Tansaeng (위대한 탄생, “The Great Birth”) have been bottoming out since the live performances started, their singing is a little better so far. Forgive me, Widaehan Tansaeng, for my doubt and distrust!