Becoming A Popstar - General Discussion

[zenithwit]

Currently airing on MTV

Quote

Joe Jonas, Becky G and Sean Bankhead judge a first-of-its-kind music competition for rising TikTok stars, where fans get to decide which one becomes the next pop sensation.

 

Anyone watching this show?  I think it has potential but I didn't like how they eliminated two contestants in the first episode for a video made at home before the competition (especially considering it was clear that not everyone had equal production resources). 

[zenithwit]

Another episode down and another two contestants eliminated.  Considering that they started with eight contestants and have already eliminated half of them, this is going to be a very short competition.  Maybe they are trying to mimic how cutthroat the industry is or maybe the majority of the budget was spent on Joe Jonas?

In general, this show feels very surface level.  There were clearly conversations about the video concepts that were never shown.  I think rather than wasting time on judging and eliminating contestants, I would have preferred if they picked 4-5 contestants, mentored them throughout the challenges, maybe have prize money or perks for doing well in a challenge and then picked a winner at the end.  This show feels like they just expect to pluck someone out and plug them into the "Pepsi Popstar" machine for super stardom when it just doesn't seem that easy in real life.

All of the videos were nice and songs were catchy (and clearly geared towards social media).  I guess the right two contestants were eliminated.  But I did really like the Sunshine song and video so felt bad that Lexie was eliminated (though I wish she stood up straighter during the dancing portions of the video).

[zenithwit]

Well, I guess I'm the only one watching this show.  That doesn't bode too well for our future "Pepsi Popstar".

I agree that Samy had the best video this week.  Out of the bottom three, I thought Lynnae actually moved the best.  I kinda liked the dance move she did with her back to the camera but I also think that she's probably not a sharp enough dancer to pull it off.

I like how Amira incorporated ASL into her video (I wish she had done more!) but she really needed the extra two dancers to cover up the fact that she was mostly standing in one spot throughout the video.  I wonder why she wasn't able to get all female dancers up front.

I understand why Joe Jonas wasn't able to judge in person this week but why couldn't he do it virtually?  Surely productions like this are thinking of those scenarios.  Maybe he was really sick and could only pull it together for the two minute video?

[zenithwit]

Still out on Pepsi Popstar Island by myself.  Makes sense when the most well-known judge barely participates himself.  I guess I could understand if he was too sick to be able to concentrate but it sounded like he was just finishing out his quarantine post-covid.  So I still don't get why they couldn't have figured out a way for him to join virtually.

This week was the classic surprise! we're sending everyone to the finale!  Which would be fine if this show was more than 5 episodes.  Honestly, I would have rather not had a double elimination earlier and gotten to know another contestant a bit better than have a non-elimination episode now.  

At this point, I think Samy has a good shot at winning.  He's definitely the most camera ready out of the three.  Though I could see them giving it to Kyle since he has that "diamond in the rough quality" they like. While Amira has a drop dead beautiful voice, she doesn't connect with the camera or move as well as the other two.

[zenithwit]

Finally got around to watching the season finale.  Congrats to Samy!  Though it definitely wasn't shocking that he won.  They were clearly looking for someone who they could plug into the "Pepsi Popstar" machine and would be able to perform.  I think if this contest was more about mentoring with the prize being a longer term investment in the artist, the results might have been a bit different.  So it was nice to hear that they gifted the music lab training (or whatever it was called) to all of the contestants.

Otherwise, this finale was just okay - which was on par with the whole season.  The individual packages before each performance were way too long.  At one point it felt like the packages were longer than all of the preceding episodes combined lol.  Also, I was expecting the final songs to be more upbeat.