More on Malakar

HIGH NOTES

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To some the news that Malakar had been voted off the show was disappointing, to others it was a relief and to more naïve viewers, it came as a big surprise.

Malakar has been the most talked about American Idol contestant in the show's six-year history. From the beginning of the 2007 season of the show, he's had audiences clearly divided on their opinion of him. True, he was not the best singer on the show but it was his ability to engage and charm audiences that urged millions of viewers to vote in his favour.

The storm that this 17-year-old created was not a joke. Notorious American radio show host Howard Stern was among the most vocal supporters of Malakar, launching a campaign that encouraged his audiences to vote in favor of him (so what if the website promoting this cause was called votefortheworst.com). Simon Cowell, one of the shows producers and judges said that he would quit American Idol were Malabar to win the contest.

A host of MySpace.com users reportedly went on a hunger strike till Malakar was voted off while other users created a space called "Team Sanjaya" in support of the singer. Some supporters went so far as to call themselves "Fanjayas" and even in India you will find hundreds of Sanjaya fans registered on orkut.com. With little doubt, being voted off the show does not spell the end of this Sanjaya mania.

Singing talent or not, the music industry should be looking at Sanjaya Malakar as a sign of health. While music companies globally complain over and over about dwindling and depleting music sales, Malakar and his entertaining skills have proven that audiences are intact and as interactive as ever.

In the advanced stages of the contest each time Malakar came on stage to perform he did so with a different hairstyle and let his attitude do more talking than his singing.

Even the most hardened critics (read Cowell) could not lambast his entertaining skills. He obviously knew that he wasn't the best singer on the show and set about distinguishing himself in a completely different way. His strategy proved successful.

Unfortunately, we live in a time when we are overfed on entertainment and spoilt for choice to the point where it becomes irrelevant and we start to ignore it. And so in music entertainment it becomes most vital for companies and their artistes to be just like Malakar and find ways to distinguish themselves in order to reach out and engage audiences.

Innovation is a word that is being used extensively in music business circles. A great example of innovation is the manner in which the Indian rock band Pentagram with music channel Vh1 and Nokia were able to reach out to audiences by asking them to shoot footage on their Nokia camera phones from which the Pentagram video for the song "Voice" would be created.

The idea ensured that the bands new album, It's Ok, It's All Good, generated a decent amount of curiosity and also ensured that they got an interesting video out of the whole deal.

It will be interesting to see how far Sanjaya Malakar gets outside of American Idol. He's got the confidence to make it as a good entertainer and he's even got the fan base. Either way, he's left a good lesson to be learnt from his short but exciting stint on the show.

craig_fernandes@hotmail.com