Though man of the moment Nathan Hartono may not have emerged champion in the Sing! China competition last night, everyone’s a winner in the end really.
The 25-year-old crooner finished second in the finals at the Beijing National Stadium — making him the first Singaporean to even reach that level in the Chinese talent show. Us? Well, we had some free Milo last night.
Being the sole contestant under the mentorship of Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou to reach the finals, the two performed on stage together, singing Chou’s hit ‘Nunchucks’. Hartono picked another Chou classic ‘The Longest Movie’ for his solo performance.
SMS votes by spectators picked two performers to face off in the last round of the night — Hartono and China’s Jiang Dunhao. Our boy then sang a medley of Mavis Hee’s ‘Moonlight in the City’ and Anita Mui’s ‘Woman Flower’, while 21-year-old Jiang did Wang Feng’s ‘Window Sill’.
In the end however, it was a close call — out of a panel consisting 81 music industry professionals, 45 sided with Hartono, while the other 47 went with Jiang. Votes cast by spectators in the stadium sealed the clear winner, with Jiang scoring 59,852 votes and the Singaporean garnering 45,613.
Still, it’s pretty cool that a Singaporean made it that far in the massively popular talent show. Hartono can take consolation too that he’s now a household name; the show racked over 37 billion online views this season. Win or lose, he’ll have quite a career ahead of him in China and Milo pengs are always waiting for him back home.
