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| ▲ This photo, provided by JTBC, shows the five judges of 'Phantom Singer Season 4.' (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, Mar. 10 (Yonhap) -- South Korean local cable channel JTBC’s audition show “Phantom Singer,” which has been heralding the era of crossover genre, referring to a fusion genre of multiple musical styles, will return with the fourth season. The show has also been reckoned the birthplace of multiple hit crossover quartets including Porte di Quattro, Forestella, and La Poem.
During the press conference of the upcoming survival show held at Standford Hotel Kroea on Friday, the renowned singer-songwriter Yoon Jong-shin, who served as a judge also in the first and second seasons of the show, said, “It was more challenging for the judges to reach an agreement as the skills of even the eliminated participants have grown a lot.”
Yoon added, “I thought that since we are at the fourth season, the participants’ skills must live up to the heightened expectations of viewers,” explaining, “I think we, the judges, began to apply higher standards as the viewers of our show have risen to the level of quasi-judges.”
“Audition is not a fight to pass but to drop,” the singer-songwriter said. “There were some participants whom we had to drop only because we were in our fourth season. If we were in our first, then they would have probably passed.”
“Phantom Singer” is a music audition show in which artists from various music genres such as classic music, musical, and Korean traditional music, gather and compete against each other by performing on a crossover stage. The show aims to form a male crossover vocal quartet with the best singers.
The upcoming season, which took the longest preparation period of six months, will introduce several new audition formats, such as visit auditions and karaoke auditions as well as global auditions in the U.S., Germany, and Austria.
A total of 74 participants will be appearing on stage, including actors Lee Hae-joon and Kim Jin-woo, who played the role of Caspas in the hit musical “Beethoven”; boy band Pentagon’s main vocalist Cho Jin-ho; tenor Jung Seung-woon; and the budding Korean traditional music singer Kim Soo-in.
The spectacular lineup of judges also did not fail to rise the hype: besides Yoon, music director Kim Mun-jeong, bass Son Hye-soo, musical actor Park Kang-hyun, and pianist Kim Jeong-won will also be sitting on the judge seats.
Son, who has been appearing as one of the judges since the very first season of the show, said, “We tried to put fairness as the priority when judging,” emphasizing, “We tried to make fair judgments that are not swayed by instant emotions.”
Park also added, “Everyone basically sings very well, so we focused more on how participants naturally get into harmony when we form them into different teams of duets, trios, and quartets.”
The rules and standards that these judges complied with have become much more demanding than in the last three seasons: A new rule was added that participants had to get unanimous support from all five judges in order to advance to the finals.
Kim Hyung-joong, the executive producer of the show, said, “We made some changes to the rules in order to meet the higher standards and expectations of our viewers,” adding, “Additionally, we tried to give out opportunities to more people, so the occupations and careers of the participants have become much more diversified than before.”
This audition show will return to the small screens on Friday at 8: 50 p.m. (KST).
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Ha eun Lee)
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