It’s time for The Voice! Even though The Voice is America’s
3rd favorite talent show on America’s 4th favorite
network, I feel the voice is far superior to American Idol, X Factor or America’s
Got Talent. In case you have never seen the show, the premise of The Voice is
that there are millions of people who want to be famous.
The twist on this show is there are famous judges who sit
with their back to the karaoke contestants and listen to them sing. Then, if
the contestants are good enough (or, in Cee Lo Green’s case, if they sound
young and female), the celebrities push a button indicating they want to add
the performer to their team of singers that will compete to win the contest. I
don’t want to spend too much time explaining it all to you here; it’s pretty complicated
and scientific.
To be fair, the blind audition does a lot to create a
competition actually based on talent, and the dynamic between the coaches is compelling.
The animosity between Christina and Adam, the flirting between Adam and Blake,
the sort of “getting away with a fart” feel I get from Cee Lo…the coaches
themselves make for interesting TV.
By the way, did you
know Christina Aguilara is one of the key creators of The Voice? This
information, while not too surprising, I guess, is really fascinating because
of the parallels that exist between The Voice and Christina’s career as
a diva.
With The Voice,
she took a concept that was already working for American Idol, copied
it, and simply tweaked it by adding a higher class of musical talent. Yet when
presented to the public, her success is still not as great as the success of
the product she is emulating.
Isn't this the
exact same thing that happened with her singing career? Brittany Spears was
happily doing the “slutty young white girl singing racy pop songs” thing and
having massive success doing it. Christina comes along with clearly a stronger
voice than Brittany’s, sluttier outfits, and songs that sound identical to each other, and
yet Christina will always be the runner up to Queen Brittany. Makes me feel bad
for her.
The good news is,
she is definitely hanging in there with the cleav-…wait, there’s a better way
to word this. She’s definitely hanging out there.
Anyway, the competition begins with the usual format. You
know, 45-minute mind numbing biographies about the contestants (narrated by
Carson Daly), followed by 12-15 actual seconds of listening to them destroy a
classic song.
Can we please request these human interest stories go away?
We get it, there are misunderstood artists living in tents because the economy
sucks, and they’re really sad. It just gets hard for me to hear these singers
whine about how they had to quit their 18 hour a week job to “focus on their
music.”
You want a human interest piece about someone trying to cope
with having their dreams taken from them? Interview any parent.
The singers on The Voice are all pretty amazing. I like that
there is no “let’s all point and laugh at the talentless and delusional loser
who might be mildly handicapped” segment like you get with the other shows of
the same ilk. With The Voice, it’s much more straightforward. Some get through,
some get cut.
The person you have to feel awful for is the first
contestant to not get selected (this season, the sacrificial lamb’s name is Garrett).
What an awful and lonely moment; hitting your final note and looking up to find
four cold celebrity chair-backs. Oh, and because of the mini biography, we also
know Garrett’s dad is dead. So there’s the poor kid, standing up there like the
un-flushed turd in the office bathroom, being told in front of millions of
people that he’s good not great. But it’s worse, because the turd has no dad.
Tomorrow night: So
You Think You Can Dance? And maybe Shipping Wars.
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