THE VOICE – My rating 9.5/10

The best reality singing competition on TV.  I can’t say enough about the set-up and comradery between the host and panel of judges.  Whether it’s Adam Levine, Blake Sheldon, Celo Green and Christina Aguilera, or Adam, Blake, Usher and Shakira, the chemistry is awesome.  There are 4 judges seated in luxury chairs that are facing opposite the stage.  In other words, the judges cannot see who’s singing, they can only hear the candidate’s voice.  That means color, appearance, shape, nor gender plays into the choosing of the singer.  It’s purely based on talented voices.  A judge can turn their chair if they want to choose the person singing, if not, their chair turns after the performance is over.  If more than 1 judge turns their chair for a singer, the singer gets to choose which  judge they want to have coach them.  Contestants are pitted against one another after each judge has picked 16 potential candidates.  Eventually the show goes live, allowing America to vote on their favorates.  Each contestant is coached by their judge and a mentor of the judge’s picking to help train them for the live rounds.  There are steals and lots of name calling and plotting between the judges, which makes for a delightful, fun show.  Check this one out, it’s better than XFactor or American Idol.  I’ve been watching since the show began and it always makes my day.  The Voice currently airs on NBC.

AMERICAN IDOL’S CHRIS DAUGHTRY

Friday, March 24, 2006

After listening to both performances again, it was clear that Chris’ version was better than Live’s, plus he extended the song adding much, much more.  If you listen to both, you’ll see it was the same but different.

There is a poll on about.com that asks if: he’s great,  sang great, end of discussion; were you a little disappointed; he’s still one of the best performers or did you think he deceived the judges and audience. To my surprise, a whopping 80% said he deceived the judges and 15% said he’s great, sang great, end of discussion.

I am evenly divided between Mandisa, Paris and Chris, giving the edge to Chris. This stupid omission might affect his chances of winning. I’m hoping this blows over because the bottom line is, he is the most professional sounding of all the Idols and is a fantastic singer. At the end of the day, every song belongs to someone else anyway. The judges are the ones who ranted that he made it his own. If you listen to both versions, he did make it his own. I’ve listened to both versions several times, in their entirety, and Chris’ version, in my opinion, is better. He extended the song making it a much different rendition than “Live”.

Check it out for yourself before you judge. I’m not saying Chris was right just that this is a gray area and he’s still an excellent singer. So, here’s an idea, judge him on his singing ability!