The one thing that makes The Voice more watchable to me than other similar shows is the lack of insult judging. Even singers they don't like they're nice to. I can't watch Simon Cowell.
They can be a little too positive though. Lots of hyperbole with "superstar" and "you can win this whole thing." Sometimes they're honest about what works, what doesn't and improvements that can be made. Then on the other end of the spectrum you have Christina being flat out mean and condescending to Melanie Martinez and Tony Lucca.
I think you'll find that Simon Cowell has mellowed out over the years. These days Simon tends to agree with the other judges a lot more often. From the recent X-Factor auditions I've seen, the few times he's dissented was to praise the singer when other judges gave bad comments. Coupled with my habit of skipping parts of the show with no singing, I'm not too bothered with any judges' personality defects. I always skip Ceelo Green when he speaks to a female contestant. He flirts way to much. XD
I would agree with that. Overly positive judging is equally useless as overly negative judging. But, with overly positive judging I want to roll my eyes, I don't want to change the channel. I can sympathize with Christina's reaction to Tony Lucca. 99 Problems is a great song but it's also straight up misogynist. And to be fair, Tony Lucca does suck and probably only got as far as he did because he was a Mouseketeer. But she does say 'Pitchy' way too much.
Actually, that was back when one singer per coach was guaranteed to make the final show and in the semifinals the coaches gave a number vote for their final two singers. The female singer on Adam's team actually got the popular vote, but the Adam vote pushed Lucca forward.
Ug, I remember that. Katrina Parker was so much better than Tony Lucca. Didn't she win the popular vote 59-41, and Adam gave 60-40 for Lucca? But I mean, Lucca wouldn't have gotten so much success in the 6-4-2 rounds if it weren't for his previous celebrity, just as Jermaine Paul probably would not have won if it weren't for his association with Alicia Keys.
I haven't been that excited by anyone on the show really...some of the battles were quite good, but no one stood out as a clear winner to me. And all through Tessanne and Donna Blake's performance this was all I could think of:
Yeah, but if previous seasons are any indication, battle rounds are not a good predictor of how good somebody is in the live shows.
I like the battle rounds the most, although ratings show that the general audience likes the blind auditions the most because that's when their ratings are the highest. Briana Cuoco showed a big improvement in her battle round over her why-did-anyone-turn-for-you blind audition, although I still think Blake stole her just to provide fodder for one of his original singers.
All that proves is that the blind auditions happen before the battle rounds. Ratings always decline for a show over the course of the season. I listened to a few songs from Cassadee Pope's album. Boy they sure did not pull out their best songwriters for this. Their Berklee School of Music C students instead of their Berklee School of Music A students. All the hooks fall awkwardly flat.
It can definitely be a factor once the voting starts up. Her sister and famous friends can all tweet up a storm to get her extra votes every week. I wouldn't be surprised if Blake factored that stuff in when he picked her.
Assuming Holly Henry makes the live rounds, I suspect Blake will be pushing the rest of his singers off to the side to clear a path for her. Only a handful of contestants have charted on iTunes so far, but Henry blew everyone else out of the water.
Anyone watch Monday's battle rounds? CeeLo had the most nonsensical reason for picking George over Juhi. I think I disagreed with four of the six coaches selections that night.
Yeah, CeeLo obviously picked the wrong person, but I think he did so because he was certain that Juhi would get stolen by another coach. CeeLo has often seemed to do that in the past - choose the winner strategically based on who is more likely to be saved.
Another website is questioning if there's a conspiracy theory going on with three of Blake's battle rounds getting the montage treatment, especially since one of them was Holly Henry, who is the only Season 5 artist who lit up the iTunes chart for an extended period of time with her blind audition single.
Their choices of montage battles have been very strange this year. Last week there was more than one montage that I had actually really wanted to see the battles for. Yet they show us the full battles for people whose names or the song they performed I can't even remember. Some very boring ones.
I missed Monday's episode but in general I have mostly agreed with the coach's choices. The montage treatment generally means an artist does not make it to the live rounds, which has me curious about Holly Henry. Not that I'd terribly mind getting the Bland Blake Blond out of the way early this time around.
The montage treatment actually means nothing. The blind audition montage means they don't have some sad back story the show can exploit. There have been singers who have been montaged twice who ended up making the live rounds. And since the audience doesn't know who they are, they were promptly voted off the show.