I used to watch “American Idol” but decided to stop when the judges started changing. These days, I watch NBC’s “The Voice” for my reality singing competition fix.
I like this show better than American Idol because of its unique concept. Allow me to explain.
On the show, there are four celebrity judges: Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton. Each judge builds their own team of 12 aspiring singers in hopes that someone on their team will win the competition and be named “the voice.” The winner gets a recording contract and the coach gets bragging rights. Last year, Javier Colon from Team Adam won.
There are three rounds to the show: the blind auditions, the battle rounds and the live shows.
For the blind auditions, the judges are faced away from the stage so they can’t see the singers auditioning; they can only judge by what they hear. If they like what they hear, they turn around and the singer chooses which team they want to be on, based on the judges who turned around. This is how the judges build their team of 12 singers.
In the battle rounds, two singers on each team sing a song together and the coach decides who did the best job and eliminates the other singer from his/her team. This narrows the teams down to six hopeful singers.
The last round is the live shows. This is when the remaining six singers on each team sing live solos and America votes for their favorites. Each week, singers are eliminated based on votes and the coach is allowed to “save” a singer who was in the bottom.
While I didn’t see the entire first season of “The Voice,” I have yet to miss a minute this year. Currently, the teams have just completed their first week of live shows. Each team is now narrowed down to four singers. I started out cheering for Team Adam, but Team Christina has a talented team that might win me over before the season ends.
The remaining singers on Team Adam are Katrina Parker, Pip, Mathai and Tony Lucca. My favorite is Lucca. While his music might hit close to home for me (my sister recorded episodes of the Mickey Mouse Club years ago and I marathoned them due to a pre-”Notebook” Ryan Gosling obsession), I don’t know that he is my pick to win the competition. I’m still rooting for the ex-Mouseketeer – whom Christina Aguilera, who is also an ex-Mouseketeer, failed to recognize during his blind audition.
The remaining singers on Team Christina are Ashley De La Rosa, Chris Mann, Lindsay Pavao and Jesse Campbell. I like all of them.
Mann and Pavao are tied as my favorites on her team. Each has a fabulous voice angle that makes them stand out a head above everyone else. Mann has an educated background in opera and Pavao always makes unique arrangements of the music she performs. Check out her blind audition if you don’t believe me.
Fan of reality TV competitions or not, music fans should check out the show.