I Love Music!

Even with Adam's moves like Jagger,
The Sing-Off managed to edge out
The Voice out as my favorite singing
competition.

As I prepare to watch The Voice tonight, I’m thinking about how much I love a good music competition. It started with American Idol and maybe because I’ve been with that one the longest, I’m beginning to feel that it’s run it’s course.

I mean, exactly how many country-crooning Carrie Underwood-wannabes can one Top 10 take! Jeez! Enough Already! Plus the bland and lackluster winners of the past few years haven’t helped. The most exciting thing to happen to AI in the past few years is Adam Lambert and he didn’t even win.

Oddly, I’m not missing Simon and I haven’t missed him since he left. I never watched AI for the judges, I have always watched for the talent and Jessica and Phillip notwithstanding, I just don’t have a lot to root for this season.

Where I am rooting is over at NBC at The Voice (and not just because Adam Levine is there). I just love the dynamic of the show: four chart-topping current artists mentoring and working with a group of singers. They get involved in a way that Idol could only hope.

I look forward to The Voice much more than I do Idol. The judges and contestants look like they are having fun. And, I’m having fun watching them.

I also have a lot of fun watching The Sing-Off. These are a capella groups that are solely in it because they love to sing. The talent and the enthusiasm is catching. Of course, by the time The Sing-Off started, they knew that having a good trio of judges was key. When Sara Bareillis replaced Nicole Scherzinger and joined the boys (Ben Folds and Shawn Stockman of Boys II Men fame), I had my doubts, but she pulled it off. Of all of the singing shows I think this would be my favorite.

New to the game this year was The X-Factor. Since I never really missed Simon, it’s no surprise that I wasn’t super-excited about seeing him back. After The Sing-Off and The Voice, I had gotten used to judges that were fun. The tension Simon brings is unnecessary, however, I actually did like the show. I didn’t have the same anticipation for it week-after-week, but I watched and will probably watch again this year.

So if I had to put my favorite singing competitions in order, I’d rate them…
1. The Sing-Off
2. The Voice
3. American Idol
4. X-Factor
(3 and 4 are virtually tied).

Decisions! Decisions!

All of the sudden, Sunday night has gotten really busy. It used to be Once Upon a Time and that was about it (I gave up on Desperate Housewives a few seasons ago). Then came Celebrity Apprentice which rounded out my Sunday TV watching.

Then, things got busy … really busy.

I started watching GCB and thought it was a lot of fun. However, I had to DVR it because it competed with the second hour of Celebrity Apprentice. Then, AMC threw in another twist. They brought back Mad Men – that used to be a late summer, early fall show. I love Mad Men but felt I should probably DVR it. I want to have the ability to play certain scenes back. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, they launched the second season of The Killing last night. Goodness Gracious! Now, I have to find the time to watch all my Sunday shows before the next Sunday!

Monday night is pretty easy from the DVR perspective. I have The Voice from 8:00 – 10:00 and then ..., it used to be Castle but now it’s Smash. I DVR Castle. I feel sort of guilty about that, but I’m in that music mood from The Voice and Smash just makes sense.

I have to say, it’s nice to actually have several good shows worth watching.

The Voice: The Final Four

Tasty.

There weren’t many surprises in the finalist for The Voice. It came down to high schooler Casey Weston and veteran performer Javier Colon (a front runner from the beginning. It was no surprise when Javier became the finalist for Team Adam.

Over on Team Blake, it was the Battle of the Shy Girls: Xenia and singer/songwriter Dia Frampton. Dia, a favorite since her rendition of Heartless, pulled out the victory.

Team Christina featured the Battle of the Bald Women: Frenchie Davis vs.Beverly McClellan. I truly expected Frenchie to make the Final Four. To hear that Beverly made it was a surprise.

Finally, we had the Rainbow Battle over on Team Cee-lo between Vicci Martinez and big burly Nakia. Again, my expectations were dashed. I expected Nakia to walk away with the win but, surprise, America picked Vicci (and by a pretty large margin at that).

Out of that final four, if I had to pick a winner, I’d pick Javier with only Dia being able to pull off an upset.

Of course, for me, the real winner was the premier of the new Maroon Five song, Moves like Jagger.

The Voice

I'm back and so is my
obsession with Adam
Levine. :)

I'm back! After a work schedule from hell and a killer tooth ache (I had part one of a root canal this morning), I'm back. Instead of trying to go back and fill in the blanks, I'm going to pick up where I left off.

I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed watching The Voice. And now that we’ve entered the competition phase, I’m enjoying it even more. Last week, we started with performances from Team Christina and Team Blake. Even though, as the teams compete, two people from each team will move on, if I were judging team performances as a whole, I have to say, I have to give the edge to Team Christina. Her girls just seemed more polished.

Blake had two terrified teammates. Despite working with her, Xenia Martinez was scared sh*tless not to mention stiff as a cadaver throughout her performance of Jessie J’s Price Tag. Her attempts at movement were hard to watch (the pointing in particular was hideous). Dia Franco had a piano to help hide her fear while performing a ballad version of Kanye West’s Heartless. I could hear the fear in her voice and it was distracting.

Meanwhile on Team Xtina, 16-year old Raquel Castro kicked off the evening with her version of Ke$ha’s Blow. She had the dancers and the polish of a true professional. Beverly McClellan with her bald head and kilt brought the power to Melissa Etheridge’s I’m the Only One. Lily Elise had a little less luck with her team of male back-up dancers for her performance of Fergie’s Big Girls Don’t Cry. The whole thing just looked awkward. Frenchie Davis closed the show in a big way with David Guleta’s When Love Takes Over.

It was the boys on Team Blake that delivered for me. Rocker/Father of 7, Jared Blake covered Kings of Leon’s Use Somebody. Patrick Thomas kept it country with a solid performance of I Hope You Dance (a song I hope I never hear again every time I hear it).

The other thing I like about The Voice is the fact that the judges are performers. We had all four judges covering a mash-up of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody/We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions. Christina also covered her version of Lady Marmalade with her team while Blake and his team covered Maroon Five’s This Love.

You won’t see Simon singing on The X-Factor.

The Voice: Let the Battles Begin

Sexy stubble beats full-on beard
every time!

Since the blind auditions are over. I was curious to see if The Voice would be able to keep my attention with the next phase – the battle rounds. Each judge had to pick two of his (or her) teammates to go head-to-head against each other singing the same song. After getting some coaching, the judge would decide after the performance, who would make it into the final four and who wouldn’t.

Team Christina
It was ladies' first last night and Christina pitted two of her most formidable talents against each other gospel singer Tarralyn Ramsey and Broadway diva (and former disqualified American Idol contestant) Frenchie Davis. Christina challenged them to perform Beyonce’s Single Ladies. She knew both could belt out a ballad easily and might have more challenge and more fun with an up-tempo number. She was assisted in her coaching by by Australian singer Sia (never heard of her). It was a battle of the divas with both hitting (and missing) the big notes. I thought Tarralyn was a little more screechy and maybe Christina did too because she went with Frenchie.

Team Blake
With Reba McIntyre to back him up, Blake pitted cute ol’ country crooner Patrick Thomas against bespectacled pop singer Tyler Robinson. The song? Elvis’s Hunk of Burning Love. Blake wanted them to feel like a slab of incendiary passion-filled flesh and I’m not sure I brought it from either of them. Ultimately, Blake followed his country sensibilities and went with Patrick.

Team Adam
Adam was the only one to go with a male-female duet. He chose teenager Casey Weston to battle against Tim Mahoney (the one he thought was a woman during the blind auditions). He selected the Don Henley/Stevie Nicks ballad, Leather and Lace for their song. They did the original justice. Although there is a vibrato in Casey’s voice that I didn’t really enjoy, Adam chose her over Tim.

Team Cee-Lo
In the final battle, it was Nicki Dawson vs Vicci Martinez. Their duet of Pink’s Perfect has been in all of the promos for this week’s episode. Both sang well and with passion but Vicci did this sumo wrestler stomp that just took me out of the whole song making me ask, “What in the hell?” Apparently Cee-lo liked it well enough because Vicci beat out Nicki.

Next week: More battles to come!

The Voice: Blind Auditions are Officially Ova!

From the looks of things, next week
Adam will have lots of facial hair! Ugh!
I like him clean shaven or stubbly. Mmm! 

The blind auditions concluded last night on The Voice. The four judges had to have eight members on their team by the time the night was over. After hearing all of the contestants, only one judge, Cee-Lo had a complete team.

So Carson Daly tapped eight former contestants and had them come back to sing. Christina and Blake each had one open slot and Adam had two to fill.

I’m curious now that the auditions are over on what will happen next. With their teams in place, the judges will now have to mentor their contestants, with a little help from some celebrity friends (next week it’s country legend Reba McEntire).

Members of the same team will have to compete against each other and face elimination (from the judge that selected them no less). I have no idea what that will look like, but I am willing to give it a shot. So far, I've really enjoyed the judges interaction and I'm guessing from the sound of things that we won't have that next week.

Here's hoping The Voice can keep up the momentum.

The Voice



I know there are four judges,
but I like this one. Alright???

If you have watched anything on NBC for the past month, you’ve seen promos for The Voice. It’s billed as a new singing competition. Not exactly,  it’s new to us here in the States but it’s based on a successful show called The Voice out of Holland.
It ‘s a pretty convoluted set-up. There are four judges: Christina Aguilera, Maroon Five’s Adam Levine, Cee-lo Green and country crooner Blake Shelton. As the commercial you’ve seen a million times shows you, the contestants audition for the judges while their backs are turned. If the judge like what he/she hears, they can choose to turn their chair around.

The goal is for each judge to come up with a team of eight singers. If more than one judge wants the same singer, the singer gets to choose who they want to work with.

After that, each coach works with and mentors the singers on their team. Somehow each group of eight gets whittled down to four and that’s when the real competition for The Voice begins. Somehow I missed the sneak peek of the show, but the buzz it generated was really impressive. But the big question was, would I be impressed.

Well…

I liked it! Sure it’s another vocal competition but at least it has some originality going for it. First off, all of the judges are singers and performers which they proved when they opened with Cee-Lo’s Crazy. Then, all of the contestants were at least decent singers. There were no gimmicky performers or deluded faux singers. These were all people who could sing.

I enjoyed being able to see the singers before the judges could … And, speaking of the judges, I like the way they played off of each other, and play they did. It seemed like they were enjoying themselves and having fun. It made the atmosphere looser and more engaging.

As I prepare to watch Idol, I appreciate even more the fact that these contestants from their teens through their 40s were picked on talent alone.

We have one more week where they judges will finish selecting their teams, then the mentoring process and the competition begins.

I’m in. Look for recaps here!