Now that it’s all over, let me count the ways in which this show is MUCH better than American Idol:
**1. It has heart. **You always get the sense on American Idol that they’re playing a game with you, with the audience, with the performers. The judges goof around inappropriately at times, and often it’s clear that they really have nothing to say and aren’t invested that much in the performances. But on The Voice, you get the sense that everyone really cares. I’ve actually been quite moved by the way the mentors have taken their contestants under their wings and really tried very hard to do right by them, contest or no. And areas that could have gone horribly wrong didn’t - the mentors didn’t try to sabotage each other’s contestants, there was no heavy feuding between them. They all seemed to like each other, and they all came across as likeable people - even Christina, in the end. Blake Shelton in particular really impressed me as being a super nice guy. I just hope to God it wasn’t all an act, and I’m going to dread reading some expose’ where a former contestant like Dia comes out and says that once the show was over all the doors slammed and all the talk about ‘friends for life’ was just Hollywood BS. But somehow I don’t think so.
2. Production Values. Oh my God, this is how a music/variety show should be produced. Everything from the stagecraft to the lighting to the musical direction to the cinematography is light years better than anything we see on American Idol. Those last two shows were stunning in their presentation. The camera work was tremendous - little details like cameras catching the reflection of the judges in the lenses of the performer’s sunglasses, or the narrow depth of field shots where the singer is in focus but you can see their ‘mentor’ out of focus in the background. Everything is just done to a very high level of quality. The lighting work in particular has been just beautiful. And finally, the audio on a music show is actually good.
In contrast, American Idol tends to rely on a swirling camera shot or two, and then long shots of the stage and a bit of steadycam work, all done very unimaginatively. Their idea of a big change-up is to have a contestant sit on the edge of the stage or walk down into the crowd to be surrounded by screaming girls. It’s all very much by-the-numbers.
3. The Band Paul Mirkovitch is a great musical leader - he comes out of the rock side of music, instead of jazzy big band production numbers like Ricky Minor. His band is made up of musicians who actually tour with great artists and who are all well-respected session players. And most of them have been playing together for a long time, and they’re tight as a drum.
4. The Contestants. Because these contestants are hand-picked by music pros and then chosen by music pros, and then the music pros get ‘saves’ to prevent the best ones from being kicked off by 12 year old voters, we generally saw the best of the bunch make it to the end. None of this nonsense where a great performer gets booted off in favor of some ‘cute’ but talentless milquetoast from the midwest who appeals to grandmas and little girls.
5. The Format. The mentoring, the way the votes were done (put your money where your mouth is - a purchase of a track counts as a vote for the artist, and you can’t vote 8 gazillion times) - all of it made for a better show. The only thing I didn’t like was the boxing round duet competitions. But once they got to the performance shows, it was all great.
All in all, if this show aired against American Idol next year, I’d watch this one in a heartbeat. I liked it a lot.
Carson Daily was a weak link, but who cares? He was a small part of the show. But I wonder how it feels to be the ‘poor man’s Ryan Seacrest’? That’s gotta hurt.
Did anyone notice that Carson Daily said that the next season of The Voice was going to start in winter? Wasn’t this a spring replacement show? It sounds like they’re going to move it up into the big leagues to go against American Idol. X Factor starts in the fall, and I think AI starts in December/January, right?
