Comments on: The changes to The Voice are a mixed bag https://cliqueclack.com/p/the-voice-steal-battle-rounds/ Big voices. Little censors. Fri, 10 Apr 2015 14:43:24 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 By: Ivey West https://cliqueclack.com/p/the-voice-steal-battle-rounds/#comment-673 Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:48:37 +0000 https://cliqueclack.com/p/?p=2002#comment-673 I’d hope their goal isn’t to discover the next Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood on the other team; their goal is to win :)

]]> By: Gary Mugford https://cliqueclack.com/p/the-voice-steal-battle-rounds/#comment-672 Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:47:49 +0000 https://cliqueclack.com/p/?p=2002#comment-672 Ah strategy vs reputation if the one they pick to lose turns out to be Kelly Clarkson. The game is afoot.

]]> By: Ivey West https://cliqueclack.com/p/the-voice-steal-battle-rounds/#comment-671 Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:45:55 +0000 https://cliqueclack.com/p/?p=2002#comment-671 The challenge with letting the other judges vote on who wins is that the incentives would be incredibly out of wack.

If the competing judges were voting on who would win a Battle Round, it is the best interests of their individual teams to vote OUT the best performer.

]]> By: Gary Mugford https://cliqueclack.com/p/the-voice-steal-battle-rounds/#comment-670 Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:07:21 +0000 https://cliqueclack.com/p/?p=2002#comment-670 I understand the concept of the battles. It’s a duet world out there in the music industry and finding out which singers have the chops for that, plays a part in developing what the show hopes will be the next (wave of) star singers. Add to the clunkiness of the feature, however, is the inability for some of the singers to bring their instruments if they used them in the auditions. Again, it’s part of the ‘training’ part of the show. (The French auditions last year included one singer playing a harp … maybe the ‘no instruments’ edict makes sense). You COULD argue that the battles offer the chance of the second-best talent being sidelined immediately, rather than in the semi-final. That alone, argues in favour of a change. I personally like the non-mentor judges deciding the winners 3-0 or 2-1 with the mentor getting two saves a year, as an alternative.

Not showing all the singers, with some of the incredibly long back story padding? Indefensible. Battle round montages, WITH the long opening montages at the beginning of the night and the ‘recap’ for the memory-deficient at the end? Inexcusable. Just cut out the overly-long, puffed up ‘dramas’ in the mentor selections and you’d free up two more hours each cycle. Do an Academy Awards-like playing of their own song lead-in and then a buzzer.

The Voice is the best of a bad lot of competition shows basically because it keeps, mostly, the idiot audience at arm’s length. By the time the viewers finally get sole say, the field has been reduced to an acceptible set of potential winners. The Voice also has two winning characters in Levine and Shelton, a harmless teddy bear in Green and … Aguilera, who’s making some efforts to not be a sourpuss this year. The American version could improve a lot by checking in on the availability of British mentor Jessie J (or Delta Goodrem of Australia’s version, for that matter). If only to save those shots of the former Genie in a Bottle waving her talons over the button and smirking.

All complaints aside, The Voice remains better than the alternatives.

]]> By: Michael https://cliqueclack.com/p/the-voice-steal-battle-rounds/#comment-666 Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:17:54 +0000 https://cliqueclack.com/p/?p=2002#comment-666 . . . . .

The Battle Rounds blow. Period.

I haven’t watched enough of the season to intelligently comment on “The Steal” … but I will make merry on The Battle Rounds: What’s the point of two of the same team members going head to head and having their own mentor pick who stays and who leaves? Madness! Here’s how The Battle Rounds should be conducted:

Randomly drawn, two contestants from differing teams are go head to head. The judging of the best of the two after the round goes to the two mentors who do not have either of the two contestants on their teams. Tie? No problem. Monkey Boy Carson gets that honor. It gives him something to do than glad-hand the families and friends rooting for contestants.

Problem solved.

Your mention above of how they short-change the audience of contestant performances is one of the problems I have with The Voice. The format needs tweaking there and on several other levels not the least of which is reining in some of the mentors’ banter … along with Christina’s ever-present boobs.

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