The Voice is Bullshit

Bitches don't know 'bout singing talent.

I’ve been seeing commercials for the upcoming second season of The Voice. If you haven’t heard of this TV show, then count yourself lucky. It’s one of the worst things to hit the airwaves since Hitler’s 1936 Olympic broadcast. It falls into the same vein as other “talent” shows like American Idol, X-Factor, Sing-Off, etc. All of these shows are exactly the same. The purpose they serve is for “talented” people to pat themselves on the back for being so “talented.” Unfortunately, the only “talent” that seems to get any serious consideration on TV is singing. Being a good singer is about as impressive as being a good prostitute. Both involve excessive amounts of whoring yourself out for meager amounts of cash. Incidentally, the worse the singer, the more money they make. For example, Ke$ha’s warbling sounds like she’s trying to sing while regurgitating a piece of dog shit someone slipped into her McRib (who can tell the difference?), yet she is a major music industry “star.” But I digress… So, The Voice is just like the rest of the dregs of TV music “talent” shows.

When The Voice first aired it was billed as something different from those other shows. The intent was to judge the contestants solely on their singing ability. The judges would face away from the stage, and determine if they liked the contestant based on how they sounded. Supposedly, this was because the feeble minded judges would be too dazzled by the attractive contestants and repulsed by the ugly contestants to make a fair decision. As it turns out, this was a good idea. In the first round, a variety of people sang, and a good mix of attractive and normal-looking people (i.e. the Hollywood version of ugly) made it on to the next round. At this point I was still intrigued by the format, and it seemed to be light years ahead of American Idol ad nauseum in terms of quality. Unfortunately, after this point was when the originality and judgment based on talent was jettisoned from the show. 

What the hell is going on in this picture?

The next round was one of the most retarded things I’ve ever seen. Of the four judges, each had a team of several singers. They were going to be putting on “battles” in which two singers were placed head to head. So, singers from different teams would be taking each other on? No, the singers would be competing against their teammates. Um, okay, so what was the point of having teams in the first place? But that’s not even the most idiotic part. When they actually perform the “battles” they sing a duet and jump around on stage like Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch. The duets regularly sounded awful. They would rarely sing together (the point of a duet), and more often attempt to sing over one another, to show how much better they were than their competitor. The result was usually grating on the ears, and I often found myself reaching for the mute button. When the “battle” finally ended, the winner was determined by the team leader, who was the judge that coached them both. Huh? What? Woozle-wuzzle? How can their own coach be objective about who won? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the coach to have no vote, and the decision would lay in the hands of the other three judges? That would make logical sense, but logic does not factor into TV talent shows.

A typical night on The Voice: two douchebags screaming at each other.

The other moronic thing was that all four judges faced the stage and WATCHED the singers perform. The whole fucking point of the show was to judge people based on their singing talent. It’s called THE GODDAMN VOICE for Christ’s sake. The focus on their voices was lost. Now the judges were bombarded with horrible bodily gyrations, bad light shows, and goofy costumes. How can you truly judge a person’s voice when they are attempting to outsing someone else with the same song at the exact same time? If anything, all of the judges should have continued to face away from the stage, and the “battle” should have been the two contestants singing the song one after another. Oh sure, they could have still done the fancy dance moves and had the crazy light show for the audience’s sake. But the judges should not be seeing that stuff if the The Voice is judging them on singing ability alone.

You see, this shit is subconscious. We make decisions every day based on all five of our senses, sight being the most prominent of all. If the judges are looking at the singers, they are judging them on how they look, how they dance, and their presence on stage, in addition to their singing ability. If you judge them on all those things, then this show just becomes American Idol ad nauseum all over again. If they really want to judge singers on their voices alone, as they claim, then the judges should never see the singers as they perform. With the exception of the coaches, the other judges should never see the singers at any point.

Christina Aguilera is a midget, right?

Eventually the “battle” round ended, and the final round consisted of the singers performing solo and getting votes from the public. Going into the final round there was a surprisingly eclectic mix of singers. There was the butch bald dyke, the mousy shy girl, the generic looking white girl, and the blandly handsome black guy. I should have bet serious money that one of the generic looking people would win. And guess what? They did. The blandly handsome black guy, with an average singing voice, was declared the champion. Why? Because he was the most “good looking” and had the most broad-ranging appeal in terms of marketing. He was much more likely than any of the others to sell records. “LOL BUT BRIK, THE U.S. PUBLIC VOTED, SO HE MUST HAVE BEEN THE BEST LOL!” No, not true at all. The U.S. public feels scared and threatened by things that are non-traditional. There’s no way in Hell that the U.S. public is going to vote for a lesbian to win. But a non-threatening, generic-sounding, blandly handsome black guy is completely mainstream. So he won. Fuck the ugly people, we only want attractive people around us. Hitler thought the same way. Hitler wouldn’t have voted for the black guy to win, but he would have voted for the most attractive one. The U.S. public is just like Hitler. (See, and I bet you didn’t think I’d bring that Hitler reference full circle did you?)

Basically, everything about this series beyond the first round was completely fucked up. The judges became non-objective entities when they were allowed to see the contestants sing. The U.S. public who is obsessed with good-looks, and always places appearances over talent, chose the most traditional and “attractive” of the finalists, despite at least two of the other finalists having better singing voices. Essentially, the execution of The Voice’s premise was total bullshit. The only way to have made this a fair and true measure of singers’ voices, would be to not allow the judges or the public to ever see the contestants. They should have the screen blacked out and just run the audio. That would be a true test of voice talent, a blacked out TV. That’s how I watch most of my TV these days. Everything is terrible.

In summary, don’t watch The Voice.

Verdict: Shitty


17 Responses to “The Voice is Bullshit”

  1. 1 Tarnsman
    February 3, 2012 at 4:29 pm

    I would have voted for the lesbian to win. My biggest problem with shows like American Idol is that it’s all about how good the contestants are at singing other people’s songs. (Yeah I know that’s what pop stars do but that’s not the point.) Where is a competition based around finding a talented singer/songwriter who actually has something to contribute to society other than singing shit someone else already sung better?

  2. February 4, 2012 at 10:12 pm

    Good point, Tarnsman. I’ve heard more than enough crappy cover versions of Beatles and Michael Jackson songs.

  3. February 5, 2012 at 11:48 pm

    Aside from sampling the semi-finals/finals from last seasons’ Australia’s Got Talent, I have not bothered with any talent shows. I have a feeling all singing/dance talent shows inevitably reach a point where stage pyrotechnics are required to improve the audience’s sense of a performance. The next time one of you subjects yourselves to a talent show, let me know about the performance quality-to-pyrotechnics ratio: it could be biased in the favour of ‘attractive’ people, but perhaps I’m taking it a step far by assuming that all talent show producers have been bred and raised by networks to think in terms of programme ratings and not fair/objective judging.

  4. February 6, 2012 at 7:54 am

    I’ll try to keep a running tally of pyrotechnics, but I don’t know if I can watch another talent show without puking.

  5. 5 Zooder
    February 27, 2012 at 10:05 pm

    It ticks me off!! They pick the shitty singers up untill they have 2 choices left.. Then they let the best ones go!! I dont get why they pick some crappy girl but let the goodguy go!! Im pissed at this shpw right now!!!!

  6. 6 Joanne
    June 10, 2013 at 6:33 pm

    Wow. Very much agreed

  7. 8 Globules
    June 11, 2013 at 5:35 pm

    It’s unlistenable, overcompressed crap with no musicality whatsoever. I’d rather hear water drip. True story.

  8. 10 Voicesux
    June 1, 2014 at 2:28 am

    Why is it that to gain recognition as a singer these days you have to go up and down the scale 2 or 3 times before you hit the original note?
    There is a kids version of the voice, they all think this is how to sing. They go up and down the scale 3 or 4 times.

  9. 14 Wm Alexander drummer, bassist, singer
    March 21, 2017 at 5:49 pm

    Couldn’t agree with you more. Having worked in the music industry getting a recording contract is being in the right place at the right time. I’m no longer in it as there’s just toooooooo much bullshit.

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