miss_s_b | The Voice

So having watched all the episodes of this so far, I feel moved to make a couple of observations:

The men are held to much lower standards than the women in terms of the range they are expected to have - range in terms of notes, and range in terms of style. Nobody seems to think this is odd. The most obvious example of this is the guy who sang a mediocre version of Rocket Man and got all four judges turning round, while the girl who sang Nessun Dorma and CANED IT got NONE of them, even though she was technically ten times better.

Danny is annoying and has no mind of his own. I hadn't heard of him before this competition, and am not moved to find out any more about him or his band based on this.

Jessie J, on the other hand, DOES have a mind of her own, and while she can make the odd bitchy comment when she thinks the cameras aren't listening, she has a lot of nous. For example totally did the right thing chucking Ben off last night - and the fact that will and Danny were slagging her off for it is an illustration of my first point.

Sir Tom. He's Sir Tom. ♥

If there's any justice Ruth will win. I would actually like to see Toni win, but Ruth is streets ahead of anybody left in the competition in terms of vocal ability.

We now return you to radio silence.

Magister is correct; the original plan was for both Saturday and Sunday's episodes to contain 10 performances. In order to minimise the overlap with Britain's Got Talent, Saturday's show was chopped down from 100 minutes to 90, one performance moved to Sunday, and the splices were more obvious than they might have been.

This is the first UK series, but about the twentieth around the world. Owners Talpa keep very tight reins on The Voice of Holland structure: nowhere has had any second chances. Ever. Indeed, all the series follow the same format - off-screen weeding out, on-screen auditions, duelling singers, find the champion amongst each squad, superfinal. All series have similar presentation elements: the hand making a V sign holding a microphone, describing the groups as "Team Whoever", the chair design, even the typefaces.

The BBC contract is for two series. Will Young was excluded because he, like Mr. Jones, Miss J, and will.i.am, records for Universal Records, which will sign the winner. Mr. O'Donoghue lessens the charge that this is a massive product placement in the way Fame Academy was.

Facts above are facts; opinions are my own. I think the similarity of male voices comes from this being a contest in the pop genre, rather than opera or musical theatre. This weekend was painful, too many contestants confused "show off your vocal abilities" with "perform with as much volume as you can, never mind the tune."

Only a handful of performances this weekend grabbed me as being outstanding, and a couple of those were negative views. I liked Bo Bruce, almost able to get through the unhelpful arrangement and reach the emotional quandary at the heart of "With or without you". I was really impressed by Frances Wood, she found something even Alanis didn't get in "Ironic", and there's a big talent lurking there. Both are into the Top 20.

Oh well, that explains a lot. Shame really.

The Voice

An amateur game show scribbler scribbles

Re: An amateur game show scribbler scribbles