Even Carson Daly was suspicious of The Voice's bright red swivel chairs.
On NBC's new singing competition, things kick off with those chairs and blind auditions. Four celebrity coaches sit listening with their backs to the contestants. Should they like what they hear, they slam down on a large button and their chairs swivel to the front. This means they want to guide that contestant through the competition, helping them with everything from their song choices to their style.
Daly, the late-night talk show host and former MTV veejay, first thought it might be "gimmicky" but ultimately found it to be "a great idea in an American Idol world."
"Young people seem to be so enamored with just becoming famous," Daly says. "This immediately takes all of that out. Here, you need skill. You need to be an artist that established artists want to help mold."
And there's the difference: The Voice, adapted from a massively popular Dutch format, aims not to take on Idol in its own game, but to elevate the game itself. Rather than leaving the contestants to plod along, choosing ill-suited songs or worse, the show enlists its coaches — Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton — to mentor the hopefuls. And in a unique twist, the contestants will cherry pick their coach should more than one of them swivel forward.
read more