[S07.E21: Live Eliminations]

Could someone who really liked Reagan please explain to me what was creative about her performances? I hated them so much, but even Blake kept saying how creative and "ahead of her time" she was. What was it, for example, with the Elton John song that she did that was creative? Or the other one she did that I actuallyknew, (lol) where not one note of the real melody was sung. I had such a strong negative reaction to what she did, but I think I must be missing something, or it's a style of singing that I don't know or understand.

 

Help?  (And it's not just "breathy, indie" I think because I loved Caroline Pennell and Dia Frampton was fine, liked Melanie Martinez, etc. But I thought Reagan had "zero" talent and clearly I'm wrong because all the coaches thought otherwise,just like many here di, What did I miss? What should I have been listening for to enjoy what she was doing more?)

You may be mixing up Reagan and Jessie. Jessie is the one who sang Elton John's song and "Holding out for a Hero" (which is perhaps the other song you meant?). Reagan is the one who the coaches called creative and ahead of her time (although they may have said that about Jessie too, I don't remember). I do think that Reagan is good at rearranging songs in creative ways, but that didn't come across too well in some of her performances, because she had problems with breath control and pitch. What I've been really impressed by are things I listened to on Youtube: her original songs and her cover of Blake's "Neon Light", which makes it sound completely different (I actually like it better than the original, because I'm not a huge country fan). I'm amazed that a 15-year-old could have done something like that, and I'm sure Blake based some of his comments on Reagan's work off the show too. But like I said, I don't think her creativity translated all that well to what we actually saw on TV, and I think it's probably because of her lack of experience.

[S07.E21: Live Eliminations]

Basically, Blake is not as sincere, genuine, authentic, or whatever as he appears to be on-screen.  He tries to appear neutral, but really he has favorites and may give advantages to certain folks. 

 

For Jessie and Reagan. perhaps Blake let them both down.  The coach's job is supposed to offer contestants helpful advice and guide them to maximize their exposure on the show. These were somewhat "unique" contestants that stood out among this male-dominated top 12 and to be eliminated this early? Isn't it fair to say that he failed with these two ladies?

I'm sure that all coaches have favorites, because it's only human to like some people/artists better than others. I don't see how not blatantly showing his favoritism makes Blake (or anyone else) any less authentic though. I'm sure he does genuinely like everyone he brought to the live rounds anyway.

 

As for Reagan and Jessie, it's hard to say if Blake did the right thing by essentially giving them free reign, or if he should have guided them into a different direction and perhaps extended their stay on the show. I think he stepped back because he recognized that they both had clear ideas about what kind of artists they wanted to be, so whether they succeeded or failed, at least it would be on their own terms. I think that especially with Reagan, her age played a big part: she's definitely very creative, but not quite ready for the big stage yet.

[Coaches' Strategery (TM Will Ferrell)]

I think that if contestants continue to choose Adam in the blinds, there must be good reasons. I doubt they're any less informed than viewers on the coaches' history on the show. They all likely did their research. 

I actually do think the average contestant is less informed about the coaches' history than the average viewer/fan of the show. Many of these people are working musicians who rarely or never watch The Voice (and they've said as much in interviews). I think a lot of them choose Adam because his music style is the closest to pop/rock ... and some of them are blinded by his promises and enthusiasm.

[S07.E12: The Knockouts, Part 2]

I don't know about applying all these altruistic motivations to Pharrell's decisions.

 

Yeah, I agree. Why would he "give" Ricky to Gwen when at this point he has already weakened his team so much that she probably has a better shot at being in the finale than he does? (Besides, I doubt Ricky is a potential winner anyway.) And if he cares so much about nurturing young talent, why did he pick Danica over Katriz? People have also said that the producers must have made him pair up his strongest contestants (Luke and Taylor P.), but I don't see this kind of pairing on any other team, and I doubt it's the producers' intention to make Pharrell look foolish.

 

I do really like Pharrell, but if the other coaches get called on their favoritism and WTF-decision-making, the same standards should apply to him. I think so far he's made even stranger decisions than Shakira did last season (and she had a much weaker team to begin with than Pharrell did).

[Adam Levine: He Moves like Jagger]

I don't know.  Relying on internet chatter and speculation to realize someone is a bully is not how I draw conclusions personally.  I watched season 2.  No way did viewers know the entire situation.  But from what was shown on screen, arguably Christina started it by her non-constructive put down of Tony Lucca.  Can't find a video online but just look up his "In Your Eyes" performance and her feedback.  But really all parties were at fault for dragging that out.

I really think this is a matter of seeing what one wants to see.  Sorry I don't mean to sound condescending or anything.  But I think a lot of people like to focus on anything potentially negative to Adam.  Adam-hate seems to be accompanied by the feeling that Adam somehow screwed their favorite (Katrina Parker, Amber Carrington, Will Champlin) and not understanding how Adam can possibly prefer his own favorites.  

 

Personally, I watched and read many of the same links you reference (I was also a regular on the TWoP boards) and come away with very different non-negative interpretations.  Certainly you can argue I have a positive bias.  But it's also really easy to find negative things about the other coaches.  It's just a matter of what you're looking for.  I think many viewers (or at least posters on TWoP and this board) are just not as inclined to hate on the other coaches since their favorites are usually not on those teams.  

 

For what it's worth, I watched the whole seasons 1 and 2, and I had no preconceived notions about any of the coaches. I thought the whole Tony Lucca situation made Adam look like a huge douche. Not that Christina was completely innocent, but when Adam and Tony kept insulting her (and calling it a "metaphor", which implied she was somehow imagining the whole thing), I actually felt sorry for her. That whole thing made me dislike Adam more than his treatment of any of the contestants.

 

I did think that artists like Katrina, Amber and Will were treated like red-headed stepchildren of Adam's team, and most of them definitely weren't among my favorites (only Will was, but by S5 I had long become used to Adam's favoritism, so his behavior towards Will actually didn't affect my opinion of him either way). The irony is that I think Adam's indifference towards them probably helped them get farther in the competition than they would have otherwise, so I wouldn't really say he screwed them.

 

Anyway, I guess my point is that any negative bias I have towards Adam now is based solely on having watched him on The Voice in the past seasons. It isn't based on any internet speculation or my positive bias towards someone else, only on what I have seen. Obviously two people can (and often do) watch the same thing and interpret it in a completely different way, but to me, Adam definitely doesn't come across as a very good coach or a particularly pleasant human being.

[S07.E05: Blind Auditions (5)]

I personally think Adam plays a key role in terms of what makes this show work.  His intensity and enthusiasm are almost a perfect contrast to Blake's laid-back nice guy approach. 

 

As much as Adam annoys me, I have to admit that's probably true. He definitely makes the show more dynamic and interesting. Even if his personality is very polarizing, at least people (including us) are talking about him.

 

My theory (and of course feel free to disagree) is that Adam tends to get a lot of viewer favorites on his team.  He is after all extremely successful with his blind audition pitches.  Whenever one of those favorites is eliminated, their fans cry foul.  But this is just the way the game works.  Each team of 12 has to be winnowed down to 3 somehow.  And of course there can only be 1 winner in the end.

 

The other coaches do many of the same things that Adam does.  Uneven battle pairings, questionable song choices, etc. But for whatever reason, those coaches don't get as much flak.

 

I don't mind that Adam is enthusiastic and successful during the auditions. The problem (for me anyway) is that he never shows the same enthusiasm towards 95% of his own team after that. It really seems like the main thing he cares about is beating the other coaches and getting all the good contestants (even if they represent a genre he couldn't care less about, like country), after which he can ignore/discard most of them and focus on his one or two favorites. Yes, all the coaches sometimes make questionable choices, but I don't think I've ever seen the others show favoritism in as blatant way as Adam does. With Blake I always get the impression that he really cares at least about all the members of the team he brings to the live rounds, while you can spot Adam's favorites (like Judith & Sarah in S4, James & Tessanne in S5, Grimmie in S6) a mile away.

[S07.E05: Blind Auditions (5)]

I'm stunned by how many women choose Blake.  When the battle rounds come along, and they're up against a man, Blake's gonna pick the man even if the woman wipes the floor with said man.  On his team, the only chance a woman has is against another woman, and the only time a man has to worry is against another man.

 

That's definitely not true. If it was, how would Blake have ended up with two female winners, Danielle and Cassadee? If you look at his teams for the live shows in the past few seasons, he had 2 females and 1 male in S6, 2 females and 2 males in S4 (counting the Swon brothers as one artist) and 3 females and 2 males in S3. Season 5 is the only one where he only had 1 female and 4 males. I definitely recall women winning against man in his battle rounds too. Perhaps he has a tendency to pair up women with women and men with men more often than pairing up a man and a woman, but I don't think this indicates any kind of gender bias. He also tends to pair up two singers that are close in age.

 

Like many others, I have no idea why people choose Adam as their coach, but I don't think he has a gender bias either. He just picks his favorite or two and screws everybody else. To make things even worse, he usually ends up screwing his favorites with bad song choices too. (Except for Tessanne, where he was lucky that she was such a flawless singer. I still think his actual favorite that season was James.)

 

I'm looking forward to seeing what Pharrell and Gwen will do. Pharrell definitely has a strong team this season, and Gwen has some strong contenders as well.

[The Voice Format: Shifting Sand]

If they think it will debunk those middle age women voters they need to think again.  Hell my friend's Grandma set up a Twitter account just for the Twitter save.

I think that's actually their goal: to get more people to sign up for Twitter and increase the show's social media presence. I doubt they care about the demographics of Twitter voters that much.

And yeah, I hated the two battle rounds too. I wonder if they did that because they wanted Chris Martin as a mentor for the second round. It would have been too much work for him to coach every contestant individually, so they just paired them up again. (It was still a terrible idea though.)