In the age of talent-less artists who hide behind Autotune in the studio and lip sync live, some of these coaches have a lot of nerve even pretending to know how to sing themselves. No doubt I believe some who are / have been coaches are fantastic singers, like Christina Aguilera who we saw give amazing vocal performances before Autotune was invented, but some of these people, especially on international editions of the show, have no business - these people are by-in-large recording artists, not performance artists - shove them in front of a live audience and have them belt out a song in one go, and they'd probably stand a decent chance of coming off far less than perfect. Shove them in a studio with takes and retakes and bypass filtering of every single syllable, and they sound good.
Beyond that, with the show's format, I would chose the coach that seems to be most impressed with me in their comments. All this "I can't wait to work with you", "I'm so excited to have you on my 'team'", etc. is bollocks. Right off the bat each coach is forced to eliminate half of their 'team' through almost arbitrary decisions including decisions that can match you up against a singer that you cannot compete with either in terms of raw talent, or in terms of the style of the chosen song. At least if the coach is in awe of your talents you might stand a better chance of making it past that part. Whatever actual teaching a coach can provide for you won't manifest itself in a way that might actually help you until you get to the part where people at home are voting, and by that point the whole idea that the show has nothing to do with looks or appearances is far, far back in the rear-view mirror. By that point its a popularity contest and looks, artistic style, preferred genre has very much to do with who advances and who goes home.
Plus the use of the word 'team' on the show is pretty misleading. In the opening rounds you are competing against people on your own team, not against people on the other teams, which is intuitively how it should work if they are really teams. It would be more accurate and less insulting to the viewers to say 'Blake's pool of contestants' instead of 'Blake's Team' or 'Team Blake'.
Its also a little insulting the whole formula for comprising the lineup of judges. Its ALWAYS two white guys, one black guy and a white girl. On the US version, on the Australian version, on the UK version and I think I even saw an episode of the German version and its the same there too. Its insulting to think that we're just being subjected to a lineup of judges deemed to be either politically correct, and/or one designed to span demographics and maximize ratings, rather than selecting the best available artists.
And then there's the usual reality-show shenanigans. No doubt the only artists who make it to the 'blind auditions' have already gone through a gauntlet of producers and casting people, who will weed out anyone ugly or unlikable or for whom they can't put on TV some compelling backstory / sob story. You're the next Lucianno Pavoratti? Wonderful, but unless you've got a dying or recently deceased relative. or kids whose lives they can say you want to better, you aren't even getting to the blind auditions, or so it seems. And don't even get me started as to the coaches decisions on who to advance or eliminate being their own with no producer input.
23 Sep 2014, 1:23 pm
I know enough to pick Blake 
