Why I Won't Be Watching The Voice

I can’t remember when I first became aware of The Voice, it now seems like one media-blitzing-blur. Some believe the buzz behind The Voice started around the time that Jesus guy popped his clogs for the second time and all his disciples cried ‘WE NEED A  MESSIAH!’ In many ways, I think The Voice would have us believe this too. There’s no denying their knight in shining armour approach to TV, the black and white way in which they tackle the Cowell shaped problems surrounding talent shows. In a very romanticised way The Voice is the good guy fighting the evil Simon Cowell. With his makeovers and sob stories, Cowell is the Lex Luther to The Voice’s Superman, the Gary to its Ash Ketchum, the Joker to its Batman, and so on and so forth.  The question is how much of this do we really buy?

Tom Jones is looking more and more like a young Santa with a bad spray tan - a San-tan HAHAHA!

My answer would be very little of it. The problem with The Voice is that for all the buzz, it’s turned out to be just that – buzz. And annoying drone that is easily faded out with something more... substantial.  Maybe this is just my problem, but with all the hype I expected it to be more than just a buzz, it expected a POW, a BOOM, or at the very least a VIOLA! I expected contestants to sing in darkness and then be revealed with glitter and fireworks and for the whole UK to be exclaiming on Facebook – ‘Did you see that?! It was a set of conjoined twins singing the whole time! That second head can really beat box!’

What we have instead is four judges, one of which is only referred to as ‘that Irish guy from The Script’, sitting on chairs and swivelling around like four Bond villains set of repeat. Swivelling chairs, this is the revelation. This is the messiah. Somehow this isn’t what I pictured.

The problem I have with the The Voice – the REAL problem, is that with the swivelling chairs aside, it is just another singing competition. In thousands of years historians will look back at shows like The Voice, X Factor, Pop Idol, and assume that music requires one good singer and that all the songs, instruments, producing, are done magically by elves. This we know isn’t the truth, I mean, just look at Calvin Harris. The man couldn’t sing Happy Birthday in tune, yet produces amazing music. Not because he’s a great singer, but because he’s a MUSICIAN.

Now I’m not naive, I know that Cheryl Cole and Britney Spears couldn’t write, play, and produce a song between them. I’m not suggesting that the charts are filled with nothing but people like Ben Howard. But there is variation. Next to JLS is Ed Sheeran, two different artists with different talents. Both can sing, one can write songs and the other can dance – in sync, kinda.

We need a variation in talent not appearance. For all The Voice’s subtle hints that they’re the good guys because they’ll let a thirty stone woman on the show because she can sing, even if they have to fork lift her onto the set; they seem to forget that Cowell crossed this bridge years ago with Susan Boyle. Not only did he cross it, he did it in style – 15 million album sales and Boyle’s net worth of £11.9 million. We already know that image isn’t everything. We’ve already seen what a truly good voice is worth.

But maybe it was best left unseen.

What we haven’t seen is a show that puts emphasis on music, I mean music in its entirety. Now maybe I’m being ignorant, maybe this show has come and gone, maybe it’s already out there on Sky. But if I am ignorant, then this show hasn’t gone the distance, and we need a MUSIC show to explode and fill out screens with a variety of talent. I want not The Voice, but The Music. I want to see people do mini-mixes with their laptops and decks, I want drum solos, guitar riffs, a string quartet, AS WELL AS people singing their hearts out. I don’t want people selling sob stories about their Nan dying and her last words being ‘BECOME FAMOUS... BUY A FARARII... BE ON THE COVER OF HELLOOOOoooo...’ If there are to be sob stories, I want them to be about a drummer looking for a great bassist, a guitarist looking for some kick ass vocals. I want it to be about MUSIC!

And sadly, I don’t think The Voice can provide that. Maybe when that Jesus guy returns...


What I'll be watching instead: