Blake Shelton's last hope of winning another The Voice title as a coach is Craig Wayne Boyd who is the strongest talent in the competition. The question is can Boyd pull it off? - (NBC photo)

Did Christina Aguilera WALK THE WALK after TALKING THE TALK? - (Nick Stepowyj photo)

The talented Trevin Hunte was previously voted off The Voice but now the question is will Christina Aguilera take him on tour with her and show him the ropes? We can't find proof that it ever happened - (NBC photo)

Video Beat - THE VOICE IS LOSING THE PLOT

James Loving - National Radio Text Service

After seven seasons of The Voice in a show that was improving appears to be in decline due to tampering. This season's talent is better overall than in previous seasons but lacks an outstanding talent. The judges have the best personalities of all during the seven seasons. All of this adds up to beg the question… why does the show appear to be going the wrong way? - Recommended TV Listings

Monday, December 08, 2014

IF IT AIN''T BROKE... DON'T' FIX IT

Just as The Voice was gaining momentum as being a better singing talent show than American Idol there seems to be a turn of events that is leading the program down the same path of self destruction as American Idol. The symptoms are too many new twists and turns in what appears to be tampering of how the show is presented to benefit third party interests which are namely music publishing companies. This season the program has overdosed in the judges selecting old songs, many of which were released before many of the contestants were born.

Last week three contestants were eliminated in the quarter finals. It gives the appearance that The Voice is in a rush to kill off their contestants to meet with a deadline to finish the season within their scheduled two week period as the finals are scheduled for next week. Another strange twist is that this week's final five are all males.

New judge Pharrell Williams is out of the running to be a mentor of a winning contestant as all of his top 3 have been eliminated. His best bet was the lone female remaining in the top 8 DaNica Shirey. Shirey had one of the strongest voices in the competition but apparently that didn't sell to the voting public. Williams other hopeful Luke Wade was an OK singer but nothing special and his elimination was inevitable as he got a lot of mileage out of his talent.

The question is will Williams deliver on his promise to his top 3 singers that he will be in their future and be instrumental in the development of their careers. He gave the impression the he will produce records on all three including previously eliminated Sugar Jones.

Although this seasons judging panel including newcomer Gwen Stefani, has the best personality of all of the judging panels in the shows history their main fault is that they are too nice and make too many promises to their singers that we doubt they will keep.

FORGIVE US LORD but we are about to SIN. Things on The Voice are so sweet that we would like to have a dose of Simon Cowell to add some salt to some wounds and give the show a more realistic presentation. All of these judges know that the music business is not Disneyland and those contestants who are strong enough to continue and pursue a career in the music business are more likely to have their teeth kicked in than be pampered as the judges are doing on The Voice.

In a previous season then judge Christina Aguilera said to a singer Trevin Hunte, who had a voice that she was training that she was going to take him on tour with her. At the time we wrote: The talented Trevin Hunte was voted off The Voice but now the question is will Christina Aguilera take him on tour with her and show him the ropes? We have searched and have yet to see any evidence of that she delivered as she promised.

Judges for all of The Voice seasons, Blake Shelton and Adam Levine have delivered in supporting contestants that they have tutored in recording them or taking them on tour as did Shelton with RaeLynn who appeared last week on the "The Top 8, Results" show.

Levine has the best chance of being a winning judge for the third time which would time him with the most coaching wins with Shelton. Levine has all of his top 3 singers remaining in the competition Damien, Chris Jamison and Matt McAndrew.

Damien and Jamison have the best voices. Damien is a long shot was he is black and although he has continued to make a strong showing, the voting public appears to be more of the breed of American Idol voters who Simon Cowell relates to them as being impulse voters who would vote for anything inferring that they don't vote based on talent.

Our analysis stems from the involvement of the Telescope accounting firm that is involved with American Idol. Since their involvement with The Voice strange things have been happening including missing votes last season.

The most complete talent on the show is country singer Craig Wayne Boyd who is mentored by Shelton. Boyd is an experienced performer who has made a living as a singer but has yet to make it big time. As Shelton remarked that the difference between him and Boyd is that he (Shelton) had a big break and Boyd hasn't. It will be interesting to see if the best talent remaining on the show can pull off another coaching win for Shelton which would be his fourth.

John Williams is Stefani's only hope of being a mentor of a winning contestant. Williams has an interesting look and a decent voice but most certainly isn't the best voice on the show. His strength is his look and having Asian blood lines. His look defies that heritage as he appears, as he says, to have a Mennonite appearance.

This season the shows ratings are fluctuating from a high of 13.73 million viewers during the "The Blind Auditions, Part 4" on September 30, 2014 to a low of 9.07 for "The Best of the Blind Auditions" on October 7, 2014. The most recent ratings release was almost UP two million viewers to 10.99 million for the "The Top 8, Performance" on December 1, 2014. When you consider that CNN had one of its highest ratings of 1 million viewers in their overkill of their coverage of the Boston Bombings then the public has better tastes their choice to watch The Voice.

With the finals next week this season of The Voice will be over. The question is in the future will The Voice stop tampering with something that defies the adage... IF IT AIN''T BROKE... DON'T' FIX IT.

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