With the addition of Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams, personality wise, this is the best judging panel in The Voice's history - NBC photo

Video Beat - STEFANI & WILLIAMS SHINE on THE VOICE

James Loving - National Radio Text Service

With the addition of Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams, personality wise, this is the best judging panel in The Voice's history - Recommended TV Listings

Friday, October 03, 2014

CONTESTANTS LOVE STEFANI & WILLIAMS

The Voice is making the right choices when it comes to choosing judges as Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams are making a strong showing during the early stages of Season 7. Both judges are receiving enthusiastic reactions from the contestants as the two new judges have been chosen numerous times over the two time winning judge Adam Levine and three time winner Blake Shelton.

Many of the contestants have expressed that they have been fans of both Williams and Stefani. The No Doubt lady is playing the girl card as she pleads to female contestants' the girl power theme and it is getting over. Williams is winning many of the minority contestants and those who are familiar with his credits as a producer. Much to our surprise Stefani shines with her bubbly personality a side of her which we don't recall seeing. She is a live wire as she has jumped out of her chair and approached many of the contestants to express her desire to mentor them and her approach is working.

Shelton and Levine know that they are in for a challenge from the rookie judges as they repeatedly note to the contestants that they have title winning success as a coach. The problem is their credits fail to persuade many of the competitors that having multiple coaches' turnaround putting them in a position of choosing their tutor.

Once again Shelton is loading up his team with country singers while Stefani's team is largely female. Williams and Levine have a mixed bag of talent on their side.

As part of her apparent game plan Stefani points out to the talent, as they pause to choose a coach, that Shelton has so many country singers that they will be going up against each other and only one will eventually survive. She also notes that both Levine and Shelton have been doing the show for so long that they are phoning it in (not in the hustle mode) while exuberantly states that she is new, pumped up and raring to go to compete.

Williams's game plan is to choose his words carefully and not make enemies. He is a smooth talker and wise when he chooses to jump in and make comments.

Overall this is the best judging panel in The Voice's history. Both Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green had a dark side to their personalities with a too cool to be in school attitude. Neither was a winner. Usher also falls in to the too cool category but was upbeat at times. To his credit, he is the only other judge to break Shelton and Levine's winning streak.

The true test will be during the battle rounds when the coaches will pit two of their own team against each other. This is a stage when they could sacrifice one to save another or pit their best voices to sing a song that is compatible to their vocal skills or referred to as a song in their lane. This is where ethics comes into play.

Last season this was the stage when Levine made a major mistake and sacrificed eventual winner Josh Kauffman to Usher who stole the singer and did an excellent job as his coach and selecting songs and guidance.

The competition stage will be the major challenge for Stefani and Williams as they will have to apply their song selection and producer skills. In this area Williams has the edge since Stefani worked with him and not the other way around.

During the first two weeks there were nine four chair turnarounds.Williams and Levine are tied winning four each while Stefani has the other. The shows production appears to be a bit contrived. Each coach will have 12 singers on their team. At the end of the two weeks of telecasting all judges are tied with 9 contestants each. Some contestants that were chosen lack quality voices and appear to be chosen to be set up for slaughter during the battle rounds BUT are given a chance to gain valuable experience and have more television exposure. STAY TUNED…

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