The End of the Voice and X Factor

As we sit here on the afternoon of the first day of the year we are in that wonderful respite from singing shows that we will all be enjoying until American Idol returns in two weeks.

We spent a good deal of time viewing these two shows this fall, my wife is big follower of the singing shows.

A final thought on the two shows from this past fall.

The Voice I believe has been the more popular of the two and for good reason. With the exception of Christina Aguilera all of the judges on this show are extremely likable. Blake Shelton wears his crown as the current King of Country Music well and Adam Levine is the most polite man with tattoos you will ever meet. The contestants on this show were consistently good this year and with the judges having more impact on which guests reach the final episodes the show appears to follow a much less strict formula and be less subject to the whims of demographics.

The final three contestants on the show were all talented, in the end I believe that the correct person won. In the beginning of the show I was not a big fan of Cassadee Pope. She was obviously very physically attractive but outside of that I did not think her singing was over and above everyone else. Nicholas David the long haired, long bearded, constantly faux bowing soul singer might well have been the most talented performer on the show but his personality while apparently genuine was almost mawkish. Watching these shows, perhaps we become cynical but at times it seemed his intense devotion and public displays of loyalty and love for his wife and young family became as integral to his act as his singing. Lastly we had Terry McDermott a Scottish immigrant to America who seemed perhaps the most likable of the group. With his elven features and his absolute desire to sing Def Leppard, Bryan Adams, and other giants of eighties rock and roll there was not much to dislike in his performances. For me however he was just good, certainly not special, I am quite sure I could go to a club in anytown America and find someone about as good performing tonight. He was, in effect, to me, our everyman. It was a good group and in terms of potential to make a mark on pop culture the correct person clearly won.

The X Factor for whatever reason just does not seem to measure up to be even as good as the sum of its parts. Simon Cowell is excellent in everything he does and his formula in this show of his creation is that each celebrity judge takes a certain demographic of the contestants and is their advocate and coach. To some extent this works but for me the idea of especially Demi Lovato being a real coach to any young performer is kind of silly.

In a complete opposite to The Voice on the X Factor Simon was the only judge who was even remotely likable. I found Demi Lovato to be the worst I have ever seen on any singing show, LA Reid is pompous in the extreme, and Brittany Spears while sometimes fun to look at seems incapable of putting two words together. Spears also is a sad reminder too often of what lies at the end of the rainbow for many if not all of these performers who strike it big.

The talent on the show was solid but for some reason it just never seems to work for me in a lasting way. The winner this year was a Country Singer named Tate Stevens. Very talented and with a solid chance at a career this man, plucked off a road crew seems to be about as grounded as you would want a person in this position to be. His major competition all season turned out to be a thirteen year old superstar in the making named Carly Rose Sonneclar. This young lady had an incredible voice but again as is so often proven in the pop world a great voice is not often the first prerequisite of success. Let us hope that she gets a large first contract when she signs her record deal because we do not know that she will be successful.


With Idol starting up soon with three new judges one wonders if the era of these shows might soon be fading. When you lose the continuity of the hosts the shows do lose something. Next year's X Factor might well have three new judges beside Simon and even The Voice is giving Christina and C Lo a season off to tend to their careers. In short if continuity is one of the keys to the success of these shows they might soon be in trouble.

Perhaps that would not be such a bad thing. Let's not tell my wife I said that.