Normally you’d have to handcuff me to the chair to make me watch a talent show. X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and all that other guff has always left me stone cold, padded out as they are with all that Harry Hardluck/Sally Sobstory heartstring-pulling, every song being pro-tooled to within an inch of it’s life, and the basic premise seemingly more to do with laughing at the loonies than actually finding anyone with said X factor/talent.
However, The Voice on BBC1 has got me totally hooked – at least for the moment.
The lustre may soon wear off now that we’re into a more run-of-the-mill live show format, but the earlier ‘blind’ auditions, and last week’s battle rounds, were great entertainment. They were also a couple of very interesting and innovative tweaks to help differentiate the show from its more garden-variety competition, and to reinforce the show’s brand as being all about discovering great new voices.
Nowhere was this better demonstrated than by the battle round last week between David Julien and John James Newman. OK, so their cause was helped by the fact that they were belting out a track from one of my favourite bands – Dakota by the Stereophonics – rather than some naff RnB number, but it was still bloody good by any standard…
XXX
LIVE LONG AND PROSPER 