It was odd for Christina Aguilera and Cee-Lo Green to be sitting out the last season of “The Voice,” the two said at press tour Saturday.
“I was, like, who’s going to push a button? I was, like, who’s going to save
that person? But it was cool and fun to see that,” Aguilera says. ” To see it from the outside, to hear some of the stories that sometimes we don’t get to see because we’re living in the moment, it’s nice to see.”
I think it was awkward and intriguing at the same time,” says Green. “It was just like a bit of an — a bit of an out-of-body experience, if you will. And I think I experienced a lot of what Christina went through as well, to just becoming a fan of the show.”
The two were happy to take their break from fellow coaches Blake Shelton and Adam Levine. “I needed a moment to step away, and thank God for Shakira. She did a beautiful job. You know, just sweet, lovely energy, and lovely for the show,” Aguilera says. “And Usher apparently came and stepped up with a lot of creative stuff. And I’ve
yet to watch back the episodes. And maybe I can check out what happened there. But CeeLo always brings it with him.”
Promos for the new season that begins in November act like reuniting the original cast is tantamount to a Beatles reunion.
Ratings for the show have been strong — they promote it now as “America’s No. 1 singing show” over “American Idol” — but when things falter, they’re ready to tune up, says host and executive producer Carson Daly.
“We definitely do look at the format,” Daly says, ” if we do see a drop off, we’ll reserve the right to introduce a new feature of the format, and that breeds fresh new life into it, and we’ll reserve that right for the future.”
One example was the steal, he says. “Every season we get better people coming to the show,” he says, “Obviously we have to whittle it down in the process. But we saw great people walking out of the door. So we thought the steal was a fun way to kind of recapture some of the excitement that America loves with the [revolving] chair being back, lighting up and that kind of stuff in the torso of the format.”
“The Voice” has always fallen short on one aspect of the talent search – launching a superstar, which sets it apart from “Idol” as well.
“I think that it would be really nice if we were to launch a huge star,” says a bearded Adam Levine. But he adds, “I’m not sure that that is the overall mission statement of the show.”
The fact that it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t seem like a shortcoming of the show,” Levine says. “It just seems like something that hasn’t happened yet.”
Says Aguilera, “I think it’s more about giving an opportunity.”
But how are the singer contestants chosen? There’s no audition process shown. Some are invited. All just walk up calmly to sing before the revolving chairs.
“We’re looking to put the best artists on television,” Daly says. “This show’s got great recruiting, and now the good thing is that the show’s been so successful, it’s recruiting itself. We don’t get people who stand outside of Home Depots for 12 hours in an effort to become a celebrity the next day. That’s not the kind of singer that we necessarily are promoting on the show.”
The ones who are promoted tend to have elaborate, or sad back stories.
“They’re very important for two reasons. Our coaches don’t know anything about the people that come out. So it’s always fun TV when they believe in somebody just because of their voice and they’ve got goose bumps. Then they turn around and say, ‘Hey, man, what’s your name?’ And a 22 year old kid named Jamie Lono said, ‘Hey, I’m Jamie.’ ‘What do you do?’ ‘I make sandwiches.’
“And now this sandwich maker, this kid from Chicago, is talking to three of the best people in music, and it’s on him to interview them. That shift in power is great TV. So the stories are important for that juxtaposition there.”