On August 21st, NBC’s ‘The Voice’ showed a preview episode of season 11 directly after the closing ceremonies of the Rio 2016 Olympics. This preview was dedicated to the season six contestant, Christina Grimmie, who was tragically killed this summer.
Season 11 officially kicked off on September 19th with an hour and a half long episode. This season, Alicia Keys and Miley Cyrus joined veteran coaches, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton, in the coach’s chairs.
This season is the first time in “The Voice” history that there has been more than one female coach. Levine and Shelton are struggling a lot more this season, due to Keys and Cyrus’s strong vocal backgrounds and fiery personalities. In addition, Blake is no longer getting all of the country artists by default this season, as Cyrus’s country background and experience is throwing Shelton for a loop. Cyrus may very well be the most threatening coach on this show due to her experience in a multitude of genres, as well as her bubbly personality.
“The Voice” is a reality show in which talented singers perform in ‘blind’ auditions. The ‘blind’ auditions are called ‘blind’ because the coaches chairs are turned around so that they can only judge the contestant on their voice. This is a very appealing feature to many contestants, and is why this show is so unique. If a coach likes what they hear, they press the button in front of them and they then get to turn around and see who is behind the voice they fell in love with. When the artist is finished performing, if they turned more than one chair the coaches then argue the reasons that the artist should join their team.
Once the coaches finish building their teams, they then begin coaching in preparation for the battle rounds. In the battle rounds, the coaches pick two members of their team to sing the same song in a battle-type performance. After the performance, the coach must then choose which contestant to keep and which to eliminate.
The knockouts follow the battle rounds. These performances have a similar format to the battle rounds, however the contestants sing their own songs and the coach has to pick the better performance. Once the coach picks the performance they liked better, the other coaches have the option to ‘steal’ the eliminated contestant.
After the knockouts are completed, the live playoffs begin. During the live playoffs, the top 20 artists are left to perform yet again. In this round, the viewers get to play a role because the artists can be saved by voters. After America saves two members of each team, the coaches then save one final artist to finalize their team for the live performances.
In the live performances, only the top 12 artists remain. These 12 contestants perform each week and the viewers vote for their favorite artists. The three artists with the least votes then have to perform another song to prove to their coach that they should be saved. After these performances, the viewers vote once again to save one artist.
These live performances continue until only one artist remains. This artist is then named “the voice” and they win a recording contract.
Season 11 is already full of powerhouse vocalists across multiple genres. Each coach has incredibly talented artists on their team who have a real shot at winning it all. All of the artists so far bring their own unique talents to their respective teams.
“The Voice” also has an app which features information about the show and the artists, as well as a feature where users can create their own team. The longer a user has an artist on their team, the more points they earn. If their artist is eliminated, the user can then add a new member to their team to fill the hole. The teams on the app are limited to five members, which is different from the show’s ten member team.
“The Voice” airs on NBC every Monday and Tuesday night at 8/7c.
