Tears, Singing, and Guilty Pleasures

Fruitcake's latest post is about the crap that's on TV these days. She comes down especially hard on reality TV.

In exchange for our money and time we get to choose from a whole basked of goodies including rubbish about celebrity interventions; shock horror docos about child pageants or extreme plastic surgery [or both]; extremely stupid and dysfunctional people going to “court”; and that modern version of the morality play –the “talk” shows which feature people with fetishes for things like collecting bits of toe-jam.

Like Fruitcake...I'm against that type of television.  And in THEORY, I'd add the talent show genre to that.   Shows like Australian Idol, America's Got Talent, and the Voice are full of sensationalism and audience manipulation.  So much about these shows is ridiculous.

BUT....

I'm totally into The Voice. 

It's one of my current guilty pleasures.  

I could try to blame Jack for my watching of the show.  He's really into these talent shows.

If I was a certain type of parent, I might simply forbid the show, because it goes against MY principles.  But I'm not that type of parent.

We watch the show together as a family.  We talk about the aspects of the show that bother me.  We talk about editing. We talk about manipulation. We talk about how there are different sides of the story that we're not seeing.   

There IS a lot of crap on The Voice.

But I'm seeing there's some good stuff too.

Like Adam Levine.

And some of the contestants are very sweet.

I enjoy seeing the supportive families.  

I like learning about music. I've learned singing terms I never knew, like pitchy and powerhouse.

I'm being introduced to songs I've not heard of before.

That's my list of the more noble stuff I enjoy about the show.  

I will sheepishly admit that I am also enjoying the less savory aspects of the show—the sensational drama.  

Embedded below is one of my favorite singing battles. Charlotte Sometimes and Lex Land seemed to totally hate each other—somewhat so during the singing but even more so in the little mini documentary scenes.   It was all so fun to watch, and I think the animosity actually added to the performance. I don't know if they hated each other for real or if it was put on for the sake of the show.  If it WAS real, I think they should work out their differences and join together to form a musical group. I think they're fantastic together.



Then there was great drama when Christina Aguilera dissed one of the contestants, who happens to be her former co-worker on the Mickey Mouse Club.

What's the deal behind that?   I don't know. But it's kind of fun using my imagination to make up stories and explanations in my head. 

It's not just the anger drama of the show that has me in its hooks. There's also the sweet and sad moments.

Tonight Cee-Lo Green's speech about chopping someone from his team had me in tears.  I was all choked up.  Of course it was not as severe as my Kate, Charlie, and Claire scene sobbing. But still.....

Australia has their own version of The Voice on right now.   Since I'm so much into the American one, I thought it would be great fun to get into the Australian one.  But it's been hard because a lot of the videos are blocked here.   

Plus, my time has become limited because I've become totally addicted to another one of Jack's passions.  The kid has got me totally hooked on Minecraft.  I've become an addict. But that is NOT one of my guilty pleasures. I think the game is absolutely brilliant.

Anyway....

I have seen a few bits from Australia's The Voice. 

I think Adam Hoek is interesting.

 I thought I had watched his actual audition; but now I can't find it.  So maybe....I didn't. But this is him singing the song that he sang for the audition.



I like Peta Jeffress' cover of "Wonderwall".  It's so different from the version of the song that I'm used to.




I think it's very cool when someone can add something new to a song.  

I shall be my usual self and make my usual complaint.  They should have more Australian stuff on the AUSTRALIAN The Voice.  Most of the contestants are doing covers of songs made by American or British people.  From what I can see, only two contestants have chosen to sing Australian songs.   Maybe that will change in the next round when the coaches pick the songs.  I hope so!

Australian music deserves much more attention.  I'm not just saying this, because I'm obsessed with Australia.  I'm saying this simply because fantastic things shouldn't be overlooked or overshadowed.  

What would our world be like if we

knew for sure there 

was life after death, and 

we could easily talk to our 

dearly-departed on the Internet?

The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts