Brian's views on 'The Voice'

I hear accapella groups sing every week and they make all competitive music shows obsolete.

I never realised you were a fellow Perthite! But yes, I agree with you and Brian 100%. All these shows are total crap and do nothing for me at all.

[QUOTE] [b]Zebonka12 wrote:[/b]

I haven't seen any international versions of The Voice, so I'll have to just judge it by the Australian version.

It's pants. Pure and simple, it's complete bullshit. It serves to give regular income to a few washups who serve as judges, and going by previous shows (X-Factor, Idol, and 'Got Talent') they're not actually scouting for future recording artists - they're just trying to find presenters for upcoming talent shows that haven't aired yet. I'm not even kidding; you're a lot more likely to see an ex-contestant shilling for one of these talent contests than you are ever likely to see them at one of their own gigs.

It's a very thinly disguised, self-contained and self-sustaining ecosystem. I understand that it's useful exposure for anyone who goes on the shows, and I haven't got a thing against your average contestant - more power to them. But the actual institution itself is glaringly shallow.

The thing that shits me the most is Brian. I wonder what he'd be saying about The Voice if Kerry "We're Just Good Friends" Ellis had actually done well on the show instead of being shot down? He'd say what everyone else says when they feel like they backed the right horse - 'it's so nice to see a talent show that actually cares about the talent!'

Right.[/QUOTE]

What shits me is that we all know what a massive fiddle they are, to the point of being basically rigged in some cases - we get it. The saving grace of the shows is that they can serve purely as a device for gaining exposure. Fair enough, but if Brian's willing to use them in that way (as he has in the past) then I don't really understand his unrealistic expectations of the shows on an artistic level.

I mean, just how much laudanum is the good doctor drinking in his garage these days? There's a great video of him listening to (or should I say 'enduring') a performance of some 'orrible kid on X-Factor a few years ago - he's doing an undeniably pedestrian job of singing Somebody to Love (and in a lower key, too) and Roger and Brian are just standing there nodding as if it's a great thing. Awkward.

Brian - if you're willing to go on these shows, you're part of the problem. I can't understand this one-foot-in-the-stirrup attitude he has about music these days. All I'm really saying is that he should just put another solo album out.

Is it me, or Brian mentioned his dislike of the Voice before Kerry's perfomance on it?

Also, here's Brian's point which wasn't mentioned here before(from Bri's Soapbox, of course):
'When we sing, or play, for real, we are NOT screaming at the top of our lungs trying to persuade someone to notice us.'

I understand his point. There already were talks, that geniuses like Bob Dylan, or even Brian himself won't win such a show. Because it's created for narrow type of vocals, aforementioned 'screaming at the top of our lungs'. Hell, even Freddie's live perfomances were rougher than his studio ones, so I can imagine him being surpassed by somebody not so powerful emotionally, but technically flawless.

To be honest i too hate "The voice" i sat and watched 15 minutes worth and couldnt take any more of the rubbish,
the judges made my stomache feel sick, will.i.am is a complete knob, and tom jones, should be at home in his slippers, what does he know about modern music?
The auditions are truly dreadfull and what hacks me off is the amount of people coming on the stage with acoustic guitars, it tells me, im in for a boring 4 minutes.
Brian is right to slate the show, its crap, and dont forget the Beeb were very anti Queen in the 70s and 80s so maybe he is getting even with them, good for you Brian!

I auditioned for the X-Factor and got through the first round but my voice went from waiting outside in the cold for hours and from pushing my voice too hard. I was relieved in a way as the further you went in the competition, the more of your life you had to sign away to Simon Cowell and I didn't want that. If you sang a song you'd written during the auditions, Simon Cowell owned that song forever after that (if you didn't agree to that, you didn't go further in the competition). The Voice is a much more humane show and they go out of their way to be kind to the performers.

SimonFerocious: If you sang a song you'd written during the auditions, Simon Cowell owned that song forever after that (if you didn't agree to that, you didn't go further in the competition)

What the hell! I didn't know about this. There should be some respect for the authors. If somebody wonders what's wrong with modern music, ask big men and global corporations.
It's not about art, it's all about exploitation and recycling.
Haha, I get really ranty.

[QUOTE] [b]3Dasha wrote:[/b]

SimonFerocious: If you sang a song you'd written during the auditions, Simon Cowell owned that song forever after that (if you didn't agree to that, you didn't go further in the competition)

What the hell! I didn't know about this. There should be some respect for the authors. If somebody wonders what's wrong with modern music, ask big men and global corporations.
It's not about art, it's all about exploitation and recycling.
Haha, I get really ranty.[/QUOTE]

The way Cowell sees it, is that he has given you the platform to show your talents off and in return he gets to own your stuff. And that, imo, is totally wrong......

If you read his actual criticism of the show it's based not on the reality competition format in general but the very specific feature of the Voice where the judges are facing away from the singers at the initial auditions. It's a pretty over the top assessment of an approach/gimmick that he doesn't seem to understand. As it was the first time he bashed it, it is hard not to conclude he's having a personal reaction to having his songbird rejected, along with his taste and judgement.

Gratefulfan, you are right in what you say. When I first heard SSOR when it came out, I didn't have a clue who Queen where, or what they looked like. I knew I loved the song, I was 7 at the time. Then I saw them doing Killer Queen on top of the pops, in 1974, I still didn't know who they were, I asked my Dad if Freddie was Mick Jagger, haha, I won't tell you his reply. Surely it's about the voice and music, isn't it? Also if they hadn't done the IWTBF video, maybe they would have been able to tour USA again? Brian has lost the plot, completely.

When I was younger I worked at a pizza restaurant for a few years. When I applied there was a list of 8 things that we had to rank in order of importance to the restaurant business. The list included things like ambiance, price, service, food etc. It was a trick question of sorts: the things were listed in reverse order to what had been determined to be the right answer. In retrospect it was utterly clear. Of course the food is the most important, followed by service. The other things enhance the experience but without good food served well you won't have a restaurant for long. Similarly a great song with the emotion and power carried in the vocal delivery is the heart of what makes music compelling. Live music is wonderful, of course, but reading Brian's rant one would wonder how he imagines he sold all those millions of records without personally serenading us at our windows.

Roger and Brian were contestants on AMERICAN IDOL a few years back.

Contestants? Oh yeah, you are correct, I've just asked the contestants in my Hotel.

[QUOTE]

[b]3Dasha wrote: [/b] Is it me, or Brian mentioned his dislike of the Voice before Kerry's perfomance on it?

He did comment a couple weeks before her performance was AIRED, but LONG after it had been filmed and he knew that she had been refused.  He was trying to pull the wool over people's eyes into thinking her result, and his opinions on the show, were unrelated![/QUOTE]

Brian's biggest problem is a simple one - and it applies to almost every human being on the planet:

the more principled the individual becomes, the greater the risk of contradicting themselves and looking like a
humungous hypocrite to boot