I was feeling adventurous, which is much cooler than admitting I was bored.
My classic rock station of choice was mired in an in-depth documentary on disco music narrated by a third-rate broadcasting school drop-out. This Casey Kasem wannabe, that I'm guessing could be the offspring of a guy who once wore a store-bought Barry Gibb Halloween costume to school, seemed completely unaware of the legendary mob-sanctioned liberation of our airwaves from disco music.
This occurred on July 12, 1979 when Comiskey Park in Chicago hosted
Disco Demolition Night. A crate of disco records was exploded in the middle of the baseball field shooting scraps of vinyl higher than a Gibb falsetto.
Rock fans ran onto the field and formed a mosh pit over second base while police cancelled the game and assumed the role of head-bangers to clear them out. But the masses had spoken. Disco was dead, Barry Gibb Halloween costumes were future eBay fortunes, and Boy George, Wang Chung and Milli Vanilli would soon rule the airwaves.
Before Casey's clone could hypnotize me into searching for KC and the Sunshine Band's touring schedule online, I did the unthinkable. I killed the radio. Actually, I just turned it off, but did it with the same attitude Elvis had when he shot out a television screen.
It was a lot more fun that way.
Except now I was bored, which wasn't very cool. So to raise the adventure factor, I grabbed the TV remote control and started channel surfing. And instead of cloning Bruce Springsteen's attitude about having 57 channels with nothin' on, I found somethin'.
The Voice.The Voice features four celebrity judges from the music biz sitting in chairs turned away from the singing contestants. To continue in the contest, a singer has to be good enough to make at least one of the judges hit a button to turn their chair around.
The best earn a "four chair turn." Then the contestant gets to choose a vocal coach from the judges with "I Want You!" flashing in lights under their chair.
It's not about looks, dance moves, or even if you've ever appeared on The Disney Channel.
If you don't have
the voice, you go home.
As a viewer I can name the four current judges and their music backgrounds: Blake Shelton (country), Adam Levine (rock), Shakira (pop and Latin) and Usher (R&B and soul). But as a classic rocker I can't name any of their songs. If it will up my street cred a little I can name the members of Milli Vanilli (Rob and Fab) and one of the songs they didn't actually sing (
Girl You Know It's True).
But now I'm just showing off. What's important is that
The Voice judges select the contestants based on blind auditions.
That's not always the case in the world of classic rock.
Without further reference to Rob and Fab, some of our favorite singers might not have scored even a single chair turn on
The Voice.
As a fan it hurts my feelings to say this, but here are a few thoughts. Buddy Holly was once reviewed as "hiccupping" his lyrics, Roger Daltry st-st-stuttered through
My Generation and Ringo Starr has been a lead vocalist since 1970. I have yet to understand all the words Mick Jagger sings in any Stones song, if Axl Rose's screaming would count, or even if Bob Dylan is really singing at all.
Of course more than a few would have been definite chair-turners on
The Voice.Read more »![]()
