NBC’s ‘The Voice’ season 4 premiere preview: Can Blake Shelton be stopped?

Before the season 4 premiere of “The Voice” airs on Monday, we have to start things off here with what is a philosophical question related to the show: is it flawed? Is it starting to become more and more difficult for certain contestants to advance, while others have a near-guarantee of lasting longer? While the celebrity coaches have been in some ways the show’s biggest strength thus far, they may also be its biggest weakness.

First of all, we’re not trying to disparage Cassadee Pope, who was the deserving winner of season 3. But shouldn’t Amanda Brown have made it far too, and wasn’t Juliet Simms or even Jamar Rogers (who didn’t even make it to the finale) the real champ of season 2? The issue the show has faced at times the past season is that voting is in some ways about the coach just as much as it is about the artist. Christina Aguilera, for example, has had some strong performers on her time, but she has never cracked the top two; meanwhile, Blake Shelton has had a person in the final two every season, is a two-time champ, and had both the winner and the runner-up last season.

We understand America’s voting patterns, so we don’t blame them for any of this: Blake is hilarious, and he is easier to connect to from a voting perspective than someone theatrical like Cee Lo Green (whose former contestant Vicci Martinez actually has a AC radio hit in “Come Along”) or the always-controversial Christina Aguilera. Sometimes, the coaches tend to forget that there are votes coming for them as much as their teams, but Blake always remembers. He also takes good care of his artists after the show, and this is why if we were auditioning, we would pick Blake as our coach in a heartbeat.

You can really look at Blake’s popularity in two ways:

1. His team members have an advantage, as the country vote is strong and he continues to pick up fans who are not even people who listen to this particular genre of music.

2. It’s a challenge to the other teams to blow him out of the water. While Blake’s singers may automatically have support, they’re not invincible.

We don’t know if the patterns will ultimately continue moving forward into season 4, as we have two new coaches who could turn the tide. Usher actually could end up becoming the new Blake in many ways, as Justin Bieber, who he famously mentored early on his career, has over 36 million followers eager to please him. Just a few Bieber tweets could give Usher’s team members the support they need to go far (even if not all of the voters are actually people watching the show). Meanwhile, Shakira easily has more followers than the other coaches combined, but the issue here is that many of them are located in places that do not watch this show.

As entertaining as “The Voice” is (and it is very entertaining), do you think that contestants do have an automatic advantage based on their coach? Plus, are you excited for this season? If you want to watch videos featureing all of the coaches this season, you can do so over here.

Photo: NBC