NBC’s ‘The Voice’ season 4: Blake Shelton, Adam Levine, and the newbies speak out

Do you have a good twenty minutes on your hands? NBC is in the process of a pretty heavy promotional tour for “The Voice,” and we have a whole heap of videos now featuring what the new coaches are saying about the experience of working on the show’s fourth season, and what the new panel (which features Shakira and Usher in the place of Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green) is going to be like as a whole.

While we take from these videos that there is going to be a great bit of comedy all around (including from Usher, who was our pre-season question mark given that he often has a pretty serious demeanor), there is going to be serious competition among the coaches. The last thing that Adam and Blake want is for someone in their first season to come out and embarrass them, and they recognize these two newcomers as serious threats. Shakira has more followers on Twitter than the other three combined, and this shows the sort of international reach that she has; as for Usher, he’s already helped to mold Justin Bieber into a superstar (and you have to believe that he will be dropping that card early and often).

One other thing that “The Voice” has going for it right now? Getting people who can really sing. While “American Idol” is clearly suffering from a talent pool that is starting to run dry, this show has the freedom thanks to its own rulebook to find people who already have some sort of career in music, and to bring them to the masses. While some other shows are great at finding undiscovered artists, this one gives performers who have been on the cusp for years the opportunity to really get over the hump.

Which one of the coaches on “The Voice” this season is your favorite? If you want to hear a little bit more about what the new crew is saying on the subject of the season, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: NBC