Excitement builds up over ‘The Voice’ finale

MITOY AND JANICE. Which “power” singer will win the talent tilt?

After last Sunday’s telecast, “The Voice of the Philippines” is now down to four finalists—Mitoy, Janice, Myk and Klarisse. Which one of them will win the title tomorrow? The way we see it, the hottest contenders could be the tilt’s “power” singers, Mitoy and Janice. Past telecasts indicate that the competition’s viewer-voters favor “big” singing as opposed to the more textured and nuanced performance mode.

The generally youthful local TV audience also appears to not be fiercely supportive of similarly young contestants, as shown by the departure last week of teenager Morissette in favor of the older Klarisse, and twentysomething Paulo’s being trounced by Myk.

Morissette’s loss was particularly indicative of a key difference between the local “Voice” tilt as opposed to the US version, which was won by a teen talent.

Also unfortunate was the departure last Sunday of Mitoy’s rival, Radha, whom mentor Lea “slightly” preferred, but lost to Mitoy in the viewer-voters’ verdict. Had Radha not been in the same mentorship “team” as Mitoy, she could have made it to the tilt’s top four as well!

Instructively, all four mentors made their choice by a slim 55-45 margin, effectively leaving it up to the popular vote to determine the winner in their respective team eliminations.

So good

Ostensibly, this meant that, in their view, their remaining bets were all so good that only a few points separated their performances. However, the singers’ actual renditions last Sunday weren’t all that similarly exceptional, so some mentors may merely have been playing it safe and “democratic.”

This needs to be discussed further, because one of the hallmarks of “The Voice” is the importance it gives to the mentors’ estimation of their chosen bets’ ability and potential, since they’re the ones who do their best to develop that potential throughout the competition.

For some of the mentors to effectively give up that unique strength by leaving it up to the viewer-voters to pick the winning singers could be seen as much too “obliging” a move, and even as a cop-out that dilutes the uniqueness of “The Voice,” as opposed to other singing competitions where the viewers’ votes officially hold sway.

As the results of some of those vote-driven tilts have shown, the audience’s “democratic” or “vox populi” vote really can’t be relied on to pick the singing Stars of Tomorrow—which is why “The Voice” has given its supposedly much more experienced and discerning mentors the power to push for the bets of their choice.

Despite these and other complicated issues, “The Voice of the Philippines” has discovered  some exceptional singers, so we trust that the big winner it elevates to musical stardom on Sept. 29 will have a long and productive stellar career.

Having said which, we should also note that some of the tilt’s “losers” similarly deserve to be discovered or rediscovered, as the case may be, and given their own crack at a stellar singing career. Radha and Morissette are only two of them.

Some of the “finalist” talents voted off much earlier had the stellar combination of fine singing voice and good  looks that music fans favor in these parts. Without an official singing title under their belts, they would have a hard time making it in the biz—but, if others give them the break they deserve, they can still make it—big!