the non-amateur contestants of "'The Voice" - but I didn't assume they were amateurs in the first place:

[link]

It was pretty clear that many of them weren't - they said so on the show. Touring, recording, backup singers, in Rent - but so what? The music industry is fucking hard, and even if you had a deal, that means little for continued success.

I'm really like The Voice, I'm watching it online the day after and it's been really cool. I like it WAY better than American Idol at this point. It seems so much more positive at this point - the singers are there because they are good -there's no one put through because they are a freak show or whatever.

Also the judges are really positive and they have more of a stake in what's going on. One of my favorite parts was when Adam was trying to get everyone to turn around for the guy singing Time after Time. I think Blake was the hold out and Adam was pushing hard for him to turn around, I got the feeling just so the guy could get all four judges to turn.

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

And I don't mind that this isn't strictly amateurs, there's obviously a huge number of people in the music industry and if someone can get their career jump started after paying their dues for years then that's awesome.

Yeah, I knew they weren't amateurs because try said so!! I also think the whole "can't see" is of limited value--I mean, clearly everyone was prescreened, and if you're really ugly or can't move on stage, they'll just kick you out first.

I did think it was kind of interesting when they brought back people for a second go-round, and Adam and Blake still didn't pick that one girl, even though it seemed like they both wanted to, after looking at her. So it's the opposite thing -- they might have picked her based on look+voice, but just voice didn't do it for them.

Ick. Blake Shelton made a super-homophobic tweet, got called on it, got defensive, finally apologized. Here's hoping he is actually learning something. [link]

I just read about the on the stranger blog (slog.thestranger.com)--but the guy who wrote the post pointed out these weird answers he'd given EW(?) about the golden girls, and wanting a hot tub but being afraid what the neighbors would say!

At least it all went down pretty quickly, too.

I'm completely unsurprised that he made those remarks. I'm glad that some of his fans were among the first to call him on it. I have a little mental fantasy of Xtina giving him a good clue-by-four talking to, I figure she's pretty pro-homo.

I'm not ready to call it a super-homophobic tweet. He claims it was unintentional and that he was writing it from Shania's perspective.