Idol Chatter & Voice Views

I hope Nigel Lythgoe isn’t so busy with So You Think You Can Dance that he isn’t paying attention to what’s happening on The Voice.

Because the new show that could is quickly making his American Idol franchise look outdated. Downright stodgy. Horribly old-fashioned.

Even with a much older cast of contestants.

What happened this week?

• The Voice had two performances from Tuesday night’s show among iTunes’ top 10 downloads list all day on Wednesday. Idol refuses to let anyone divulge sales of its contestants’ downloads for fear of … well, something.
• The Voice revealed precisely what percentage of the vote each contestant got on Wednesday night’s results show. It was interesting to see that Vicci Martinez smoked Nakia in fan voting while Dia Frampton barely edged Xenia, even though Dia’s song did so well on the iTunes chart. Voting results on Idol are regarded as a closely guarded secret.
• Up next, The Voice will have each of its four finalists perform original songs next week. Idol hasn’t gone there yet. Of course, The Voice finals will feature well-seasoned performers who have already released a fair amount of original material, most of it independently, while Idol seems determined to get younger and younger.

This comes on the heels of The Voice’s decision to limit how often fans can vote. Unlimited phone and text voting has been a sore point with lots of Idol followers (me included) for years.

And the music performed on The Voice continues to seem incredibly more current than most of the Idol fare.  This week, we got Adam Lambert’s “Whataya Want from Me,” Coldplay’s “Fix You” and the Script’s “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved.” Of eight songs, only Casey Weston’s “I Will Always Love You” seemed Idol-like.

The one major disappointment: The judges on The Voice seem every bit as reluctant to criticize as the do-nothing judges on Idol.

On Tuesday, The Voices’ four judges were asked to divide 100 points between their two contestants. Only Adam Levine proved up to the task of choosing, awarding 65 points to Javier Colon and 35 to Casey Weston.

Cee Lo Green gave 51 points to Nakia, who lost, and 49 to Vicci Martinez, who won; then said he’d take it back and make it 50-50 if he had to do it over again.

Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton didn’t need do-overs. They split their votes 50-50.

Really, Blake? You thought Xenia was as good as Dia on Tuesday? Hmm.

I’m hoping that the judges become more discerning in the shows to come. In fact, I’m pleading with them to do so.

Because they’ve got an incredibly talented group of finalists with Beverly McClellan joining Javier, Vicci and Dia.

We’re going to need their insight to help pick the best finalist as The Voice.