Idol Chatter & Voice Views

If you’re a contestant on a future season of The Voice and Blake Shelton turns around for your blind audition, why in the world would you select anyone else?

Everyone knows about Blake’s five wins as a Voice coach.

But did you know that he’s had a finalist in 12 of The Voice’s 13 seasons?

Or that he’s had two singers in the finals in three of the last five seasons?

Or that he’s also coached the runner-up six times?

That’s 11 Top 2 finishes in 13 seasons.

And he’s made the finals with all sorts of singers. Meghan Linsey, a former country star who no longer wanted to sing country. Cassadee Pope, a former rocker willing to try country. A young pop singer like Aliyah Moulden. And now a self-identified psych-rocker like Chloe Kohanski.

What’s more, if you are a country singer, he’s not going to ask you to cover a song by Phil Collins.

Just listen to what Red Marlow, one of Blake’s two Season 13 finalists has to say: “He lets you do your thing, and that’s the main thing. I feel like (the reason) we’ve done so well is, he does let us do what we do. He’s not gonna make us do something we wouldn’t normally do or don’t want to do. At the end of the day, that’s a huge deal for an artist.”

Other random notes as the Season 13 finale approaches.

* Miley Cyrus seemed thrilled to have her first-ever finalist when Brooke Simpson advanced last Monday night. But three of this year’s four finalists began Season 13 on Team Miley. Miley cut Addison Agen following a battle round match with Karli Webster; she was promptly stolen by Adam Levine. Miley cut Chloe Kohanski in favor of Ashland Craft during the knockouts; Chloe was stolen by Blake Shelton. Ironically, that followed a Chloe performance of “Landslide” that became one of Season 13’s biggest hits on iTunes.

* So much for the importance of chair turns. The Season 12 finale marked the first in which not a single finalist turned four chairs during the blind auditions. Among the Season 13 finalists, only Brooke Simpson turned all four chairs when she first appeared on The Voice stage. Chloe turned three with her blind audition; Addison and Red Marlow turned two each.

* If he wins, Red Marlow would become the oldest Voice champ in the show’s 13 seasons. He was 40 when he auditioned for Season 13. John Kaufman was 38 when he auditioned for Season 6; Sundance Head was 37 when he auditioned for Season 11. Javier Colon, Craig Wayne Boyd, Alisan Porter and Jermaine Paul also won the show in their 30s.

* It’ll be interesting to watch performance order on Monday night. If any of the final four has benefited from favorable placement to this point, it’s been Addison. She’s gotten to close shows twice since the knockouts and got to perform next to last on Top 8 night. The only member of the Top 4 who hasn’t gotten to close a show: Red Marlow.

* Chloe Kohanski is trying to become the first female rocker to win The Voice. Others who have come close include Juliet Simms (second in Season 2), Kat Perkins (Top 5, Season 6) and Kat Robichaud (Top 10, Season 5). Of course, a female singer-songwriter in Addison’s mold has never won the show either.