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‘The Voice’: Yes, Pharrell Williams Flopped, But Can He Learn From His Mistakes?

By Toni Matthews
Published on: 03:38 PST, Dec 8, 2014

Welcome to The Voice, Pharrell Williams!

It is a show where one coach just learned the hard way that being the hippest, newest kid on the block will not guarantee that the American Voice audience will see things your way.

In fact, the Voice audience can be very stubborn about what it wants.

This season, the Voice viewers were out of love with the women competitors. This was made blatantly clear when women contestants were voted off of The Voice one after the other.

While DaNica Shirey was the strongest of the women competing on The Voice, we all knew in our hearts she was headed home.

The question is…would Elyjuh René have fared better in her stead?

After all, many consider the elimination of young Elyjuh was indeed a major “rookie” mistake on the part of Voice coach Pharrell.

When given the opportunity to choose between a potential front-runner and his own personal favorite, Williams opted for Sugar Joans.

Though Joans was sent home the very next week, there’s a chance that young Elyjuh would have been saved and given the opportunity to grow and progress on The Voice.

The issues with Luke Wade were not made apparent until his elimination as hindsight is 20/20.

When made to choose between Luke Wade and Taylor Phelan, Pharrell opted to keep Wade; Phelan was immediately stolen by Adam Levine.

Initially this appeared to be a win/win for fans of The Voice with both Taylor Phelan and Luke Wade sticking around.

But we all underestimated the combination of Voice coach Adam’s experience and ruthlessness.

Jaws all over America hit the floor when The Voice Top 12 was rounded out by Chris Jamison and not Taylor Phelan.

Everyone blamed Adam for catering to the “fangirl” vote instead of appreciating Taylor Phelan’s obvious talent.

But Adam Levine had a strategy with his Voice contestants that was only made clear when his choices dominated the final five.

Pharrell, whose team was very much locked within a singular demographic, were often in direct competition.

He actually put his strongest competitors against each other multiple times.

This led to the early elimination of his best team members, leaving just Luke Wade (Sorry, DaNica!) standing.

However, he imploded—and it was painful to watch.

Luke Wade may have assumed that he would still have a chance to make it back with the Voice “Wildcard” round, but the reality is that American Voice viewers have their favorites chosen and the remaining five finalists have their demographics locked in.

Only the performance of one’s life, where nothing is held back, could usurp either member of the bottom two on Tuesday.

Voice mentor Adam pointed out, Luke Wade has the tendency to think too much about his performance rather than let go.

The Voice viewers no doubt observed that Wade had given up before his performance of “Stand By Me” even began; it felt like more of a “goodbye” moment than a plea to stay on The Voice.

The Voice audience will likely not forget these things when choosing who to bring back.

As such, it just doesn’t look good for Pharrell Williams’s remaining time on The Voice season seven.

But what about next season?

We already know that Pharrell Williams will be back for season eight of The Voice, but will he be older AND wiser?

It isn’t merely about using who you are and who you know as clout as next season’s Voice hopefuls are likely watching the show right now.

They’ll be able to judge him on his ability to take them all the way through the upcoming season(s) of The Voice.

And if that isn’t as strong as more experienced Voice coaches Adam and Blake (Christina Aguilera is also set to return), we might observe that his team is notably weaker next season.

Do you think that Pharrell Williams will be able to improve during his next stint on The Voice, or should future Voice singers avoid his team altogether?

[Image Credit: The Voice Official YouTube]

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