New York Daily News (Feb. 3rd 2012)

Blake has own 'Voice': Country star's the latest twang in judging

I have this modest little theory that one of the main reasons NBC's "The Voice" scored surprisingly well last spring was Blake Shelton. Not just because he's an entertaining judge, but because he's so different from almost every other talentshow personality.

Something about having a No. 1 hit called "Hillbilly Bone."

Shelton, it turns out, doesn't necessarily disagree. But he says the attitude that might make him sound fresh to many TV viewers also keeps him about one down-home crack away from being sent home. "I do come at it differently," he says, "and that might be my downfall. I don't know this world. I don't know how TV works. So when I'm on the show, I just do what I always do, which is say the first thing that comes into my head. Which is not always very politically smart."

Now it's true that "The Voice," which starts its second season Sunday night after the Super Bowl before settling into its regular Monday slot, differs in several ways from the show to which it was instantly compared, "American Idol." On "The Voice," the four judges pick teams, without seeing the singers.

But our experience with "Idol," and then last year with "The X Factor," suggests judges themselves are a huge part of the reason viewers might fall in love with a talent show.

Shelton brings a fresh look to that table.

Virtually every music talent show is rooted in the pop world. Almost every one has a black judge, which is not to say that Randy Jackson and Cee Lo Green are the same person.

But almost nowhere do producers take a chance on a country singer, particularly one as unapologetic as Shelton.

That makes "The Voice" accessible to a whole lot of people in the flyover states, people who make country one of the biggest musical styles in the world and who feel largely ignored on almost every show not produced by CMT.

A show like "Idol" has turned out multiple country singers. Its judges can even appreciate country. But they live nowhere near the country world. Shelton concedes he knows something about the TV talent show world - his wife, Miranda Lambert, came up through "Nashville Star" but says yeah, he still has that outsider feeling.

"It's always in the back of my head that one day I'm going to say something I shouldn't say and get bumped right out of the business.

"It's the politics of television. I just don't know 'em." In person, by the way, Shelton is a very big guy. Friendly. Just big. If someone tells him he has to leave, he says, he will.

"I'm a country singer," he says. "I'll do this as long as they let me."