Forget everything you’ve ever heard about The Rooster Magazine. While we appreciate all the compliments and admiration, we know that we’re not perfect. But thank you for thinking that we are. All of you. Every. Single. Reader. Thinks that we are perfect. Thank you. 

Let this be the time then that we admit to one of our half a dozen or so faults. We have guilty pleasures. We succumb to everyday desires just like the rest of you, and for that we have no apologies to give. The Rooster is a big fan of nightly television, and we’re sorry that we’re not even sorry.

So then when a show starts airing a new season we’re privy to the complications. Last night when The Voice premiered its season 6, we knew that we'd be lassoed in for another three months building superficial relationships with complete strangers under no guise of productivity. The pull of a new season is too great a distraction for us to be strong. Our will is weak, and our attempts at normalcy fruitless. We are now officially sucked the fuck in.

Take this mindless journey with us, won’t you?

The new season isn’t anything unlike the preceding five. Shakira and Usher are back as judges, and Adam and Blake are still center-stage with their bro-heavy antics and cathartic musings. They haven’t re-geared those stupid chairs to turn around at Mach-speeds like we would have either, so there won’t be any updates on the centrifugal force relating to the sitting apparatuses like we’d hoped.

What? A kid can dream.

With the lack of newness on set one can only hope that the talent they’ve pulled can keep our wavering interest locked in like the others. We can say with honesty though that The Voice picks a far greater aptitude of artists than those other unmentionable shows, and are able to develop the contestants through the season into likeable characters. The art of picking said talent, however, is one of our qualms of the whole charade.

Past winners include artists like Cassadee Pope and Tessanne Chin. While we have nothing bad to say about their obvious capacities, we do think that some of the contestants garner an unfair advantage based on their previous successes. Cassadee Pope was the lead singer of Hey Monday – a band with over a million Facebook followers at the start of season 3. Even Tessanne Chin, winner of season 5, had friends in high places(pun intended) sharing the piss out of statuses to get followers to vote.

But then again, that’s how this place likes it. ‘Unfair Advantage’ is this country’s middle name. United Unfair Advantage States of America. It’s on the birth certificate.

Shakira even subconsciously revealed last night that, “social media is going to be critical in getting votes. I have over 20 million people on Twitter. These guys together don’t get to seventeen.” Unfortunately it’s not about the limitless gifts of the singers. It’s about whoring for votes. Our congressional voting system in a nutshell. What a bummer.

We did however have a favorite amidst our condescending and pompous outbursts surrounding the whole ordeal. Jake Worthington seems to be the most genuine and likeable character of the season. He’s a country artist who failed to make the show last season, but came back to remind us of a baby-faced Garth Brooks, both in look and sound. We have a feeling he’ll make it past the knockout rounds, but not much farther than that. Back to that whole pesky social media thing, which he has none of.

Other artists did great and deserve recognition as well, but we have things to do. We can say with certainty though that Christina Grimmie will at least be in the final three – she’s a YouTube star and has over 2.1 million followers on social media sites. Bria Kelly should do good just on artistic merit alone, but she’s a small town girl with little reach in the big bad world of the Internet. There’s still lots of show left however, so maybe hell will freeze over and a television show will get it right this time and send a deserving singer towards success because of raw talent and not electronic popularity?

What? We said we’re allowed to dream.