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Say ‘Goodbye’ To Staple Part Of ‘The Voice’ – Something New Is Coming…

Published Apr 10, 2019 By Miranda Raye

The Voice / Instagram

Voice Drops A Bombshell No One Saw Coming

For years, you’ve known what to expect from The Voice. You’ll sit down and watch coaches Adam Levine and Blake Shelton bicker with one another and two other coaches while they try to win over artists in the blind auditions. Then, you watch those artists duet in the battle rounds before they deliver competing solo performances in the knockout rounds.

After all that, the show finally goes live, at last giving viewers the say in who stays and who goes, rather than just the coaches.

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As Season 16 kicked off, we were given no reason to suspect that this formula would change. But The Voice dropped a bombshell on Tuesday (April 9) when it announced it was getting rid of a staple part of the show and replacing it with something new.

The blinds and the battles have already aired, leaving the knockout rounds as the non-returning piece of the puzzle.

A Little History Behind The Knockouts

While the knockouts have been a fixture of the show for a while, they weren’t always. The concept was first introduced during Season 3, though they were a bit different back then.

The main difference was that contestants didn’t know who they were competing against until they walked on stage. Whereas in more current knockouts, the contestants know who their knockout partner is.

These knockouts only lasted until Season 6, when they were replaced by a round called Battles, Round 2. But the knockouts were brought back following that season, and have been staple of the show ever since.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSliXLywTQU

Now it’s time to say “goodbye” to the knockout rounds and welcome something new, something that has the potential to forever change the show as you know it. And for the first time ever, it gives viewers voting power during an early stage of the competition.

How This New Round Will Work

This new round, called the “Live Cross Battles,” is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of being pre-recorded like the knockouts, the cross battles will happen live, and fans get the chance to vote on the winners.

Here’s how this new round will work…each coach will pick an artist from their own team to compete against an artist from another team. This is a huge change, since in the knockouts only team members competed against each other. Also, the artists will not know who they’re singing against until they step on stage.

Like in the knockouts, each contestant will perform a solo song. Then the viewers, not the coaches, will determine the winner by voting live as the show airs. 

In seasons past, all coaches took the same, even number of contestants into the lives. But by allowing viewers to vote at this early stage, some coaches may end up having more contestants to carry on in the competition than others.

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The Coaches Keep Some Power

The coaches do get a little bit of say. Each coach can “steal” an eliminated artist from another coach once throughout the cross battles. And each coach also has the power to “save” an eliminated artist on their own team.

This guarantees that a coach won’t be left with an empty team, and will at least have two contestants to coach into the competition’s next stage.

But there’s a catch…coaches only have ten seconds to decide if they’d like to use their save or steal, meaning they have to act fast!

The Voice / Giphy

The Voice briefly explained its new round in a quick and informative video that y’all should tune in to below. Since you’ll be given the power to decide who stays and who goes, it’s important that you understand how this new round works.

What do y’all think about the introduction of the live cross battles? Will you miss the knockout rounds, or do you think it was time for a change? We’re curious!