Music Magg

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2020 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved Last night NBC showed an unexpectedly interesting special of Christmas-themed music as oart if their so-called “reality” show The Voice , a singing competition in which established vocal stars basically have battles with each other over the fates of young, unknown contestants. Of course the so-called “coaches” of the new talents -- the established stars who provide the main reason anyone would want to watch this preposterous program (I’ve never seen a regular episode of The Voice but NBC’s relentless promos are enough to give me the idea) -- perform on their own. The Voice ’s Christmas show was basically an assemblage of clips from previous seasons of the show and featured not only this year’s “coaches” -- the repulsive Blake Shelton (his voice isn’t bad but his overall personality and demeanor is so bizarrely offensive I can’t imagine how he’s got two far sexier, more charismatic and more powerfu...

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2020 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved I watched what appears to be the first Christmas-themed holiday special of 2020, the CMA Christmas on ABC. It was surprisingly short -- only an hour, with just 10 songs -- but also welcome in its intimacy. Thomas Rhett and his wife, Lauren Akins (“Akins” is actually Rhett’s original family name) co-hosted the show and did so from a set representing their living room -- though in mid-show they ordered the cameras to pull back and reveal that it was a set, not their real living room, and there was a live audience, albeit one with masks on and small enough they could be properly “socially distant” under the iron rule of the SARS-CoV-w2 dictatorship. The show was blessedly and engagingly low-keyed; all the acts performed on sets representing living rooms and there weren’t any big productions, pyrotechnics or Cirque du Soleil-style acrobats twirling on wires above the stage. (I remember on the last Coun...