The seventh season of the American

reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, r ...

talent show A talent show is an event in which participants perform the arts of singing, dancing, lip-syncing, acting, martial arts, playing an instrument, poetry, comedy or other activities to showcase skills. Many talent shows are performances rather ...

The Voice The Voice may refer to: Fictional entities * The Voice or Presence, a fictional representation of God in DC Comics * The Voice (''Dune''), a fictional ability in the ''Dune'' universe * The Voice, a character in the American TV series ''Cleo ...

'' premiered on September 22, 2014, on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

. Carson Daly returns as the show's host. Adam Levine and

Blake Shelton Blake Tollison Shelton (born June 18, 1976) is an American country music singer and television personality. In 2001, he made his debut with the single "Austin". The lead-off single from his self-titled debut album, "Austin" spent five weeks at ...

returned as coaches, while Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams joined as new coaches, replacing

Shakira Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll ( , ; born 2 February 1977), professionally known by the mononym Shakira, is a Colombian singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Barranquilla, she has been referred to as the " Queen of Latin Music" and is n ...

and Usher. Craig Wayne Boyd was named the winner of this season, marking Shelton's fourth victory as a coach, and making Boyd the second stolen artist to win the show.

Coaches

Veteran coaches Adam Levine and

were joined by Pharrell Williams and Gwen Stefani, who replaced Usher and

. The team advisors in this season include Stevie Nicks for Team Adam, Bush frontman

Gavin Rossdale Gavin McGregor Rossdale (born 30 October 1965) is an English guitarist and actor, best known as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Bush. He helped form Bush in 1992; on the band's separation in 2002, he became the lead singer ...

for Team Gwen,

Little Big Town Little Big Town is an American country music vocal group from Homewood, Alabama. Founded in 1998, the group has comprised the same four members since its founding: Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman (née Roads), Phillip Sweet, and Jimi Westbr ...

for Team Blake and

Alicia Keys Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981), known professionally as Alicia Keys, is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. A classically trained pianist, Keys started composing songs when she was 12 and was signed at 15 years old by Col ...

for Team Pharrell, along with

Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...

serving as an advisor for all teams during the knockouts.

Teams

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Blind auditions

The Blind Auditions were taped on June 7–8, 2014. The first episode of the Blind Auditions premiered on September 22, 2014. ;Color key

Episode 1 (Sept. 22)

The four coaches performed "

Hella Good "Hella Good" is a song by American rock band No Doubt from their fifth studio album, ''Rock Steady'' (2001). Written by Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal and the Neptunes ( Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo), and produced by Nellee Hooper and the band, " ...

" at the start of the show.

Episode 2 (Sept. 23)

Episode 3 (Sept. 29)

Episode 4 (Sept. 30)

Episode 5 (Oct. 6)

The Battles

The Battles (episodes 7 to 12) consisted of two two-hour episodes and two one-hour episodes each on October 13, 14, 20 and 21, 2014. Season seven's advisors are Stevie Nicks for Team Adam,

for Team Pharrell,

for Team Gwen and

members Phillip Sweet, Kimberly Schlapman-Roads, Jimi Westbrook and Karen Fairchild for Team Blake. Color key: Episodes airing on Monday had a running time of two hours.
Episodes airing on Tuesday & Sunday had a running time of one hour.

The Knockouts

The knockouts returned as a stage after being absent on the previous season. For the knockouts,

was assigned as a mentor for contestants on all four teams for this round. Color key: Episodes airing on Monday had a running time of two hours.
Episodes airing on Tuesday had a running time of one hour.

Live shows

Color key:

Week 1: Live playoffs (Nov. 10, 11, & 12)

The Live Playoffs consisted of three episodes, where 20 artists perform for 12 places in the live shows. The two artists per each team advances via public vote, while the bottom three artists compete for the coaches' save in the results show. The iTunes bonus multiplier returns for the live rounds, restored to its original factor of 10, though with the continuing iTunes voting limitations were established in season six. Teams Adam and Blake performed on Monday night, followed by Teams Gwen and Pharrell on Tuesday.

Week 2: Top 12 (Nov. 17 & 18)

The Top 12 performed on Monday, November 17, 2014, with the results following on Tuesday, November 18, 2014. The Instant Save returned once again this season, with the bottom three artists performing for a spot in the next round via the viewers' votes from Twitter, which is applicable until the quarterfinals. In a new twist, a Wild Card finalist round was announced during the results show where previously eliminated contestants from the season's top twelve will return to compete in a sing-off for a fourth spot in the finals. iTunes multiplier bonus was awarded to Matt McAndrew (#5) and Taylor John Williams (#10) .

Week 3: Top 10 (Nov. 24 & 25)

The Top 10 performed on Monday, November 24, 2014, with the results following on Tuesday, November 25, 2014. This time, the coaches chose the song for their artist. The performance show was suspended in the

Eastern Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

and Central time zones for approximately a half hour at 9 p.m. ET due to the grand jury decision resulting from the shooting of Michael Brown by police in

Ferguson, Missouri Ferguson is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. It is part of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. Per the 2020 census, the population was 18,527. History What is now the city of Ferguson was founded in 1855, when William ...

(and the unrest that followed). When

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...

coverage ended, the program resumed from the point at which it had been suspended. Viewers in the

Mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually highe ...

time zone saw the live coverage at 7 p.m., when the episode was supposed to start, then the performance show was shown on a delay; however, the part announcing the start of the NBC News special report was edited out as the show aired in real time. The episodes aired without any interruption for

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

time zone, and in the states of

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

and

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

. iTunes multiplier bonus was awarded to Craig Wayne Boyd (#6).

Week 4: Quarterfinals (Dec. 1 & 2)

The Top 8 performed on Monday, December 1, 2014, with the results following on Tuesday, December 2, 2014. Three artists were eliminated this week with the bottom half of the artists facing the Instant Save. iTunes bonus multipliers were awarded to Matt McAndrew (#2), Taylor John Williams (#6), and Damien (#7). With the eliminations of Luke Wade and DaNica Shirey, Williams no longer has any contestants remaining on his team; for the first time in the show's history, the top 5 were all male artists.

Week 5: Semifinals & Wildcard Round (Dec. 8 & 9)

The Top 5 performed on Monday, December 8, 2014, with the results following on Tuesday, December 9, 2014. This week, each artist will sing two songs; one chosen by their coach, and another selected in tribute to their supporters. The Wildcard Round was held on Tuesday, and nine previously eliminated singers from the season's top 12 were given the opportunity to perform once again, with one contestant awarded a fourth spot in the finale. With the special Tuesday round, the voting window for all methods was shortened to six hours to accommodate announcement of the result during the December 10 ''Today'' show; additionally, as with the finale, iTunes bonus multipliers do not apply to the Wildcard voting. Craig Wayne Boyd, Matt McAndrew, Chris Jamison and Taylor John Williams received the iTunes bonus multiplier with their studio recordings of "The Old Rugged Cross", "Make It Rain", "When I Was Your Man", "Sugar" and "Blank Space" charting at #2, #5, #6 #8 and #9 on the iTunes Top 200 singles chart at the close of the voting window, respectively. With the elimination of Taylor John Williams, Stefani no longer has any remaining artists on her team. This is the first time a single coach (Levine) has advanced three performers to the final stage of the competition, and this was also the first season with an all-male finale. Wayne Boyd, McAndrew, and Jamison also recorded songs in the event that they were eliminated that night, which were respectively " Anymore" (Boyd), "

Imagine Imagine may refer to: * Imagination Music Albums * ''Imagine'' (Armin van Buuren album), 2008 * ''Imagine'' (Eva Cassidy album), 2002 * ''Imagine'' (Janice Vidal album), 2012 * ''Imagine'' (John Lennon album), 1971 ** ''Imagine: John Lennon' ...

" (McAndrew), and " I'll Be" (Jamison).

Week 6: Finale (Dec. 15 & 16)

The Top 4 will perform on Monday, December 15, 2014, with the final results following on Tuesday, December 16, 2014. This week, the final four performed an original song, a duet with the coach, and a solo song. As with previous seasons, there was no iTunes bonus multiplier applied to songs performed in the finale episodes; all iTunes votes received for the five weeks leading to the finale will be cumulatively added to online, phone and app finale votes for each finalist. iTunes multiplier bonuses were awarded to McAndrew (#1 & #10), Wayne Boyd (#2), Jamison (#3 & #5) and Damien (#8).

Elimination chart

Overall

;Color key ;Artist's info ;Result details

Teams

;Color key ;Artist's info ;Result details

Performances by guests/coaches

Reception

Ratings

The season seven premiere was watched by 12.95 million viewers with a 3.9 rating in the 18–49 demographic. It was down from last season's premiere by 2.91 million viewers.

Controversy and criticism

The show faced controversy when Rebekah Samarin, a contestant on Team Adam, was the first contestant in the history of the show to make it to the third round of the competition and have all of her performances, including her Blind Audition, Battle, and Knockout round, montaged (not shown in full). Samarin took to Twitter to comment about this, saying "While I am appreciative of the experience, I am baffled by The Voice's blatant disregard and disrespect of my time and efforts."

Artists' appearances in other media

*Blessing Offor was on ''

Platinum Hit ''Platinum Hit'' was a 2011 reality competition series on Bravo, in which 12 singer-songwriters compete through innovative songwriting challenges that tested their creativity, patience and drive. The series was created and produced by Evan Boga ...

'' on Bravo in 2011, where he was eliminated in 11th place * Anita Antoinette sang in the blind auditions for

season three A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

, but failed to turn any chairs. *Allison Bray and Tanner Linford sang in the blind auditions for season six, but failed to turn any chairs. * Taylor John Williams and Ricky Manning later auditioned on the sixteenth season of

American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to Ap ...

but eliminated on Top 40. * Caitlin Lucia also auditioned on the sixteenth season of

, but was cut in Hollywood Week.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Voice (American season 7), The Season 07 2014 American television seasons