Review: ‘Voice’ Highlights Album a Cure for the Cover-Tune Blues

If you’re burned out on “Glee” and “American Idol” soundtracks, the less predictable choices on the first “Voice” album could cure your aversion to TV-bred cover songs

It may be that we don’t need another line of pop hits remade by barely identifiable reality-show contestants or actors, when we already have more “American Idol” and “Glee” albums than America’s shrinking music-retail shelves can hold.

Actually, it’s certain that we don’t. But if the gods have decreed we have to have another cover-tune franchise, thank God it’s “The Voice,” whose credible coaches know first-hand that individuality of interpretation counts.

The breakout series' first full-length soundtrack, “The Voice: Season 1 The Highlights,” turns out to be an altogether listenable experience on its own “reality”-free terms. Part of the reason is that, on the surface, several of the 11 singers seem wrong for the material they’re singing — which is why things sometimes go so intriguingly right.

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