(photos courtesy of NBC)
Get ready for Season 11 of The Voice to come in like a wrecking ball. While that season won’t kick off until September, and the current 10th season is barely underway, it has already been announced that there will be two new coaches next season – and one of them will be Miley Cyrus.
Joining Miley will be Alicia Keys. The two ladies will fill Christina Aguilera and Pharrell Williams’s red chairs, sitting alongside regulars Adam Levine and Blake Shelton – making this the first time in the series’ more than five-year history that there will be two female coaches on the panel. It’s about time.
For haters who don’t think Miley Cyrus is qualified to judge a singing competition or mentor developing talent – and there are surely many doubters out there – please note there are few current superstars with a résumé as diverse as hers. How many entertainers can claim to have experience as a Disney star, country singer, rapper’s sidekick, and evenpsychedelic Flaming Lips collaborator?
Related: Wayne Coyne Talks Miley Cyrus Connection: ‘She’s Just Got a Bigger Brain’
If nothing else, Miley can certainly give contestants advice on how to be fearless onstage. And for those who still can’t forget the foam-fingering spectacle of her twerking up on a Beetlejuice-suited Robin Thicke at the2013 MTV Video Music Awards – and think that’s all she has to offer – here’s a clip of her actually slaying a vocal (on a classic by her godmother, Dolly Parton, no less):
And while I don’t want Miley to pull focus too much from the Season 11 contestants (which is, admittedly, a possibility), I am hoping that she’ll enlist the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne as her team’s guest mentor – and that he brings his confetti-gun and a troupe of RuPaul’s Drag Race all-stars with him, as he did when Miley and the Lips performed at lastyear’s VMAs:
As for Alicia, she’ll obviously be less of a tough sell for conservative, mainstream America. The woman has won 15 Grammys and sold 35 million albums over the course of her not-at-all-controversial 15-year career. She will likely be the yin to Miley’s yang.
For an idea of what both unique women can bring to The Voice Season 11, check out a preview of Miley in her Season 10 Knockout Rounds advisor role (those episodes air will next week), along with a clip of Alicia assisting Team Pharrell back in Season 7:
