It’s pretty wild to see how much of a difference one chair makes (even if that chair is a Big Red one), as The Voice has downsized to just three coaches for Season 29. Adam Levine, Kelly Clarkson and John Legend have been duking it out on the singing competition’s first all-champion panel, but how do they feel about losing their fourth? The Maroon 5 frontman actually loves it, and I’m surprised that I agree with him.
There were a lot of unknowns before The Voice Season 29 premiered on the 2026 TV schedule, with host Carson Daly promising plenty of all-new twists for the sports-themed “Battle of Champions.” Going from four coaches to three was arguably the biggest change though, and it’s one that has been fully embraced by Adam Levine, who told NBC:
I love it, I love it so much. There's not a fourth person all the way down there. I think the rapport is better because we all know each other obviously, so that helps, but the flow of everything is so much easier. It feels like less of an assembly line, [and more] kind of hanging out on weird chairs.
Fans of The Voice know that Adam Levine loves to cause trouble, so it makes sense that he supports a change that makes it easier for him to banter with his fellow coaches of The Voice. He also said his familiarity with Kelly Clarkson and John Legend — who all appeared together on Season 16, along with Blake Shelton — forced him to get more creative in pitching himself to potential team members.
I have to say, I agree with him, and I wasn’t sure that would be the case. I was frankly confused by the Season 29 revamp and definitely not happy with the number of contestants being reduced to 30 (10 per coach), in comparison to the 48 or more we’ve seen in previous seasons.
However, just like taking the coach count down allows for a better rapport amongst them, I think giving more time to fewer artists has benefited Season 29 so far. For one thing, the coaches were super picky about which singers they turned for, creating some amazingly talented teams. In fact, Adam Levine called one Team Kelly battle from March 16 the “best Battle round in the history of the show.” (See that performance below.)
We’ve also been able to get to know the contestants better, with no performances being severely truncated in the interest of saving time. While I’d still like to see more than 30 artists on future seasons, I actually loved having fewer nights of Blind Auditions, because by the time we got to the Battles, I hadn’t completely forgotten the singers we met in the beginning.
I’m not sure the reduction to three Big Red Chairs is something we’ll see permanently, but I agree with Adam Levine that there are benefits to the format that could open up producers’ options going forward.
Tune in to see how the rest of Season 29 plays out, with new episodes airing at 9 p.m. ET Mondays on NBC and streaming the next day with a Peacock subscription.
