Building the Band - The new Netflix show Christian parents should know about

Musician Michael Tinker is pleasantly surprised with Building the Band - not only does it provide some interesting discussion starters for young people, the music and format are quite good too!

As a professional singer I have a love/hate relationship with reality singing shows. Actually, it’s more like a like/hate relationship. I’ve never found one I LOVE, but I have found some I hate. X-Factor would come into the latter category. Why? Because the producers choose some terrible singers who seem to only be there to fail. We are meant to laugh at them and I think that’s cruel. But thankfully there seems to be a move away from this cruelty-as-entertainment. First we had The Voice where contestants do ‘blind auditions’. The judges cannot see the singers and so are judging on voice alone. Of course, as soon as the judges chairs turn around and they see the singers for the first time, we’re back into the land of visuals being almost as important (or even as important?) as the voice itself.

The big question is - do we need another one?

In steps ‘Building the Band’ (Netflix), the latest in this string of musical ‘reality’ TV shows. Hosted by AJ McClean from the Back Street Boys (yeah - I didn’t know his name either… he’s the short one), the premise is fairly simple. It’s like ‘The Voice’ but ……