Christina Aguilera to Coach on NBC's The Voice

Christina Aguilera is putting that voice to good use.

The Grammy winner has just been named as a musician coach on NBC's new musical competition series The Voice, which premiers April 26th.

"I am so excited to be part of such a wonderful project that celebrates music and the talent behind it," Aguilera, who joins coaches Cee Lo Green and Maroon 5's Adam Levine, said of the role. "To be given the opportunity to help shape new artists' careers and mentor them to see their dreams come to fruition is a task I welcome with open arms."

NBC executives say the singer's talent was what caught their eye. "Christina has a once in a generation talent – her voice is phenomenally distinctive and instantly recognizable," Paul Telegdy, Executive Vice President of Alternative Programming at NBC and Universal Media Studios said of the appointment. "Her journey as an artist, who started so young in the music business, will be an inspiration to the talent she coaches on the show."

The news comes on the heels of a challenging week for the singer. She was jailed by police for public intoxication early Tuesday morning before later being released, while her boyfriend, Matt Rutler, was also arrested for investigation of DUI.

Adam Levine & Cee Lo Green to Join NBC's 'Idol' Rival, The Voice

Mark Burnett and NBC pulled it off: Cee Lo Green and Adam Levine have signed to join the singing competition series The Voice.

The pop star duo will give NBC a chance to steal some thunder from Fox’s American Idol when the new series debuts this April. “I am so happy that Adam Levine and Cee Lo Green have joined the coach panel for The Voice,” executive producer Mark Burnett tells Entertainment Weekly. “Aside from being incredible voices, they bring years of experience in the music industry and a really cool vibe that has never been seen before on a music competition series.”

“We want The Voice to be a search by relevant artists for relevant artists,” added NBC’s Executive VP of Alternative Programming Paul Telegdy. “Every person who sits on our panel can do what it is that they’re judging.”

NBC has also set a premiere date for the show: Tuesday, April 26th at 9:00 pm (ET), in a two-hour debut. The show will shift to its regular time period on May 10th at 8:00 pm (ET).

Entertainment Weekly first reported that the singers were in negotiations for the gig last week. There’s still two seats left to fill, and that judge/coach may be the most intriguing of all: Christina Aguilera remains in talks to join the show.

Telegdy says he was impressed with Levine after seeing the Maroon 5 singer visit Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. “His voice and versatility was incredible, and he had a great sense of humor and interplay with Jimmy,” Telegdy says.

“I was absolutely thrilled to be invited by Mark Burnett to join The Voice as a coach,” said Adam Levine in a statement. “I look forward to working with these singers and helping them push forward throughout the competition to make their musical dreams become a reality.”

Cee Lo has been an impressive media presence in recent months, with Telegdy citing the artist’s “willingness and braveness to do so many things, and his DNA at moment includes all sorts of people who are relevant to the music industry.”

“It’s an honor for me to be able to help mold a malleable and new talent in such a fashion as The Voice,” said Cee Lo Green in a statement. “Being a coach on The Voice is a substantial responsibility, and I take it with sincerity and distinction.”

NBC’s overall goal with The Voice is to sign big-name performers who are also popular music fans and a bit more youthful than, say, Steven Tyler. “Not to diminish other people on other shows, but it’s a different job to break through the clutter now than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago,” Telegdy says.

While taking a break from his work on Gnarls Barkley, Cee Lo has been on a star-making run with his hit single “F**k You” and his Grammy performance with Gwyneth Paltrow (during which he was dressed, appropriately enough for a man judging a show on NBC, as a peacock). Meanwhile, the L.A.-based band Maroon 5 released their most recent album last fall and played Fox’s Super Bowl pre-game earlier this month.

The Voice is based on a Dutch hit in which contestants audition while judges face the other direction, unable to see the contestants. The judges make their verdicts based on the singer’s vocal talent alone rather than being influenced by the contestant’s physical appearance. After the audition rounds, the judges will coach the contestants. The Voice will debut sometime this spring.

Cee-Lo Green & Adam Levine May Host Mark Burnett's Singing Competition Show "The Voice"

Grammy scene-stealer Cee-Lo Green and Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine are in serious discussions to join Mark Burnett’s singing competition The Voice for NBC.

Producers also considered Lenny Kravitz, Roger Daltrey, Mary J. Blige, John Legend and Enrique Iglesias about occupying a judging seat on the show. Plus, there’s a major-name female star who’s in talks to join as well, but is not yet close to a deal (according to two unconfirmed sources, it’s Christina Aguilera, which would obviously be an enormous name for any talent show).

Deals are not signed and things could still change. But NBC hopes to close deals with the male singers within the next few days, and then sign another judge sometime next week. While taking a break from his work on Gnarls Barkley, Cee-Lo has been on a star-making run with his hit single “F-You” and Grammy performance with Gwyneth Paltrow (during which he was dressed, appropriately enough for a man who may judge a show on NBC, as a peacock). Meanwhile, the LA-based band Maroon 5 released their most recent album last fall and played Fox’s Super Bowl pre-game earlier this month.

As Fox discovered last year when trying to fill spots on Idol, securing high-profile judges can be difficult as pop stars tend to come with prior commitments. Signing with a network for a TV show often means canceling other obligations, sometimes at a price.

Clearly NBC is going after pop stars instead of record label suits for their judges spots, and is hoping to land current and relevant artists. If hired, Cee Lo and Levine, along with the third judge, should lend some name recognition and industry experience to the show, as well as generate press interest.

The Voice seeks to gain market share when it launches this spring in the toughest of reality genres just as Idol is ramping up for its Top 12. It’s a high stakes plan, especially since Idol has already bested one competitor this season, CBS’ performance series Live to Dance starring former Idol judge Paula Abdul. But NBC has proven it can draw a good ratings with a singing competition with its winter a cappella competition The Sing Off.

The Voice is based on a Dutch hit where contestants audition while judges face the other direction, unable to see the contestants. The Susan Boyle-friendly format has judges making their verdicts based on the singer’s vocal talent alone rather than being influenced by the contestant’s physical appearance. Once they hit a button deciding whether to accept the performance, their chairs swivel around. Unlike Idol, contestants will not be sequestered during the competition, but will be free to interact with fans and perform on their own (such as doing club dates) while trying to build their fan base.

Last week NBC announced The Voice will take the unique step of opening its audition process to any singer with a web cam.

Carson Daly will host.

Adam Levine Nude: Maroon 5 Singer Gets Naked for Cancer in Cosmo UK

Maroon 5 front-man Adam Levine has let it all hang out, literally, by posing nude for UK's Cosmopolitan magazine.

The spread was done in an attempt to raise awareness about prostate and testicular cancer. The toned and tattooed star said he did it to encourage men to check for signs and symptoms of cancer, bared all for the women's magazine with a pair of strategically placed female hands covering his genitals.

"I spend most of my life naked," Levin admitted. "In fact, I often have to be told by the people around me that it's inappropriate to be as naked as I am. But I live in California, where it's always warm, so why not?"

The 31-year-old Levine has a playboy reputation and is rumored to have dated Jessica Simpson and Cameron Diaz. Levine is currently in an apparently serious relationship with 24-year-old Victoria's Secret Angel model Anne Vyalitsyna.

According to EOnline, it is Vyalitsyna hand which is strategically placed in the photo.

Kelly Osbourne covers the new issue.

Catching Up With Maroon 5's Adam Levine & His Friendship with Jake Gyllenhaal...Nope! They're not Gay!

Last year, Maroon 5 escaped to Switzerland with legendary producer Mutt Lange in tow to record their new album, Hands All Over. OUT magazine caught up with the band’s pretty boy frontman Adam Levine to chat about their particular brand of pop music, Lady Gaga, and buddy Jake Gyllenhaal’s sexuality.

Out: Critics have likened the band’s sound to everyone from Huey Lewis and the News to Journey. How would you describe Maroon 5’s sound?

Adam Levine: We’ve been a band for so long. You know Maroon 5’s sound has always been changing because I think we’re not necessarily interested in fitting into a category. We love pop music. I grew up listening to rock 'n' roll music. My parents raised me on the Beatles and the Stones and folk music -- Simon and Garfunkel and Dylan and all this stuff. I was a teenager in the '90s so I got into the Nirvanas and the Pearl Jams and the Soundgardens and all these bands and rebelled against pop music and hated it. Then when I was 19 or 20, I started getting into Stevie Wonder and Al Green and Bill Withers and all this other stuff so I treat music the way I treat everything in life, which is there’s so much variety in music, it’s silly to belong to a specific club and try to sound a certain way. Hence, our sound has changed because we just like everything. It’s maybe a little poppier than when we started. It was more R&B in the beginning. I don’t know what we are. Journey is funny, though. That’s a weird one.

Out: I read your first record was heavily influenced by Stevie Wonder and on the second one you invoked the Police and Prince. Who were you channeling for Hands All Over?

Adam: Sometimes you wear your influences on your sleeve and you think Man, I want to be Sting right now, or I want to be Prince, or you want to be something and so you emulate it to a point where you can totally tell what you’re doing. And I’ve done that in the past, especially with Stevie Wonder on that first record, but it’s kind of better to try -- it’s almost like in the beginning you do that and then you figure out a way to meld what you do into something new and unique. First of all, we’re a band, which is really weird that we played R&B-infused music in the beginning. There wasn’t really anyone doing that. For this record, I had nothing on my mind that was specifically that. I didn’t want to be anyone other than myself on this record, so that came through. I feel like this record -- I mean, I said this about the second record, but I was wrong -- I think that this album is free of any hyper-emulization. And also, I was in Switzerland, so geographically I was really isolated from everything, so I was letting it all go, and I just wanted to see what happened.

Out: Earlier this year you said “Maroon 5 is the most Mutt Lange-friendly band out there.” How did you end up working with him and were you looking for more Shania Twain-style Mutt Lange or more Def Leppard-style Mutt Lange?

Adam: Mutt Lange is one of those guys who’s done everything. He’s produced AC/DC records, Def Leppard records, Shania Twain records, wrote songs you never would have imagined he had ever written -- he did a lot of stuff with Bryan Adams -- and his thing is that, like us, he’s neither here nor there. He doesn’t really care what something is or where it comes from. He cares much more about the quality of the music he’s making, and that’s how we felt too. We’ve never been genre snobs or anything like that, so it’s kind of the best possible idea for collaboration. Because when you think about his track record and our track record, it’s kind of similar in that no one really knows where to place us or put us. And he was really good at helping us figure out who we actually were and going with that and not being inhibited by anything, especially being as far from reality as we were. We were in Geneva for four months in like lala land, so I’m surprised we didn’t make a record that sounded like fucking Snow White. It was so idyllic.

Out: Now that you’re putting out a new album, does your wild success with the earlier albums make it easier, or are you intimidated by trying to achieve that level of success again?

Adam: I feel older for sure. It’s kind of weird. The band released our first record when we were all 22. That’s young. We started succeeding when we were 23, 24, and I’m 31 now. A) It’s crazy that we’ve been around this long and B) I start to feel -- not insecure or self-conscious -- but definitely start to feel slightly more disconnected from that youth-based, kind of pop culture. I’m figuring out how to deal with it because I think we still make really poppy music. You know, once you turn 30 you start tripping about that kind of shit too. I see it as a positive because I’m like, “Fuck everything. Fuck all you guys” -- not you guys -- but it’s like I’m just going to do my own thing now. I’m cool, and I have ownership of who I am and what I do, so what everyone else thinks doesn’t matter to me. And that’s a cool way of making music too, because I feel totally unself-conscious about it. But it’s weird, you’re competing with these kids, 19-, 20-year-old kids, where you’re like, “You guys don’t even know -- about anything. You’re kids!” I don’t even know where the music comes from. I was just talking to my manager outside -- I’m so disconnected. If you gave me the top 10 artists right now in the country, I’d be like, “Who are you?” I’m so dissociated from it. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I see it as a good thing because then you have the potential to bring something new and unaffected by other things in pop culture. I think that’s great. I think that’s going to make us stand out and live forever in the universe.

Out: Since the last record came out, the musical landscape has changed so much. A name that comes up a lot in the Out studio is Lady Gaga, and I really think she’s changed the musical landscape in a lot of ways -- especially in America. But you’re saying that you guys really didn't take into account what's trendy or popular and just concentrated on doing what you do?

Adam: Gaga is the perfect example because people are definitely saying things like, “changed the face of music” and “avant-garde.” And I love what she does. I love the fact that she exists. It’s almost like, finally there’s a pop star who brings a little bit more weight to it. She’s weird. She’s a weird chick. She does weird shit. She dresses weird. Her music is slightly off. That’s awesome. I think that’s great for pop music because it’s been so safe up to this point, and I like that she’s nude all the time and weird and awesome and cool. Madonna was that way too. I know she gets that comparison a lot, but it’s true. She was pushing the envelope back in the day. She was doing the same thing that Gaga’s doing to a large extent. She has her own spin on it. That’s fantastic. I love subverting the new generation of pop music and all these really safe Disney kids. But no, I’m not going to try to sound like that because that would be weird. That would be even weirder than Lady Gaga herself if we just all of a sudden got really strange -- because we’re not, that’s just not who we are. But she’s great, and there are very few things these days that are truly innovative and forward-thinking or at least different. Goddamn, everything’s just so generic. I like things that shake shit up.

Out: So many of the articles I read while doing research on you mentioned how attractive you are. But some of the articles argued that your good looks might be doing the band a disservice…

Adam: Yeah.

Out: …because Maroon 5 might not be seen as credible musicians because of that. How do you feel about being cast as a sex symbol?

Adam: I don’t know. It’s weird. I once said in an article, I think, if we were overweight, middle-aged dudes, we ‘d be taken very seriously, and our music would be considered ironic and cool and we’d be hipsters. Same music, different look. And it’s probably true. Maybe it has hurt a little, but this is also assuming that I find myself attractive, which is funny, but the fact that I’ve been considered that is very flattering but also maybe somewhat detrimental to what I’m trying to do. But also really helpful, so it’s a double-edged sword. It’s great. It’s propelled me to a place that I enjoy, mostly, so I’m not mad at that. I’ve also been perceived as a womanizing whoremonger or whatever, some sort of weird dude – Lothario is a word I’ve heard a couple of times -- and that’s just weird. I’m young, successful. I’ve been having fun and hooking up with girls. It’s like, Leave me alone. What, do you not want me to do that? So I’m cool with all of it. Yeah, sometimes it sucks because I would like to be – we are taken seriously, that’s another thing. Sometimes I am hypersensitive to the fact that we’re not taken seriously, but I don’t realize, Well, wait a minute. We’ve won awards that are really prestigious and Grammys and all this stuff. What am I complaining about? I’ve got all that shit too. It’s kind of awesome. I’m really stoked, to be honest.

Out: You’ve also gotten a lot of attention for hanging out with Jake Gyllenhaal.

Adam: Will everyone stop thinking that dude is gay? Seriously guys. How immature is it of the media to perceive this guy -- it has to be because of Brokeback, right? I’ve known this dude forever. He’s one of my oldest friends, and it’s very weird that they have this -- it’s very immature and infantile the way they treat his whole situation. If him hanging out with his bros means he’s gay, it’s like further perpetuating that weird homophobia that exists in our culture, which is just stupid. So, yeah, he’s my buddy. I fuckin’ love the guy.

Out: Do you read your own press?

Adam: No. My press always gets regurgitated to me at some point and I’m like, Ugh, this is so silly. So, yeah, God bless ‘em.

Out: Lastly, Perez Hilton was talking about your comeback and the question he posed was, “In 2010, is Maroon 5 still relevant?”

Adam: I didn’t read it.

Out: How would you respond to that question?

Adam: Scoreboard. We’ll see. Who knows? Being relevant doesn’t have anything to do with anything other than quality and good music. And as long as I go out there and play good music and play for our constituency and our fan base, I don’t see us going anywhere. That’s another thing that’s really exciting, we’ve been doing this a long time and our first record came out almost a decade ago and we’re still here. We’re not trying to push the envelope, but we’re definitely interested in quality and making good records and continuing to do that as time goes on and let people say what they say, it doesn’t really matter. Like I said, scoreboard. Look and see. You always have that little fear in your mind and think, Shit, what if no one cares anymore? But I like to stay positive through all this shit. Because that’s the one crappy thing about all of this: unwanted attention. The only thing I ever want attention for is music. Nothing about my personal life, friends, or family, who I’m dating and all that shit -- that’s an unfortunate byproduct of what we do. But it’s very important to a lot of people. I wish it weren’t because things are a lot more important than that, guys, so start focusing on that a little bit.

Hands All Over is now in stores and available for download. For more info on Maroon 5, visit the band's official website.

Maroon 5: 'Misery' Video Premiere!

Check out Maroon 5’s new video for “Misery”!

Adam Levine and keyboardist Jesse Carmichael dropped by Sirius XM Studio on Thursday in New York City to chat about their new album, Hands All Over, and their first single, “Misery”!

“We’re getting back to what it was all about from the beginning — and luckily we didn’t stray too far before we realized that,” Adam told Rolling Stone.

As for what to expect on their new tour, which starts July 30th, “No bells and whistles, no lasers and no pyrotechnics, just a show,” Adam said. “A good one, too.”

Here's the Misery video:

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