Spike is about to get even more musical.
According to The Hollywood Reporter the network has just ordered a new game show Tracks from Christina Aguilera.
Astoundingly, Aguilera and Co. have managed to come up with a musical competition premise that has yet to be mined. Players must guess a song after only listening to an individual component or “track” of it- the guitar, drums, etc. Celebrity guests will also appear to perform the different tracks.
Tracks will premiere later this year with a half- hour special. The number of episodes nor a host has yet to be announced.
Aguilera will be executive producing the show along with fiancé and production partner Matthew Rutler. The couple are joined by an experienced team of game show producers. Hollywood Game Night’s Michael Agbabian and Dwight D. Smith are a part of this team along with Mission Control Media (home of Game Night as well as Syfy’s monster makeup challenge Face Off and the Andy Richter- hosted Celebrity Food Fight) and Lionsgate TV.
Aguilera has established herself as a mainstay of both music and musical competition. After teaching us what a girl wants and making me cry during Mulan, Aguilera joined the smash hit The Voice, which I’d describe the premise of if everyone in the country wasn’t already familiar.
“Having finely tuned my ear for music over the years, I thought it would be fun to test other folks and see if they can identify a track — with a twist — since contestants will have to focus on a single component of a song,” Aguilera told The Hollywood Reporter.
Tracks marks the new era in musical reality tv. Think of it as the Post- American Idol Age (which really began a few years ago). Bygone is the pedestrian notion of no- names merely singing. The aforementioned The Voice added the gimmick of spinning chairs and actual celebrity judges (sorry, Randy Jackson). The trend is most obvious in Spike’s own lineup of shows. Last year the channel premiered Lip Sync Battle based on the popular Jimmy Fallon segment (both on Late Night and The Tonight Show). Refusing to fix what isn’t broke, Spike is also putting on their version of the popular James Corden segment Carpool Karaoke which will be hosted by Craig Robinson. “Not enough singing competition- adjacent programming!” you say? Corden is also looking to adapt his Carpool segment himself into his own project.
This is all coincidentally timely given that American Idol is now officially on its way out with its final season.