Was Blake Sheltons Twitter response out of line

The book on Blake Shelton is that he shoots from the hip, which is fine and all: He passes for rebellious in 21st century Nashville. But rebellion felt pretty petty this week when Shelton brought a Bushmaster to a Laser Tag game. In doing so he helped accentuate much of what's terrible about social media, which facilitates a culture of knee-jerk public nastiness, the kind of thoughtless ranting that used to bounce off the TV screen and disappear. Now it lingers and spreads. Admittedly Shelton's Twitter rant early Wednesday morning was directed at a colleague of mine, so it landed a little close to home. But the nature of it would be mindless bullying regardless of his target. To recap, Houston Chronicle music critic Joey Guerra wrote of a departed contestant on "The Voice": "Holly Tucker is gone. It took much too long. But finally. Back to Baylor University in Waco for you, madam." As a critic Guerra's job affords him leeway for opinion, something Shelton should understand as a recording artist. Guerra's opinion was Tucker wasn't as good as the other contestants. The words were curt, but nothing about them was hateful. Discouraging? Probably. Absent of constructive criticism? Those sentences were; I've not read his previous coverage. But in an age of flimsy short-term musical "telebrity," hard truths have never been more important. Coddling and smoke-blowing have become the norm. Frankly, worse things could have been said about any of the performers on "The Voice." They are, by and large, amateurs attempting to find a new shortcut in a system that historically required years of failure. Talent is a great start, but it's only a start. And the best way for talent to be sharpened is to have it questioned and challenged, especially early in one's career. Eventually, ideally, you end up with a professional
 News souce: www.chron.com

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