The Voice is television's shining contribution to musical culture.

In the scrap heap of network television, we have to sift through a lot of garbage to find one credible show that doesn’t pander to the 12-17-year old brain dead, trailer park-living, cheesy crust pizza-eating, Wal-Mart shop-lifting demographic, but there is one treasure among all our lackluster contributions to artistic culture: The Voice.  

What makes NBC’s The Voice so special? We can define its appeal by exactly what it isn’t; it isn’t a beauty pageant, it isn’t a mocked up sanguine drama, it isn’t a popularity contest, no one is famous for the mere fact that they’re famous (Paris Hilton, Kardashians, etc.). The Voice is all about musical talent – plain and simple. In fact, the superstar musician judges can’t even see contestants before they opt to push their buttons to recruit that singer to their team.

Here are some facts about The Voice you may not know:

The show first aired on April 26, 2011 on NBC.

It’s currently on its seventh season, with 152 episodes under their belt.

NBC originally debuted the shows as “The Voice of America” but shortened the name to just, “The Voice” in 2010.

It’s based on the original series, The Voice of Holland.

Contestants have to be 15 years old or more.

The season winner receives $1000,000 and a record deal with Universal Music Group.

So far, the six season’s winners have been Javier Colon, Jermaine Paul, Cassadee Pope, Danielle Bradbery, Tessanne Chin, and Josh Kaufman.

Javier Colon’s album sold 46,000 copies and he was dropped from Universal.

Jermaine Paul never released an album.

Cassadee Pope became a hot act in the Nashville country circuit and sold 175,000 albums.

Danielle Bradbery, also a country artist and also coached by Blake Shelton, sold 139,000 albums.

Season five and six winners, Tessanne Chin, and Josh Kaufman, have not released albums yet. Though they may be in the works.

The Voice has won a plethora of awards but none more distinguished than an Emmy for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program.

The show has come under criticism for bringing plenty of notoriety to the already-famous celebrity judges but not actually making stars out of its winning musical contestants.

The Voice routinely trounces American Idol, their competition across the dial, in ratings but has yet to produce a break out musical star.

Carson Daly was the original on-stage correspondent but he’s also a show producer, effectively responsible for making the show ever happen (and cashing in!)

The original panel of four judges was Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, CeeLoo Green, and Christina Aguilera.

Usher replaced CeeLo Green in 2013-214 before stepping away to work on his music. He was also heavily criticized as being a horrible diva.

Shakira replaced Christina Aguilera in week four and Gwen Stefani replaced Christina Aguilera for the 2014 season after she became pregnant.

Pharell Williams also started the 2014 season in place of Usher.

The winner of The Voice is determined by the viewers. Votes are tallied by telephone, text, Facebook, NBC’s website, and iTunes purchases of performances the show releases.

Voting lasts for only 12 hours after the shows airing.

The first season, The Voice debuted with a sparkling 12 million-viewer audience, and actually increased as time went on. Their audience grew to 14.98 million viewers by week five and 15.75 million by week six. Season seven has been considered a ratings disappointment with 12.95 million viewers.

Telemundo, the American Spanish-language network, released a children’s version of The Voice in 2013 called La Voz Kids.

A video game called “We Want You” based on The Voice is being released by Activision October 21, 2014 for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and Wii U.

Just like the American version of The Voice was pilfered from Holland, plenty of other countries have filmed their own versions. To date, Canada, Asia, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines all have their own national renditions of The Voice.