Cue the music - in 140 beats or less.

Adam Levine's analogy for The Voice, the upstart among singing competitions and this weekend's post-Super Bowl TV placeholder, is that it's like Twitter, where American Idol, The X Factor and other TV singing competitions are like some rambling, aging blog.

The Voice - in which Maroon 5 frontman Levine and fellow judges Blake Shelton, Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green audition prospective singers "blind," based on their voices and without seeing them sing - is all about voice and hitting the big notes, and less about looks and image.

The Voice rocked the socialmedia world, as well as the ratings charts, in its debut season.

"I don't want to mention all the other shows, but we were at the top," said The Voice's socialmedia correspondent, Christina Milian. "Everybody is very, very engaged. People speak their minds; they want to be involved. They want to have exclusive content. They want to know more."

The judges double as coaches; this season, each judge/coach will have 12 artists in his or her group of protégés, up from last season's eight.

Contestants range from virtual unknowns to forgotten or overlooked, passed-over performers looking to reclaim their early promise. The Voice encompasses a wide range of music styles, from rock, pop, R&B and hip hop to alternative, Latin, country and the blues and from solo artists to duos.

The eventual winner may or may not enjoy a successful recording career, but the show itself has already proved to be a chart-topper. The Voice was the highest-rated, most-watched new entertainment series of the 2010'11 TV season, according to the tracking site TVbyTheNumbers, and earned early renewal last May from its parent network, NBC. The Voice airs on CTV in Canada.

By airing immediately after Super Bowl XLVI, The Voice's second-season première promises to be an audience attention-grabber. The Super Bowl is typically the highest-rated U.S. broadcast of the TV year, and the program that airs afterward often achieves near-record ratings.

If The Voice has touched a nerve with an audience jaded by slick packaging and tired of constant manipulation, Aguilera and Shelton say it's because everyone, from the coaches to the contestants, is encouraged to be themselves, not who the music industry expects them to be.

"I try to show my artists on my team that you're not running for office, here," Shelton said. "You're an artist. Be who you are."

Aguilera agreed: "We're not coming on the shows to play a part. . We take risks and chances. We are artists, at the end of the day, you know, just doing what we do, bringing it to the table and trying to share with these amazing artists, trying to make it all that we can. We're not actors. We're artists."

Numerous high-profile artists have signed on to be mentors during The Voice's coming season. Alanis Morissette will work with Levine's group of protégés; Kelly Clarkson, the first winner of American Idol, and country artist Miranda Lambert, Shelton's wife and a former contestant on Nashville Star, will work with Shelton's group. Ne-Yo will work with Green's group, and Jewel and Lionel Richie will help counsel Aguilera's protégés.

Aguilera says that, at its heart, The Voice is about raising hopes, hitting the high notes and being positive.

"I wouldn't have signed up for this show if it was about ridiculing someone, or poking fun at their lack of talent or inability to sing," she said. "That isn't . in support of anything we do as artists."

The Voice premières Sunday, immediately following the Super Bowl on CTV and NBC.