Can Appearance Improve Your Talent?

Recently on "The Voice," an attractive performer seemed to embody exactly what the show was about.

He got onstage.
He sang.
He was gorgeous.
He didn't get a judge to turn around despite the fact that the crowd was losing its collective mind.

This seemed to prove the show's point:

Appearance can alter our perception of someone's talent.

But here's my question:

Can someone's appearance be considered part of their talent?

Let's take Ryan Gosling, for example.

Because as far as examples go, he's not a bad one to take.

He's incredibly attractive, but he's also a darn good actor. But part of what makes him a good actor is his confidence and charm, which I'm sure comes from the fact that he's attractive.

It's a cyclical thing, I would imagine.

So here I am, listening to this performer sing, thinking--Why aren't they turning around? He's really, really good!

But then I catch myself.

Am I influenced by how this guy looks?

In Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink," he argues that our minds can alter our perceptions of things like talent based on other preconceived notions we have about gender or appearance.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that my mind, for whatever reason, liked what it was hearing.

So what does this all mean when we're talking about a show that is supposed to find America's next great voice, but also, try to help that voice sell albums?

Can we really afford to discount appearance? Simon Cowell argued that it's impossible to do such a thing when the music industry has become so much about image.

But then you have Adele.

So where does that leave us?

Maybe it's not so bad to take artists as a package deal. If that means prettier people get an advantage, well that's just realistic, isn't it?

Or maybe we all need to train our minds to listen to music before we look at it.

Then what we hear may sound a lot sweeter.