The Voice - Feb 23, 2015 - Blind Auditions

Cafe Society
1

I think that this was the strongest start to a season so far.

Sarah “Stay with Me” - Got a four chair turn and she totally deserved it.
Lowell "Don’t Get Around Much Any More - Two chair turns, but I thought he deserved four.
Rob “I Want You” - Three turns. But I thought he deserved one at most. To me, while he sounded good singing high notes, I thought the rest of his singing was meh.
Ivonne “Try” - Bad start, but it got better. I thought she had potential and a good coach could have taken her far.
Cody “He Stopped Loving Her Today” - Four turns. Well deserved, I thought he deserved them.
Treeva “Young and Beautiful” - Two turns. Pretty good, not great, but I good coaching should be able to change that.
Mason “Riptide” - Horrible voice. It’s no mystery why no-one turned.
Meghan “Love Hurts” - Three turns. Quirky country start, but got better as she went on singing. That must have hurt not having Blake turn for her.
Joshua “I Shall be Released” - Two turns. He did have a bit of everything going on and hopefully Pharrell helps him focus.
Bryce “Cool Kids” - No turns. She had no control over her voice. Although she did much better singing “Happy”, but even that needed work.
Sawyer “I am a Man of Constant Sorrow” - Four chair turn. I wasn’t as thrilled over him as the coaches were, but I thought he did a good job.

So for now we have:
Team Blake - Sarah, Cody, and Joshua.
Team Pharrell - Lowell, Meghan, and Sawyer.
Team Christina - Rob and Treeva.
Team Adam -

2

When Cody Wickline began singing “He Stopped Loving Her Today” it gave me chills. That was my father’s favorite song, and I’m very familiar with the George Jones’ original. I’ll stick my neck out and say that, in my opinion, Cody’s version is better than Jones’.

3

Agree that she was not good, but I give her credit for staying up there and singing with Pharrell and not losing it.

4

Yeah. And it probably took some of the sting off of no chairs turning.

5

Pretty much ditto to everything in the OP.

General comment. I think this season so far is vastly better than last season. Last season was really lackluster. Already this season, the talent is at least as good as last season. I hope it continues to get better.

I wondered why Blake didn’t turn for the crooner Lowell. I thought he’d do his whole Michael Buble pitch. I thought Lowell was really good. He knew what he wanted to do and did it well. But it’s a hard genre for this particular competition since the songs in the playoffs don’t always play well with the specific genre people.

I thought Ivonne got cheated a bit. She was good, but just underconfident. A coach really could have made a positive change. I hope she tries again.

Pharrell singing with Bryce was nice, but she really was bad. The singing together really showcased how bad she was.

Blake seemed a half-step off his usual bluster last night. Maybe it was because he was getting all the talent without trying. It was weird for him not to turn for Meghan and Lowell. I’m a Blake fan, so I hope he gets back into it.

Adam not getting picked by anyone was pretty surprising. I thought a couple people would go for him, but I was also happy that they didn’t. I got the feeling that he would have blown out the people I thought would go for him. Other people must be getting that sense also.

Christina is really going for it. Her pitches are just pleading and begging at this point. She’s not resting on her diva status as she did in previous seasons. With her reputation of blowing out the best talent, she may need to get creative for people to join her.

Pharrell seems to be getting what would be Adam’s picks. I was disappointed at his pairings last year. He blew out my favorites in the first round. I hope he won’t be doing that this season.

6

I have it on my DVR, and I deleted the show after it was over.

I recovered it this morning, though, just to listen to Cody Wickline sing it again. I know it’s only the second day, but he’s my favorite and it will take someone really, really remarkable for me to change.

What a voice! I love the song, too.

7

And the second round of blind auditions continues going strong.

Anthony “I Got You (I Feel Good)” - 4 turns immediately after he starts singing. When the judges do that I always wonder how they’ll know that the whole performance will be good and if they ever regret doing that. Anyway, he was very impressive and totally deserved the 4 chair turn.
Gabriel "Don’t Think Twice - 3 turns. He has great emotion, but I wonder if his singing style has staying power.
Brooke “Skinny Love” - 2 turns, but in my opinion it should have been 4. She had great control, volume, great everything.
Dylan “Talk Dirty” - 0 turns. Yeah, he needed to tone it down a bit.
Tonya “Happy” - 3 turns. I loved her performance and I really loved the soul in her voice. I’m surprised it wasn’t 4 turns.
Joe “To Love Somebody” - 2 turns. He has a nice smooth voice and a great falsetto.
Drew "Workin’ Man Blues - 0 turns. I liked his voice, but he had bad technique.
Mia Z “The Thrill is Gone” - 2 turns. She needs to work on her enunciation, and I wasn’t too crazy about her style, but I know that’s just a personal preference.
Blaze “How to Save a Life” - 2 turns. Nice smooth voice. A tad too smooth for me, if that makes sense, but I think he deserved the 2 turns.
Bryan “Rocket Man” - 0 turns. I think not being able to go into falsetto definitely hurt him. He had the sound that got singers in previous seasons pretty far. I think if he could go into and then drop out of a decent falsetto he would have gotten at least 1 turn.
Deanna “All I Want” - 4 turns. Good voice, but I found her style weird. Still, good for her for coming back and turning her situation around 180 degrees from last time.

8

This is our first year watching The Voice and so far we are enjoying it! It’s fun to try to guess who the singer will pick as their coach.

So far, Anthony has been my favorite. I’d say he’s my toddler’s favorite as well since he’s the only one he got up and started dancing for.

I thought Bryan would get a turn, and I totally thought Tonya was going to get all 4 chairs.

How many episodes do they spend on blind auditions? They’re pretty fun.

9

I forget. Three maybe.

10

From watching the show, the coaches say they look for tone, confidence, range, pitch, strength and uniqueness. He had all that in the first opening. But you’re right, I think it backfires on them sometimes.

I didn’t like Brooke as much as you did. I thought she opened strong but got bland in the middle.

I didn’t like Mia either. Her lack of enunciation bugged me. It affected the rest of the tone and everything for me.

I agree about Blaze. It was too smooth to the point of blandness. But maybe with the right song and some coaching, he’ll hopefully get better.

I didn’t care for Deanna either. Maybe it was her quirky style, as you mentioned. I think it seemed too technical or something. It was missing some emotion.

That’s one of my favorite parts also. This year has been pretty surprising. The contestants didn’t go for the coaches I thought they would.

I agree with you and your toddler. Anthony is my favorite so far as well.

The only thing about this show is that sometimes the people who have great auditions don’t end up winning the show. The audience wants to see constant improvement and growth throughout the competition. For those people who start off less polished, there’s a lot of room to grow. But for those people who had a great audition, the audience is expecting more and better in the next round. Contestants often get left off because they didn’t perform better than their last performance.

Hopefully, Anthony will change or grow in some way to keep going in the competition.

I don’t remember the number either, but I know it’s not three. That would make next Monday’s show the last blind audition. Carson already announced that Monday and Tuesday will have blind auditions next week.

It might be more like 3 weeks. So maybe 5 or 6 episodes. But it might be more. I remember one season thinking that it went on a long time.

11

Catching up here.

Nobody, I’m pretty well in agreement with your summaries.

Yeah, the coaches admitted she was right on the verge. Nerves and confidence, because I thought she was pretty good and should have gotten a turn.

Yeah, I maintain you can’t tell anything in two notes, like Adam sometimes turns on. Give it a chance to find out if there’s something there, or if he starts strong and then falls apart.

Well, now we know. :wink: Yes, he’s doing folk, and there’s not a lot of room for folk. Country can play broader, and you’ve got to pull R&B or Rock or Pop to have a wide enough margin to give enough variety.

I also thought she was great. I’m not sure you can say it deserved a 4 chair turn. I mean, there’s a lot that goes into getting the coaches to turn, including their own whims.

Yet I agree.

Yes, and sometimes it’s the coaches who do it, seeing “potential” and “growth” over actual that’s demonstrated right there. That’s a bit annoying at times.

Well, now we know. :wink:

In previous seasons, the did one hour or two hour episodes 1 night a week, which stretches the blinds out. This season they’re doing two 2 hour episodes a week. That means getting through the blinds quicker. They ended up with 3 and 1/2 episodes of blinds, with the second hour going to the first Battle Rounds. So there.