I’m pleased that Amanda got saved, but surprised and a little sad that Nelly’s Echo didn’t. Yeah, he oversang the crap out of that, but at least he’s memorable. They can wax rhapsodic about Colin’s perfect pitch until they’re blue, that doesn’t make him any less dull. Good lord, I hope Blake doesn’t give him any song where he feels the need to try to groove, it was painful.
Speaking of pleased, so glad that Cee Lo kept Cody over Domo on Tuesday. Their performance sucked, but watching Rob Thomas’s bitchface as Domo compared herself to Celine, Mariah, and Aretha was priceless.
Two things I’m not pleased by are the spoiling of the steals in the previews and that they’re not broadcasting all the battle rounds in their entirety. It’s not like this show isn’t full of filler already, show the freakin’ performances!
The battles that they didn’t show sounded TERRIBLE in the snippets, so maybe it’s a blessing that we didn’t see them.
I thought the one-hour show was lackluster compared to the two-hour one. I agreed with most of the decisions, though. I always thought Nelly’s Echo was pretentious and not very good, so I’m glad he wasn’t kept around. I never saw what everyone else saw in him. I’m a little sad that Casey is gone–I thought he did a great job with “Carry On My Wayward Son,” it’s just that his opponent was much more comfortable with that genre.
MOTHERFUCKER! Now they’re Also-ranning the Battle Rounds? WTF?
I just watched Tuesday’s show. They squeezed in two rounds of also-rans. What a stab in the face. Dammit, so what if those songs aren’t great? Isn’t that part of the allure, the chance to see the singers not succeed as hoped? The balance between the great tough choices and the "yeah, he should go"es?
They bumped the teams from 12 to 16 and gave us “steals”, meaning there are 8 battle rounds for each coach this time. They could easily have kept 12 competitors and two steals, for 6 battle rounds a coach, and not had to skip any battle rounds. :mad: (I’m confused - will the steals battle each other?)
Once again, Cee Lo shows us his inability to pick good songs. Cody (southern George Michael) Belew up against Domo (D to the O to the M to the O). He gives them “Telephone”, a meh song. Yeah, they danced. Neither really stood out on the signing, but I’m glad Cody was kept. I agree with DianaG on Rob Thomas’ response to Domo’s attitude.
Christina paired up Aquile with Nathalie Hernandez, singing “You Give Me Something”, a song I’d never heard of. Nathalie sang okay, but Aquile was tops on that one.
Adam teamed up Melanie Marinez (two colored hair) against Caitlin Michele and had them singing “Lights”, which has strange lyrics that don’t make sense to me. (I tried watching the captioning. Still nonsense.) Both do pretty well. Melanie has an odd quality to her voice that I’m not sure works but she did pretty well. Caitlin has a tone that sounds a bit like Amy Lee from Evanescense, but I thought I sensed a pitch issue or two. Very tough call, Adam kept Melanie, and Blake and Cee Lo went for steals on Caitlin. She picks Cee Lo, and then admits backstage she likes his big production style and was hoping to have been picked by him in the first place, so this works out for her. We’ll see how she does in the next round.
This recappoints out that so far, both of Adam’s rejects were “stolen” by other coaches.
[QUOTE=DianaG]
Two things I’m not pleased by are the spoiling of the steals in the previews…
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I’ve decided I actively despise any form of preview on competition shows. I don’t want to know “up next”, I don’t want the wittiest comments dropped ahead of time, or to see who’s paired and what they’re singing ahead of time. I want the drama to play out on screen, in order. And I definitely don’t want hints on the outcome, like seeing the big STEAL light, or who turned around. They actually did that with Cody Belew’s performance and the “Did you push your button?” comment. Totally ruined the only element of suspense, since Cee Lo was the only coach left who could have picked him. Yeah, time on show meant he was going to be picked, so let that play out as a surprise for the excitement. But no, they preview it. :mad:
(The same thing on Face Off with the sci fi movie make up. I fast forward through any of the preview material there, too.)
The real winners are those people who lost the battle round but got picked up by another coach. None of those people are going to win anyway, but now they have the coaching of two more people in the industry. That’s a win over those people who were kept by their own coach but won’t likely win either.
I’m liking the steals because it gives one individual coach less power. I didn’t like Christina’s elimination of Jesse Campbell. Hopefully, something like that can’t happen this season.
The editing has taken most of the suspense out of the battle rounds and takes out the most fun part, the guessing whether I agreed with the coach or not. The show feels less spontaneous and a lot more scripted than last season.
I didn’t like the personality of the woman (Terisa?) who questioned Blake on why he chose the song and accused him of trying to get rid of her, but I did like that she asked the question. In some of the battle rounds, it seems more evident that the coach is trying to favor one singer over the other in the song choice. Cee Lo almost admitted that he was trying to get rid of Amanda Brown in pairing her with Trevin Hunt because he said that he paired them together because he thought she wasn’t as accomplished as she was.
Another excellent set of performances last night. Lots of impressive stuff all around.
Okay, Blake, what the hell was that choice of “Congo”? “Let’s see, neither of you do this, so it will be evenly matched.” Somehow both Julio Ramirez and Terisa Griffin pulled it off. Neither botched it or missed the rhythm, which is so terribly fast. Given how even the performance was, I can see how Blake was left looking for something extra to go by, so looking at how it seemed Julio had to work harder to get there made the difference for him. I might have leaned to Terisa myself, but it was very tight.
Fortunately for Terisa, Cee Lo used a steal. Let’s see if he can give her a better song to work with, or if he hamstrings her with another “Freebird”.
Christina runs Dez Duron (the returning hunk) against the also-ran Paulina, from Sugarland (“Sugarlin” as pronounced by whatshisname), Texas. Paulina seemed a little off to me. Hey Paulina, that song already has a melody. Everybody seemed to agree, Dez won the round.
Next, Adam plays weird choices pairing Benji (racecar driver) against alsoran Sam James, and pitting them with Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name”. While that song has a lot of power, Adam is right that Bon Jovi does have a lot of actual singing and music in that. It seems a bit of a stretch for Sam James, while Benji’s big issue is pronouncing things. On performance, I would have given that round to Benji for his impressive screams and his following Adam’s advice to use them selectively. But Sam did try really hard, and on the notes he couldn’t hit he at least made you feel them, as he was coached.
While on that performance I probably would have taken Benji, and the other three coaches leaned that way, I admire Adam for recognizing that the song challenge was the obstacle that Sam was fighting, and so he picked Sam. At least he recognized the fault was largely his own. So kudos to Adam for making that risky call.
(I also just noticed a “Sam James” in the blind auditions from season 2, not picked. I wonder if it’s the same guy.)
This round harkens back to sandwich guy (Jamie Lono?) from last season, and Cee Lo’s disasterous choice to pit him in that Foreigner song. Yeah, Jamar went on to last up until finally getting beat out by Juliett Simms, but that pairing and song choice sure seems unbalanced.
Next is Cee Lo’s bearded guys, Nicholas David (bluesy singer with the scraggly long beard) against Todd Kesler. He gives them the Hall and Oates song “She’s Gone”. This battle is epic. Both lay on the creamy smooth lines with the soulful depth. This is one of those performances where the sum of the two is so fabulous you almost want them to team up from now on. Cee Lo ultimately picks “Saint Nick”, who really does just have an edge on Todd on the ability he demonstrates.
Then Blake pairs Lelia Broussard against Suzanna Choffel on “The Dog Days are Over”. This is yet another stellar performance, with both contestants knocking it out of the park, and making a hit take on new life. Ultimately Blake picks Suzanna over Lelia, but it was very close and came down to intangibles in Blake’s personal choice.
The last pairing is Christina’s team, with Jocelyn Rivera against Sylvia Yakoub in the battle of the hotties, on “The Best Thing I Never Had”. I liked Billie Joe’s comment to Sylvia to watch the power and dial it down some, with this Spiderman reference. For the battle, both come out and sing hard and really do well. Another round of “Crap, how do you decide?” Christina finally chooses Sylvia on the emotion and power of her voice, which leaves Jocelyn up for steal. The audience are really in to her, and so both Adam and Blake make a go of it. She picks Adam, making that his second and final steal. Let’s hope those work out for him.
Awesome night, with some interesting observations by contestants.
Yes, if you’re not going to go on to make it at least to the final round, having the opportunity to get coached by two sets instead of one set of professionals at this level is going to be a big bonus.
Well, that happened in later rounds, where the coach is picking against their own team, so it’s still a possibility.
I agree, the previews are giving far too much away - who is competing, which songs they’re doing, the snarkiest lines, and even when steals are in the offing. I don’t think the outcomes are scripted, but the editing is killing the suspense.
Yes, those comments by Cee Lo was the closest we’ve come to an admission that a coach has a favorite and picked their pairings to support the favorites rather than challenge all the team members. I’ve seen the comment “I wish I hadn’t paired you two because I want to keep you both”, but that can be interpreted just as sadness at seeing anyone that good get eliminated, not necessarily a comment that they would prefer to put a contestant with the odds stacked. But the line about not thinking Amanda Brown as as accomplished as she is did feel a bit “Oh crap, now I have an actual duel instead of a stacked deck”.
It’s interesting that Terisa felt that way, but I think in this case it was more a lack of confidence than any sense of favoritism by Blake, because “Congo” isn’t really Julio’s gig either, despite being “latin”. It was a push on both of them, with a hook each could get and a challenge each faced, so it did seem to me to be a push to the outside for each. Blake’s trying to be creative.
Realize the coaches complete their list of competitors, then they have to map out the battle rounds. So they have to list them and pair them and dream up what songs to give them. They don’t want to use the same songs or use songs any of the artists have chosen before, etc, etc, so there are a lot of constraints and fiddle factors. And ultimately they can run into a situation where they have an artist or two who aren’t quite a match with anyone else, and have to figure how to make to disparate artists have something to compete with simulaneously. So odd pairings can happen because the easy or obvious or good pairings leave a few odds and ends. I think they do all this simultaneously, and have all their teams meet the advisor on the same day in succession. We get several weeks of things that happen in a much tighter time frame.
More competition, more also rans. Grrrrr. Three competitions skipped over, including the husband/wife duo that drew comments from the blind auditions (Beat Frequency). I wanted to watch that one play out.
We got to see the two country girls battle it out, with Blake taking experience. Another close one. And we got to see the two pop girls from Team Adam. Both had small issues with their singing. Alessandra was school trained, and trying so hard to be precise she wasn’t quite keeping pace with the song. Kayla had some minor pitch issues. Adam ended up keeping Kayla, and on that performance I agree that Kayla was just a touch better. Then Christina did a stealth steal, waiting till the last minute, then giving a long comment that eventually led her to trigger her button. It makes sense, it’s Christina’s first steal, and they’re fairly along through the battle rounds, and this girl is a pop dynamo like Christina is going for this season. So Alessandra got saved to team boobies, where she fits right in.
Cee Lo pit Emily Earle (I think she was an also ran) against Mackenzie Bourg, the boy with the Beiber haircut and Harry Potter glasses and the heart infection. Both have issues with their song, but Cee Lo hangs on to Mackenzie for his unique sound. Oddly, Blake passed over the country girl Emily Earle, but he skipped her in the blind auditions, too, so apparently he’s not impressed just because she’s country.
Adam and Cee Lo are out of steals, Christina and Blake each have one left. I think there’s only one more week of battle rounds.
The editing this year is baffling and frustrating. Cassadee Pope had a four chair turn in the blind auditions, but they didn’t show any of her battle round. Same for Joe Kirkland, except I’m not sure he got as many chairs to turn. Both of them seemed like front-runners, but we didn’t see their performances. Instead they showed Daniel Rosa’s whole performance. Does he really have a chance to win this whole thing?
This year, they’re only showing some of the discussions with the coaches before the battles. But they’re wasting a lot more airtime by cutting to a commercial right before the winner is announced and then having to catch the audience up after the commercial. There’s a lot of replay of action already seen but then a lot of action cut out that was never seen.
At some point, they announced that the portions edited don’t affect the outcome of the contest. When I heard that, I originally thought that the people who got edited out just didn’t have a chance to win, so they could be dismissed. But then I heard Carson say something about live rounds last night. If the knock-out rounds are live, how could they know what the outcome will be? The editing might not affect the outcome of who wins, but it could affect the ability of the audience to understand why a certain person outperformed someone else because of how they did in the battle rounds. If the audience is voting in the live rounds like last year, it’s a disadvantage not to get shown at all in the battle rounds. I’m wondering if that will have any impact on the live rounds. I think it would have if they did it that way last year.
It doesn’t affect the outcome in the sense that we saw the results of that stage of competition, whether or not we saw any of that performer in that stage.
But because of audience voting and the nebulous role of personal impressions and performance history, this really could affect voting.
I think tonight they showed us that Joe Kirkland won without even showing us the snippet. :mad:
As I said before, this is ludicrous. If they don’t have time for 16 performers for each coach to show us all the battle rounds, then they should have left the team counts at 12 per coach. That would have cut two battle rounds per coach, or 8 performances. Basically what they are editing out.
Last night’s round did have Daniel Rosa against Alexis Marceaux. While Daniel had some interesting bits, he also had a few quirks, like mumble mouth. I liked Alexis’ performance better, she won to me. Cee Lo seems to have been influenced by the idea of Daniel’s story. I was kinda expecting Christina to make a steal on Alexis, but no joy.
Nicole Nelson won over Brandon Mahone, but I couldn’t point to any flaws in his performance. They both pegged it.
Three we didn’t get to see. :mad::mad::mad:
And Devyn DeLoera up against MarissaAnn. Again, a stellar performance, both with attitude and style, both with great voices. Christina picked Devyn, and Blake stole MarissaAnn.
At the end of the battle rounds, I saw some snippets of how the knock out rounds will work. It wasn’t very clear, but it looks like the coaches pair off two singers who sing against each other, but unlike the battle rounds, the singer can choose their own song. Similar to the battle rounds though, the coach can choose a strong singer and a weak singer to go against each other, and the coach has the final decision (my guess from the small snippet I saw).
If that’s the case, the editing probably does show who will be eliminated. If Cassadee Pope and Joe Kirkland get eliminated in the knock out rounds, that’s the reason they didn’t need to show them in the battle rounds.
At this point in the competition, my favorites are Bryan Keith, Trevin Hunt, Nicholas David, Avery Wilson and Amanda Brown. All of them are on Team Cee Lo or Team Adam. Except for Bryan Keith, all of them started on Team Cee Lo. Even Christina noted that Cee Lo has a lot of great singers on his team, and several of them didn’t get a chair turn from anyone else. Either Cee Lo has a good ear for talent or he’s a good coach that allows his team to shine or he’s been extremely lucky this season, or maybe a bit of all of the above.
This season, I’ve been impressed with Cee Lo’s ability to summarize an emotional situation in a few words. For instance, when Nicholas David was struggling with ambivalence about competing with Todd, Cee Lo noted that Nicholas needed to ‘come to terms with those mixed emotions.’ Another instance was when he described the battle round with Caitlyn as “enchanted”. I liked the imagery.
I enjoyed Cee Lo saying that he’s not trained, but he’s flawed in a fantastic way. Reminded me of last season, when he said that he can’t really sing, but he can saaaaang. I’m gonna miss him next season.
I’m annoyed as hell at not seeing all the battle rounds.
I’m not really invested in Christina’s team at all because pop belters bore me, but I have to say I was a little put off (if not surprised) by her pick of Adriana over Jordan. Not that Adriana is bad, that’s obviously not the case, but I felt that Jordan had a much sweeter and richer tone to her voice, Adriana is just sort of one-dimensionally loud to my ears. Jordan’s singing and presence seemed much more effortless (albeit unfortunately Disney), whereas Adriana was working so hard I was afraid she was gonna bust somethin’. I was bummed that no one was able to steal Jordan, I’d have liked to hear more from her.
So on to the knockout rounds (though it might just be me :()
Team Adam
**Jocelyn **vs. Kayla: Kinda bummed about that one. Jocelyn is very good in that pop belter way that bores me to tears, but I liked Kayla.
Joe vs. Bryan: Pretty unimpressed with both, actually. Everything I Do, Bryan? Really?
**Amanda **vs. Michelle: They both kicked all kindsa ass, but Amanda is undeniable and good on her for skipping the VH1 Divas Collection.
**Loren **vs. Nicole: You’re shitting me here, right? Loren has a lovely voice (albeit not as lovely as Nicole’s (even considering Nicole’s potential lounge-iness and oh my god they’re making me multiply parenthisize)), but “You Know that I’m No Good” isn’t “sultry,”, it’s filthy; it’s a three and a half minute grudge-fuck, and Loren sang it like, well… a wedding singer. Hurt my feelings, it did.
**Melanie **and Sam: On the whole I prefer Sam, but I thought that Melanie did a nice (if predictable, so far she’s pretty one-trick) job with that song, whereas Sam over-emoted like he thought he was on Glee. What the hell was that about?
Team Cee-Lo
Avery vs. Cody: Whoa. Sometimes lambs don’t slaughter easy. Avery choked, quite nearly literally, and that’s fine with me because as soon as the pairing was announced I realized that while I think Avery is a tremendously talented kid, I’m way more interested in seeing more of Cody. And Cody killed it. Go Bam Bam!
**MacKenzie **vs. Daniel: He’s Bourg. Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. Cool with it, Daniel has a lovely tone to his voice when he’s on key, which is sadly rare, and I was always just a little worried he was gonna pee himself.
Terisa vs. Trevin: I simply can’t not root for this kid (even though I’m kinda hoping he’s actually a manipulative evil genius). Sorry Terisa, it doesn’t mean you’re not fantastic.
Mycle vs. Nicholas: Nicholas is pure badass. No contest. I know he can’t win, but I want him around for every possible second.
Caitlin vs. Diego: Caitlin honey, if this was Project Runway we’d be talking about your questionable taste level. You have a great voice, now go home and listen to something less Evanescency, will ya? And Diego, I’ve seen Jamar. I watched Jamar. You’re no Jamar, sir. Also, get some big boy pants. Feh on both of you.
Team Christina
**Devin **vs. Laura: Whatever. I don’t love Devyn’s voice and her face bugs me. Laura was clearly cannon fodder, did we even see her prior to this?
Adrianavs. Celica: See above, replace names.
Alessandra vs. Dez: I just realized that I’d confused Alessandra and Adriana and was only able to differentiate Dez because he looks the least like Lea Michelle.
Chevonne vs. De’Borah: I really wish she hadn’t paired them against each other, since neither of them looks remotely like Lea Michelle. I liked both performances, but De’Borah is clearly the superior singer, if not performer.
Aquile vs. Sylvia: A little surprised there, I('ve always) thought that Aquile is boring, but I thought that Sylvia was a hot mess on that song.
Team Blake
Gracia vs. Liz: Wrong. Just wrong. Liz is boring and generic and needs to look into pants. Blake seemed personally betrayed by Gracia’s choice of a non-country song.
Rudy vs. Terry: Terry’s voice is a thing of beauty and wonder. Seriously, what a glorious clear perfect tenor that man has. I loved his teammate’s reactions backstage. Perhaps Rudy and Avery will teach the children that making NBC pay Chris Brown royalties makes the baby Jesus cry and gets you sent home.
Colin vs. Michaela: Colin’s manic energy makes me uncomfortable, and I love Michaela even if she does look like Hot Topic threw up on her.
**Julio **vs. MarissaAnn: Seriously? Whatever. I admittedly don’t love fifteen year olds doing Lady Marmalade, but she killed it.
**Casadee **vs. Suzanna: Huh. Something about Cassadee’s voice is appealing to me, but she lacks breath control and I think her attitude is a bit stank. I actually don’t love Suzanna’s voice, but that song choice killed her and whoever did her hair should be shot. My friend took one look at her and screamed “THASS RACIST!!!”
I wasn’t thrilled with either song, but I liked Jocelyn’s voice better.
Joe had originality in his choice and performance, but there’s something in his voice that I don’t care for.
Both killed it. Michelle has an amazing voice. Amanda gets it on style.
I think Loren won on the power of the finish and the surprise factor. Nicole has been consistently strong, and she delivered as expected. Loren came out of nowhere. On those performances, I go with Loren, but on consistency Nicole has been better.
I agree. I think Melanie could get on the radio, but I’m not all that big on quirky. Sam has a great tone if he can pronounce right, but holy shit he was constipated. And lose the dam sock-hat.
Avery is better than that performance, but I’m not disappointed. He tried so hard to be everything that he put too much into the dance and missed the singing part. Whereas Cody is the country George Michael, and he really poured it out in that song. Holy shit. Definite win to Cody. And talk about a declaration.
OMG that’s funny!
Terisa was spectacular. Too bad she was against Trevin. Trevin won because he’s young, which means he’s got a lot of room to develop, and he’s already that good.
Both were smooth and styling. I didn’t care for Nicholas’s song choice, but he is Mr Smooth.
I immediately pegged Evanscence for her, even though she looks more like Katy Perry. She would have been better suited to do something where she didn’t sound quite so like the original. And she seemed a little pitchy to me. Don’t care for Diego. He had energy and excitement, but I’m meh about him.
And even though we’re at least seeing performances from everyone now, I’m still not liking the editing for time. :mad:
What happened on that part of Caitlin’s song? Did she flub that line, or was that an editing glitch?
Christina tried variety the last couple seasons, and that didn’t really work for her, so this season she’s decided to stick with her strong point, pop stars. And so she’s heavy-loaded her team with a lot of similar sounding mostly women. She has a strategy for these rounds in pairings that let the most similar really work to stand out.
Nope, she was montaged in both the Blind Auditions and the Battle Rounds. Not very fair to her. Laura did well, but I liked Devyn better.
Celica is another one who was montaged out. Just listened to a couple of the online recordings, and they’re pretty good. Adriana won it.
Trying to remember this one. Dez was pretty smooth.
I think Chevonne’s song choice hurt her here. She was rocking it out hard and really dancing to the beat. And unlike Avery from the other night, she was still singing it well. De’Borah just had a better song and did more with it.
Nice call out on Cee Lo.
Aquile was okay with his tone and delivery, but his “ya’s” were distracting me. Most of his "you"s came out "ya"s. I liked Sylvia’s performance.
I’m totally okay with Liz not wearing any pants. Ever. I thought she had a powerful delivery of the song. Gracia did a good job making over the Aerosmith song with a country feel, but I agree that it hurt Blake’s impression of her. He decided that meant that she didn’t have a clear idea of who she is as an artist. I thought she was going for a country makeover and was successful.
Rudy’s song choice: that’s a song? I couldn’t pick out the rhythm or melody. WTF? But then Chris Brown is stuff I immediately switch the station when it comes on. And “double your pleasure, double your fun” - what, is this a doublemint commercial? Terry is just awesome. I expect him in the finals.
Colin was good, and I thought I heard pitch breaks in Michaela’s performance. But “Love is a Battlefield” is a good choice, and I’ve been hoping someone would pull out some Pat Benetar.
What the fuck was Blake smoking here? MarissaAnn’s performance kicked Julio in the crotch. He should have been carried out on a stretcher. He had one good strong note that he did well, but the rest of his performance was meh and his song was Justin fucking Beiber. MarissaAnn was all over that performance and worked the stage like a magician. And then Blake said they were pretty even? And then picked Julio because he had more invested in him. Once again, we’re graced with Bad-choice Blake.
Julio won’t win this thing. His voice has is very Richie Valens. It isn’t smooth or elegant, and it isn’t raspy and gritty. His accent is thick enough to hamper his singing. I thought Blake wanted to win.
Casadee was a bit off at first, but overall did okay. But Suzanna did not pick well on song choice. She went with a laid-back Bob Marley song when she should have been belting out a power ballad or some other showcase song.
Okay, now we get to the live shows. Yippee. Let’s see if Blake’s bad judgement and Cee Lo’s lousy song choices offset each other like last year.
And we’re now going to get 3 nights a week of show? Is it 2 hour eps each the first 2? Jesus, I do have other TV I want to watch and/or record.
After the first night night of the live rounds with Blake’s and Adam’s teams, the people I was rooting for didn’t do very well.
Terry McDermott sounded like he was trying so hard to sing the song technically, it didn’t have very much emotion. I really liked him in the knock-out round. I was totally rooting for him.
Bryan Keith was disappointing also. It wasn’t bad; it just wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.
I agree with the coaches that the two standouts were Michaela and Amanda Brown, with Amanda as the clear leader. I liked Amanda less in the knock-out rounds, but she was still good.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about Julio’s song. I liked the singing, but since it was all in spanish, I don’t know if the emotions went with the words.
I feel like that performance could have been amazing if they’d taken it down half a key. He just seemed uncomfortable, and he strikes me as an unlikely candidate for a sudden bout of crippling nerves, although of course that’s possible.
I wasn’t blown away by any of the performances, and once again we’re being subjected to some pretty questionable song choices. I fast-forwarded over the talky bits, did the judges or the contestants choose in this round?
This season, the judges were inconsistent about who chose the song. From the intro., it sounded like Blake picked that song for Terry, and Terry wasn’t all that comfortable about it. It sounded like Blake picked the songs for his team, but some of them had some input.
Blake keeps talking about his strategy of having a singer in each different genre so the audience doesn’t split the vote on his team members. For those members that he clearly pigeonholed as representing a specific genre, he seemed to have clearly picked for them. He wanted Liz Davis to be country, so he chose for her. He wanted Terry to be rock, so he chose for him.
It looked like Blake wanted to eliminate the chance of a singer like Gracia picking something that didn’t work into his strategy.
It sounded like Adam didn’t pick any songs for his team, and Amanda was very excited about her song choice. I think that made a difference.
Was something wrong with my TV set? Because the first two up were Jocelyn Rivera and Terry McDermott, and the coachs were all applauding them both for how clear and on pitch they were, but I thought both seemed a little off.
Team Adam:
Amanda Brown is the breakout performer so far, clearly the best of the night and her best performance so far. She has shown versatility, power, and emotion, and a great style.
Loren Allred was second in my mind. She gave a great show, really worked the song and the stage, and may have been better than her previous stunner. And I agree, put in some more upper register.
I think the rest of Team Adam was a bit lackluster. Jocelyn Rivera gave an okay performance, seemed a little off on a note or two, and nothing stand out or unique. Bryan Keith had a great Blind Audition, but I’m over him now and just thought he was meh. Melanie Martinez did her rendition of “Hit the Road, Jack”, which was true to her personal style and sound. She did fine with it, but there’s something about her voice that doesn’t gel with me. If forced, I’d pick her over Jocelyn or Bryan, but I’d rather save the third Team Adam slot for one of Blake’s competitors.
Team Blake:
Michaela Page had a great performance, probably her best so far. She may have been tops for Team Blake this round. She really had great stage presence, too. And the lyric choice puts a little twist on “everybody talks”, with a girl singing lead.
Liz Davis was pretty evenly matched in my mind with Michaela. Even though I don’t follow country, she has an authentic sound, she does powerhouse well, and she delivered on this more ballady tune. And DianaG can be happy, she wore a long dress tonight that covered her legs.
Cassadee Pope came in number 3 to me. She did fairly well on that Avril song, though I’m really happy with Blake’s advice. “People get really attached to the melodies on songs and really notice when it doesn’t match.” Or something like that. Absolutely. She varied a couple points, but mostly kept it and did pretty well.
This is where it gets rough. Credit where credit is due, Julio sang that song well - he had power and notes and emotion. But it was in Spanish, which means it’s hard for me to connect, and it’s fucking mariachi music, which is like wailing cats. If I was forced to pick between listening to mariachi or gansta rap, I’d probably get the rapper to shoot me. The only way it could be worse is mariachi music with a bagpipe. So, even though Julio had a great tone with this song, I hate mariachi and don’t think he can win with it, and his pop music sounds like ass. Plus, I’m still ticked that Blake picked him in the Battle Round, where he clearly lost. Bad-choice Blake strikes again. But the audience seemed to really like his performance, which is bad news for Terry McDermott.
Because Terry seemed to have an off night. Maybe it was the key being down have a step, or what, but he just wasn’t on. I really like Terry and was expecting better. But it feels like he was number five on performances last night, which means he will have a tough time going forward. I’d pick him over Julio and Cassadee, but on past performances not last night. Last night I still give him an edge over Julio, by song choice, because fucking mariachi.
Yes, he seemed uncomfortable, and I think that affected his performance overall.
It’s a mix. Blake seemed to pick for his team members, Adam seems to have had a mix.
Yes, Blake seems to be channeling his team this year. When Gracia took a rock song to make a country version, it didn’t fit his perception, so he interpreted that as her being unclear who she is as an artist.
I was wondering that too except I wasn’t wondering about the TV. I was just wondering if the coaches and I were hearing the same thing. When Christina was talking about how effortless Terry’s performance was and how she didn’t have to worry that he would hit the notes, I wondered if she was thinking about his last performance. For the live round, I was mostly wondering if he would hit the notes, and I didn’t think he did at the end.
I watched the show again and I’ll have to say that I’m more pleased with Bryan’s performance than I was before. When I first watched it, I was more listening than watching intently. When I watched it again, I saw that he really had this great enjoyment of the moment that Christina picked up on. I liked that.
From Adam’s team, I hope Amanda and Bryan make it.
From Blake’s team, I hope that Terry makes it.
I like the new rule I’ve been reading about that there doesn’t need to be a singer from every coach that makes the final round. It’s unfair to be beat out by other people on your own team when another coach’s team isn’t as good.
We’ll see how it goes Wednesday night, but so far, I haven’t been impressed with anyone on Christina’s team. I hope that Trevin and Nicholas give great performances from Cee Lo’s team.
I have to harp again on the poor editing. They showed all of Nicole’s performance, but Nicole lost to Loren. They didn’t show any of Loren’s performances. The coaches seem to think that Loren’s performance in the knock-outs was a lot better than her previous performances. It would be nice to have been able to see the previous performances to see if that surprise performance was really predictable or whether she’s really inconsistent. I think the audience might vote differently depending on those prior performances. They might either think she improved a lot or they might think she is very inconsistent. But there’s not information either way because of the poor editing.
Somehow both Julio Ramirez and Terisa Griffin pulled it off. Neither botched it or missed the rhythm, which is so terribly fast. Given how even the performance was, I can see how Blake was left looking for something extra to go by, so looking at how it seemed Julio had to work harder to get there made the difference for him. I might have leaned to Terisa myself, but it was very tight.
