Is anyone sad bitchy Christina is gone? Not this girl, for sure. Shakira and Usher are great so far.
Maybe Blake just wants to work with a team that is confident and knows who they are. I got the impression that Christian was really needy and maybe Blake doesn’t trust he will be able to handle the pressure of the later rounds.
I’m not. He sound like 100,000 other singers trying to make it big in Hollywood.
ZZZZZZZZZ
For me the big thing was Sasha was not as good as during her audition.
True. Sometimes you wonder how much of what went on during the rehersals enters into the final decision
I did not like Taylor’s voice - at least enough to save her. I wonder if Blake picked her because she looks young.
The most confusing of the night. Not the pick itself but if I were a judge and Carson asked me my opinion, I would have responded by hitting my button and saying that I would steal whomever Adam didn’t pick. So why did only one judge steal and only after deliberating and saying what the hell.
Does anyone look at these people before they walk out the door? I thought the worse was Whore-Cleopatra with a headband that was stupid back in the 80’s
I was 6-0 in that the 6 people I would have picked were picked by the judges. Yay me!
I’d have sworn I saw a look pass over the shorter Swon Brother’s face when even he thought “Crap. There’s no way we’re winning this.”
I can’t say that I noticed the crotch. I was too busy being distracted by her 8" high shoes and her 9" high hairdo.
I do like that idea - but I wouldn’t watch without Adam, so maybe I don’t. I know he won season one. Did he finish in the top two in season two? S’pose I could go look that up…
I have never watched this show regularly but it is awesome this season! I am so glad Karina was stolen! I think she is so great.
So what happens after the battle rounds? Do people vote like on AI?
Shakira blew through her steals quick. I hope she didn’t mess up. Theres a lot more talent that the other coaches can still steal.
It’s possible, but he didn’t say anything like that. He said something about going with what he knows and is more comfortable with, and going with the two Okie boys like him who do country like him. That doesn’t sound like concerns over Christian’s confidence or ability. It just says that Blake may pick you in the auditions and then dump you for his country pick in the battle rounds, so be wary.
She seemed to be enunciating a little too crisply at the expense of not staying on tempo. Perhaps that goes to difference in prep time, or song style choice.
Well, it is ultimately a competition where the judges pick based upon their own whims. Maybe they stack their pairings where they think they’ve got a stronger competitor and a weaker competitor, maybe they put one out of their own element a little more, maybe they do their best to give the most balanced pairings and then are stuck with dead even performances. And when you have dead even performances, how should you decide? It totally makes sense that if they remember the blind audition performances, that comes in, and they think about working with those people, who had to adapt how, who overcame more to succeed, etc.
Adam actually did that last season, and then everybody hit their steal buttons. It did confuse me why Usher and Blake didn’t hit them. Shakira had to think because it was her last steal, so I can see why she might have been a little hesitant, since it’s so early in the battle rounds. Each coach only has 2 steals, and there are a lot of performers yet to come. And if I were a judge, I’d have notes on each of the competitors from the other teams, and have an idea which ones I wanted to keep alert for the steal potential, so maybe they know there are others they really want that haven’t been up yet.
Ah, the joys of strategy.
Which one?
Knockout rounds come next, where coaches pair two competitors, but the competitors sing their own songs - sometimes song choice is coach’s, sometimes competitor’s - depends on coach.
Then come the Live shows, where audience votes the winners. They’ve done it differently. Last season they ran it where all the competitors were against each other, and coaches were not assured of having a competitor in the final four. This was better than previous seasons.
I don’t watch the show, but I’ve enjoyed the recaps that Carson Daly does on his morning radio show here in LA. Sounds like they have some great talent this year.
Is it just me or does Usher keep getting shafted? Recently it seems to me every time he tried to choose/steal somebody that one of the other judges wanted, he didn’t get the person.
Irishman, thanks for starting the thread. I checked a couple weeks ago and didn’t see one then. I was too chicken to start one, thinking that no one else was watching this season.
I keep wondering if the contestants know something about Usher that the audience doesn’t see. It’s pretty blatant that people don’t want to pick him for some reason.
Sasha could see him begging her after her battle round, but she still went with Shakira.
I could understand people going with Adam or Blake because people have seen them work with other people on the show. But when Shakira wins over him, when he’s that passionate, it makes one wonder.
They showed Usher chewing out those two guys for laughing. I understand that they needed to take rehearsal seriously but that was a pretty tough reaction.
Isn’t Usher the only Voice coach that mentors talent in real life? They keep bring up Justin Bieber. Usher may be treating the Voice more like the real world. A little tough love to get the best out of his singers.
Then you missed it when the guy who laughed (forget his name) gave a disdainful look at his opponant who messed up before he started laughing at him. It was really disrespectful and Usher was calling him out.
I don’t know there’s any particular reason contestants haven’t picked Usher. I would think it just goes to the individual and their particular call in that moment. Just because Usher has a string of misses doesn’t mean there’s any deeper reason except the individual choices by each competitor. All the coaches give the hard sell. Usher won several in the Blind Auditions, he just didn’t win the steals yet.
I will say it is interesting to watch Usher and some of the creative ways he has taken to coaching. The stand across the room and have the girls try to draw him in, the one mike showdown.
I thought the show had learned better from last season, and cut the teams from 16 to 12 to prevent doing montages in the Battle Rounds, but alas, they montaged last night. :mad: It’s bad enough we miss blind auditions for competitors, but missing battle rounds misses seeing how they shape up for later competition. Last season one of the best performers was montaged out of both blind auditions and battle rounds, so we had no comparison when she came out in the knockouts and stunned the coaches. How were we to be surprised she did well?
For Adam’s country boys, I didn’t really care much either way. Couldn’t parse much of the lyrics.
On the Danielle Bradbury vs Caroline Glaser round, I didn’t think the song quite worked with Caroline’s voice, but she did pretty good. Danielle was awesome, though. I could sense Adam was probably going to snag whichever didn’t win, and I think Usher was thinking the same thing, which is why neither of them actually chose a winner. Thus I expected Blake to side with the technically better performance from the country girl (who is far better than his phenom from last season, also from the Houston metroplex). There was a slim chance he’d side on quirky voice, but Danielle was so good it would have been hard for him not to keep her. But I think they all sense a different music style and not having to powerhouse would make Caroline shine a lot better.
In the Josiah vs Jeff trade off (Usher’s two), I agree that Josiah had the better show.
They montaged Grace Askew, the “blountry” singer, and her rendition of Me and Bobby McGee.
I’m beginning to wonder if Usher is a good coach. The Jeff and Josiah battle is the only one in recent memory where I thought it just sucked all the way around. For Shakira to say she wasn’t impressed says a lot to me. But even before her comments, I thought it sucked. Granted, neither one started out great. (For whatever reason, I think Usher ended up with the worse talent overall; I do like Michelle Chamuel though, but that was a total surprise) But they’re supposed to get better. Shakira turned for Josiah, so he at least should have been good.
I did like the clips of Usher’s coaching techniques Irishman is talking about – the one mike thing and the attract the audience to you thing, but they didn’t seem to make the singers better in the short term.
I’m glad Blake kept Danielle. I really like her. I haven’t seen anyone that young that I liked before, but her voice is really rich and rounded out. She did a great job in the battles, especially for someone with no experience.
The Michael Austin/Warren Stone battle showed that Blake really is a good country coach. It just seemed to me that Adam wasn’t sure what to do with them.
I’m agreed with Irishman about the montages. They’re getting worse, not better. Last season, we didn’t see Cassadee Pope’s battle, and she won. I felt it was unfair because she didn’t have to live up to or overcome as much as if we were able to see more of what she did.
I hate the montages during the battle rounds. These people need to build fan bases and get votes later in the competition. If they are barely seen then how is that supposed to work?
Isn’t the money from Itunes going to the singers? Compensation for being on the Voice? If you aren’t shown singing the song then isn’t that killing the singer’s Itune sales?
FWIW, I don’t know anything about singing, but I’d imagine “Roxanne” is a difficult song to sing…and some of the coaches said that.
Also, and I suppose these things come down to taste, I thought Jeff sang it okay. I really didn’t like Josiah’s version. I would’ve chosen Jeff.
I never watched before, but my wife got me into it. I do like the fact that the judges are never cruel to the singers and even apologetic when they don’t choose someone.
I’ll admit I’m partial to Midas Whale, for their name alone.
Thanks for the response, Irishman. During the knockout rounds, are the competitors from two different teams?
So far I have seen the coaches in two outfits in front of the audience. Do they tape everything in one, long day? I wonder how long between the auditions with the coaches and the battle rounds. The one guy had enough time to have nasal surgery and Shakira looks like she has dropped some baby weight. My random observations. I am ready for Shakira to have another outfit.
Yeah, they pointed out that Sting has a fairly unique style, and singing that song trying to emulate him is a real challenge. Kinda like doing an Adele song and trying to out Adele her. I think they both were too close to the original to shine.
Compare to 2 seasons ago when Juliette Simms sang a version that knocked everybody out and put her on top for that show. (She then struggled to match that level.) She did it by a creative rendition that made it her own.
I wasn’t all that thrilled with either of them. I voted for Josiah, but he’s a crooner and I’m not going to like him for very long.
No, that’s one of the quirks of this show. While they style it as the coaches competing against each other, the reality is that most of the competition takes place within each team. Last season was the first time that in the live shows all the competitors were against each other, not within their own team. Knockouts were introduced last season and consist of two competitors within a team competing their own songs and then one being eliminated. Before that, all competitions were within teams until the Final 4.
Yes, the Blind Auditions were all filmed in one day. That’s much easier than it sounds because all the prepatory material is filmed in parallel with the actual auditions, or possibly after the fact and then pretended to be earlier (like the contestants walking into the show 1 at a time with their families, not in lines or crowds :dubious: ). The Battle Rounds were filmed some time later - I’m not certain the schedule, and appear to be filmed in one day. Consider that is only 24 songs plus time to reset and banter. From watching, the pairing selection happens on 1 day, where each pair gets a segment with the coach and mentor and get their song direction. Then there is at least a second day where they have more rehearsals and one-on-one discussions with the coach and mentor. And I think a third day for their final rehearsals. I don’t know exactly how many days, but that seems the minimum.
And again there is a period of maybe a week where they prepare for the next round, and then film those likely in one day. I get the feeling this is stretched out more, not happening in three quick weeks.
I agree. I don’t know anything about singing either, and I can imagine that “Roxanne” is a difficult song. That’s why I think Usher might not be such a great coach, in the context of the show. From my understanding, having watched it for a couple seasons, the job of the coach is to bring out the biggest assets of the contestants to help them shine for their performances. Cee Lo was great at playing up people’s strengths. He was even good at bringing out people’s weaknesses and using them as strengths. With Trevin Hunte, he used Trevin’s lack of confidence to come across as vulnerability, which played as a strength instead of a weakness.
Just from the small bit I’ve seen, it seems like Usher is trying to correct deficits. Everyone has deficits, and it’s great to work on them to make the performers more well-rounded. But that’s for after the show, when the person has their whole career to work on it. During the show, there isn’t enough time for that. During the show, there’s only enough time to pick the best song to highlight the best assets of the performers and help them hone their best features to make a good showing.
So far, Usher’s contestants might be learning a lot, but their best assets aren’t showing on the stage, IMO. In contrast, Shakira’s team members are really improving by leaps and bounds. That could just be the team members themselves showing initiative, or it could be the coaches focusing on the wrong things. It’s too early to tell, but so far, I’m starting to wonder if Usher understood the concept of the show when it started.
ETA: I just saw Irishman’s comment about Juliet Simm’s performance of “Roxanne”. I was so floored by her performance that I went back to watch it yesterday after writing about this. She rocked!
Damn motherfuckers went and montaged Michelle Chamuel - that was one I really wanted to see. :mad: I wanted to know if she really has the chops or it’s just the quirkiness that’s working for her. Guess I’ll have to see in the Knockouts.
Also, damn motherfuckers ruined the drama of the final match of the night. So it’s Shakira’s last two, a pair of latinas doing one of her own songs in spanish. And the competition is fierce and the results pretty even. So they of course lead in to the final commercial break with the ubiquitous cliffhanger where Shakira is going to announce the winner. All typical.
Then they do a “Coming up”. Now if you were paying attention, you knew this was the last pair (by show time), and you knew that Usher was the only coach with a steal, and he had one steal left. So you knew he was going to steal the non-winner. So what do they show in the “coming up”? First they show Usher hit steal. Great, not a surprise, but then they show a flash of one of the competitor’s faces reacting. That’s right, they just spent all that time setting up the cliffhanger drama of who will get picked by Shakira, and then they reveal who Usher steals. :mad: And I caught all of that hitting fast forward as they hit the commercial lead in.
As far as the competitions go, when Shakira put Brandon and Shawna doing “Piece of My Heart”, I was excited, I love that song. Janis Joplin really madet that song dig. And I could see that Shawna was stylistically similar enough to fit in that groove, and she was showing the feeling. For the competition, Brandon managed to come on strong and get the connection. I had a little hangup with the faces Shawna was making, but her singing was great. It was a close match, and Shakira picked Shawna. Fair call. Brandon is young at 19 and can go far.
Shakira’s last match of Cathia vs Maria set up Maria to look unprepared and perhaps not committed. When they actually performed, both were very good on pitch and tempo. Both had emotion and power. In the end Shakira kept Maria, and Usher snagged Cathia. I probably would have leaned Cathia.
Adam’s Duncan vs Sarah match were singing a Lady Antebellum song. Duncan was hard for me to understand, Sarah had a couple moments that sounded pitchy to me, but she had a lot of variability in her voice, and that’s who Adam picked.
We also missed out on the Battle of the Morgan Twins, Blake’s twin duo. Oh well, they got eliminated. From the snippet shown, Justin Rivers did pretty good.
Maybe they’re done with the stupid montages now and we can see all the friggin’ competitions from here on.