Without seeing the performances, I’m hoping it’s the Swon Brothers and Holly because then the coaches will each have one contestant left. It has a decent chance of happening.
So. Much. Country. Even the non-country artists had country songs, and Amber’s non-country song was country-fied. I kind of wish two artists were going home this week, because chances are they’d be of the country persuasion.
I like ranking things, so here are mine from best to worst:
Sasha’s #1 (Aretha Franklin song) – best voice, IMO.
Michelle’s #2 (Taylor Swift song) – best performer, IMO.
Amber’s #2 (Patsy Cline song)
Sasha’s #2 (Carrie Underwood song)
All the other performances that weren’t the Swon Brothers
The performances by the Swon Brothers
Amber just finished “I remember you”. I hate Adam for that. She didn’t slaughter it like I thought she would (my wife joked about Slaughter being a different band :p), but I love that song and don’t think it works as a country song.
YES! In your face Swon haters!!! 
So I missed the 2 hour performances Monday but saw them last night, but didn’t see the elimination show because I got caught up in America’s Got Talent (and some don’t). So my local TV station helpfully revealed the results for me. :mad:
I forgot about double performances. And then they threw in only 1 elimination, not 2. Okay.
First off, what the fuck is with Blake’s song choices? God those were dreadful. I mean, the performers were good, hit the notes, held the tempo, but the lyrics and styles just gag me.
I really liked how Sasha performed. She had two great performances. I loved the Aretha song, it really worked for her. She did a good rendition of the Carrie Underwood song, but I don’t care for that song. I keep thinking how whomever is singing is going to end up spending some time in jail and then doing community service and restitution - at least that’s what would happen if it were my truck (not that I cheat, or have a girlfriend to cheat on). The narrator sounds psycho and the guy needs a restraining order for her.
Michelle’s first song was okay, she does tend to drop out on the softer bits (or else my ears don’t work), but her second performance was spectacular. I just can’t not root for her. Her energy and emotion sells me.
Amber doing a countrified version of “I Remember You” was okay, though she did flub one of the early lines. I looked up the lyrics on my phone, the first page didn’t have the verses she was singing and then had the chorus with “love letters innocence”. So I looked up a different site and got “love letters in the sand”. Ah.
She sounded great with the Patsy Cline song. She really delivers the torch songs.
Danielle was okay on her first one (another blah song from Blake), better on her second one, and had a great ending to it.
Holly did pretty good with her performances, but I wasn’t thrilled by either song choice.
The Swons were just everything I don’t like about Country music. Listening to Blake’s comments about their song choices, I’m happy to be in the top 10%.
On those performances, I would have eliminated The Swons. I know a lot of that is personal taste, and their voices weren’t bad, but that’s what I want gone.
Found out Holly was let go. Oh well, she woulda been my second loss.
Still don’t know who I want to win. I like Sasha, Amber, Michelle, and Danielle. They all have good voices and performances. As long as the Swons are the next to go, I guess I’m not caring who actually wins, I’ll be happy.
Oh, and I noted that Adam actually mentioned in his comments about Michelle having been a contestant on a prior season. It was part of his “we’ve watched you improve” shpiel. That would have been a 
for me except we already discussed it here.
(I also note I was watching America’s Got Talent (but some don’t) last night, there were two singers who performed.
One was a country guy, came bouncing out on stage, all big hick goofiness and “aw shucks” attitude. The judges were cringing when he sat down. Then he dropped the smoothest little sweet country love song written by Bob Dylan, that he said he sings for his wife all the time. It was charming in a country twang kinda way, quiet and sweet. Everyone was stunned.
The second was a 10 year old girl and her keyboard, came out and chatted with Howard a second. Then she started singing “House of the Rising Sun”, and holy shit her voice was amazing. If you closed your eyes, you’d never have guessed that came out of a ten year old. Howie said it sounded like 30years worth of singing experience. Seriously good.)
Some of us did, and one of us even started a thread about it.
I’ve always thought something similar whenever I’ve heard that song.
I thought both song choices were poor for her, but that she did the best she could with them.
I meant, some don’t have talent. But I’ll check out the thread.
Watched the results show, without much tension on the results. Tried to pick the order of saves, did pretty good.
I enjoyed Sasha and Michelle doing “Open Your Heart” together. Fun. Then Amanda and Danielle did “Eternal Flame” together. (a) Great performance. (b) This should have been a competition song.
We had Cassadee Pope return for a debut of her new single and she’s working on a new album - a country album. DAMMIT BLAKE!
Seriously. He was the one who was always complaining about Cee Lo’s sets with the sexiness in the background. What was with the bar girls in the background of that scene?!
I think Blake is trying to introduce really country songs because the more he does that the more likely he’ll win the ACM again. One year people were complaining that he hadn’t even released an album and still won the ACM but other people backed him up saying that his appearance on The Voice was giving country music a wider audience. He’s probably using that wider audience to continue to introduce more country into the mainstream through those artists.
I’d take out Amber from that list. She’s been improving and her voice is really good, but IMO she doesn’t have that something that the others have. . .that intangible quality that Shakira is calling star quality.
I noticed last season that at this point, it became sort of an endurance test. Everyone who didn’t make it looked really worn out, so I’m trying to gauge that also. I’m amazed that Danielle has been able to keep up so far. Michelle has already released a single with her band, so she’s used to singing all the time. Sasha was a backup singer, so she’s used to learning new songs and singing all the time too. I like Michelle and Danielle because they were the underdogs, but just taking a shot in the dark here, I think I’m going with Sasha. The person I’d like to see win though is Danielle. I’d like to see her next season singing her new song.
Something else interesting I noticed about Michelle is that she gives a different version of her story whenever someone asks what she was doing before The Voice. In the blinds, she said she was performing 200+ nights a year with her band Ella Riot and getting changed in bathrooms that were yuck. The next time she was asked, she said that she worked in a bakery and wasn’t working on her solo career. The next time she was asked by Usher, she said that she was working on an album.
It’s not that they’re contradictory stories. I guess she could have been working in a bakery while she played with her band Ella Riot and worked on an album, but not worked on her solo career. Those could all work together, in a way, I guess. But generally, when you ask someone what they were doing, they say the most dominant thing, not different parts of it. I think she was able to put a more sympathetic spin to her story than Judith did.
When Judith was eliminated, she remarked that people root for the underdogs and she was billed as the frontrunner, so that made things more difficult for her. She didn’t realize that they would play up the Michael Jackson thing so big because that made her less sympathetic. But actually, Michelle was more successful than Judith in a way. Michelle had already released a single with her band.
I think it goes to show, as one of the interviewers that interviewed Judith after her elimination noted, that the show isn’t really just about the singing because the stories play into it also.
Now, I understand that country music is tracking towards being pretty much just pop music with a southern accent, but Pope doesn’t even have that. How in the hell was that country music? Just cause Blake says it is?
The music was a bit twangy, even though her voice wasn’t. Then they stated she has a country album coming out this fall. They described it that way.
6/10/13
I think Michelle did the best tonight. She definitely did better than her previous performances, in my opinion, and was awesome tonight.
Since my memory is crap, to remember what I think of each performance I score them on a scale of 1 to 10. So for a quick recap of how I’m ranking the performers:
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Michelle 10/10, 10/10
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Daniel 9.5/10, 10/10
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Swons 9.5/10, 9/10
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Sasha 9/10, 9/10
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Amber 6.5/10, 10/10
The Swon Brothers have won me over the past three weeks. I wasn’t that impressed with them in the Battle Rounds. They seemed a little cocky and didn’t seem to take rehearsing that serious. They seemed more like a novelty act in the audition and battle rounds.
Blake has done a remarkable job with them. Every week their stage presence and production gets better. This is the first time that I’ve seen artists on The Voice that I will follow after the show ends. I want to buy whatever record they record just to see if they can keep up the quality without Blake.
This week was really impressive. I couldn’t imagine anyone but Bob Seger doing Turn the Page and Anne Murray singing Danny’s Song. Kudos to the Swon Brothers. They made these iconic songs their own.
I have to say, I think last night goes to the Swon brothers. Both their songs were great. Some of it is song choice for me, but still they did the songs well.
Michelle and Danielle both did great.
Sasha stumbled on the first couple notes of the Whitney song, but then recovered well and overall delivered pretty good.
Amber had problems with the Maroon 5 song. Something about the notes didn’t work for me.
Tonight is going to suck. Two people go home, and off those performances it likely won’t be the Swon Brothers.
Crap, that reminds me that I forgot to vote.
Irishman correctly pointed out the two performers that stumbled a bit Monday and that got them eliminated.
I have to blame Shakira for Sasha’s problems. Shakira picked so many different styles of songs for Sasha. A Whitney ballad and a disco song in the same night? Sasha never created a unique identity on the show.
Glad the Swon Brothers made it to the finals. Danielle will probably win. Michelle is too irritating with all her dramatic squatting. Why hasn’t Usher fixed that problem? Who wants to see a woman take a crap on stage?
Someone please explain the love for the Swon Bros? I can go to any shitkicking bar here in Denver and hear a country cover band as good as they are. It struck me during their last performance that that is exactly what they are - a cover band but I get on here and the Dope (and apparently America as a whole) are making fondue in their panties over these guys. What am I missing?
As for Sasha getting booted, she game America a lot of reasons to not vote for her. You can’t be successful doing a Whitney (or Sting or Adele) song no matter how good you are and who is going to get excited and vote for disco?
There’s a balancing act between creating a coherent identity for the singer and showing versatility and creativity. The judges seem to be leaning toward versatility right now, rather than limiting to one genre and style.
For me, Sasha’s problem was inconsistency. Overall I liked her performances and style, even with the variety. But she had off moments in several of her performances, and those off moments were weaknesses that Danielle and the Swon Brothers didn’t have. Those off moments were unrelated to the style changes and purely performance issues.
Amber was in a similar situation. She was bouncing between country and pop, sultry and rock. But my problem wasn’t in her bouncing all over the dial, it was specific pitch and tone problems on specific performances.
On this show, everyone is a cover band, so we don’t really get to see if they have any creativity and unique voice to offer. The ones where we get glimmers happen with the way they craft their renditions. That’s why Melanie Martinez held on so long last season despite having pitch problems - she had a unique and coherent identity and solid idea of who she was as a performer. Her performances were shaped to fit her. When we get a unique or creative new take on an old standard, that stands out over simple “sing that song like it’s been done before”. That’s the Dia Frampton factor from season 2. Again, she had a quirky voice that was offputting to some (okay, me), but she had a strong sense of identity and her creativity in what she did was very evident in the performances she gave.
And thinking about it, I wonder if that is what has contributed to the ultimate lack of success of the Voice Finalists? We’ve had three full seasons of shows, and several drop records, and none of them have really broken out. Where is the Kelly Clarkson, the Clay Aiken, the Carrie Underwood of the Voice? But that show also uses covers of existing songs for the competition, so that can’t be the deciding factor. But perhaps it contributes.
For example, last night we had Tony Lucca, Terry McDermott, and Nicholas David grace us with an original song from each of their new EPs coming out soon. Of the three, I actually liked Nicholas David’s best. He had a great new song that sounded good. It’s not my favorite genre, but I liked it. I liked Tony as a contestant but wasn’t wowed by this song, and Terry’s performance was much better on this than some of his “crystal clear” performances on the show (largely because he controlled where the notes went), but they just weren’t quite that catchy. And Cassadee’s song from the other night wasn’t what I wanted or expected out of her, either.
For me, it wasn’t song choice, it was missing notes. You can’t be successful doing Whitney or Sting or Adele and goofing up, now matter how good you otherwise are. A 95% performance won’t hold up to 100% performances around you.
I’ve been listening to the studio versions of the Swon Brothers. The harmony’s are much better. Isn’t harmony harder to do live on stage? They have stage monitors but it must be tough hearing yourself well enough to harmonize with someone.
The Swon’s aren’t just country. They did really well on Tom Petty’s American Girl and I Won’t Back Down. Country is more in their wheelhouse. Blake is the same way. He’ll bust out a rock song once in awhile and then slide back into country.
Since how well people like singers and bands is subjective, it could any number of reasons.
I bet Danielle’s parents are conflicted about her possibly winning. It could create some big problems for them. She’s only 16. Danielle needs to mature a few years before she jumps into touring and recording. She’s impressed a lot of people and the opportunities will still be there in a couple years.