I was just going by audience excitement on the show, which isn’t a given that what worked live in the room translates across the TV, when people have the option to rewind and rewatch performances and compare more closely. I hope America agrees more with us, but the audience sure seemed excited by him.
I’m not even going to try and guess who America will vote for. When I tried that with America’s Got Talent sometimes voters would surprise me by voting off (in my opinion) clearly superior acts for ones who should have gone home a while ago.
Elimination show.
I usually don’t listen to non competition performances, but just for the heck of it I listened to team Christina and team Adam.
Team Christina - Isn’t this like, the third Maroon 5 song that’s been done on the show? And unfortunately I found it boring and not very good. Josh was OK because he kind of sounded like Adam.
Team Adam - Loved when they all sang together. Didn’t care for the individual vocals, except for James.
Anyway, about the eliminations
Team Blake - I agree with Austin and Cole being voted through, but i’m surprised he didn’t save Shelbie.
Team Cee-Lo - Agreed with Caroline getting voted through, a little surprised about Jonny. I’m glad Cee-Lo saved Kat.
Team Christina - Agree about Jacqui, but a little surprised about Mathew. I thought she should have saved Olivia.
Team Adam - James, Tess, and Will. I thought they were the three best so I’m glad they made it through.
As far as the performances go, they are lucky they weren’t being judged on those. I noticed a fair number of pitch and tempo issues, and there seemed to be some volume issues. Caroline was just not suited to that kind of performance.
For the results, I called it pretty well.
For Blake, I did not anticipate America picking Ray. There was something in that performance that was more engaging than his others, but he didn’t perk up to the level of the other three for me. Alas, he got through. With Austin in, I could see reasons Blake might have chosen any of the three, but am glad he picked Cole.
For Cee Lo, I did not see America picking Jonny. I don’t get it. Caroline deserved that win, which left Cee Lo picking from three ladies. I’m glad it was Kat that made it in.
For Christina, America called it like I expected, and I correctly surmised Christina would look at Josh’s potential over whatever happened that night.
For Adam, America went with my choices in James and Tessanne. Adam surprised me with his pick - I was sure he was going to back Preston with that unique old sound he kept praising, and with Will being a double save, that could be interpreted to mean he’s weaker. I’m glad, I think Will has more potential and is more enjoyable.
New save this season. Based onthis Hulu clip (has a commercial before it), Carson is saying that there will be a new feature online this season. In the live eliminations, the audience will be able to save one of the bottom three contestants by tweeting their favorite contestant’s name within 5 minutes of when Carson announces it live on the East coast. The other time zones would have to watch Twitter to see who the bottom three were to put in their vote.
On an unrelated note, as I’m watching clips on Hulu, I’m liking Matthew less and less. Not his fault or anything to do with him. But Hulu has it set up so every time you don’t manually pick a clip, it picks a clip of one of his performances. I’ve seen the first part of his performances so often that I’m really sick of him. If anyone else out there is feeling the same, it’s a bummer for him. It doesn’t have anything to do with him.
My opinion of how they ranked and comments on a few of the performances.
[ol]
[li]Austin - I’m not a country fan, but he gave a great performance. It was strong and solid all the way through.[/li][li]Jacquie - Awesome! She owned it! It was a close second for me. I put Austin first because I thought his performance was great all the way through, whereas Jacqui alternated between good and great.[/li][li]Kat - I’ve never heard this song before, and frankly I didn’t care for it, but I thought she did a great job with what she was given and I loved her falling backwards into the crowd.[/li][li]Cole[/li][li]Matt[/li][li]Tess - I wish she would have had more emotional connection with the song.[/li][li]Ray[/li][li]Will[/li][li]Caroline - So so. It didn’t connect with me and I thought she got overpowered by the background vocals.[/li][li]James - Bad start. He got better, but I didn’t think it was great overall.[/li][li]Josh - Probably just my bias, but his voice seemed too soft for my tastes.[/li][li]Jonny - I didn’t care for his abrupt syle of singing he did for half the song. I thought it got a little better when he stopped doing it, but not enough for me to enjoy the performance.[/li][/ol]
Interesting. When I heard Tessanne, I thought “that’s gonna be top 2” even knowing there were three more performers, and then Matthew and Cole performed.
I do have to say there were a number of songs I’ve never particularly connected with or cared for, but trying to get over that and evaluate the performances.
Tops (no particular order):
Austin: I’m not really a country fan, but it was a great performance.
Tessanne: Loved it all.
Matthew: Gack on the topic, but I have to say this is his first performance I could feel the emotion, and he had a range of volume. His best so far IMO.
Cole: Different direction but excellently done.
Kat: Just amazing. I like that she sings in a lower register rather than the upper high register so typical for ladies. I like her energy and vibe. I loved her abandon to crowd surf and keep singing through it, and not miss a note. I have to wonder if that was choreographed. I don’t know how.
Side note: last week she just hugged a random audience member at the end of her song. This week she crowd surfed. She really knows how to use and engage the audience.
Bottoms:
6. Will: Technically I think he missed a few spots but the engagement with the performance was great and overall I enjoyed it.
-
Jacquie: Something about her voice in the soft-spots was off-putting for me. I can’t place it, but it was … off. But her power and emotion were great and she delivered overall.
-
Josh: Good song choice, good delivery. I’m not sure why I don’t have him higher. Maybe because he was so early in the night?
-
Ray: better performance than he’s had, still not really my thing, but probably connected with the ladies well enough.
-
Caroline: She gave a pretty good performance for her, this was a different version of a song I usually turn away from for the country vibe. I thought she did okay, but I don’t think it was enough to compare to the tops above.
-
James: Ditto on the bad start. Just some off notes in there. He had good stage presence, but struggles in his delivery.
-
Jonny: same feeling about his delivery. It’s his style that has been offputting to me from the beginning. I just don’t connect to him as an artist.
I’d prefer to see Ray and Jonny go, but James has been inconsistent. Caroline just isn’t what I care for. I suppose Josh could be in that mix for last place.
Last night Carson mentioned the new audience save on the last three, so we’ll see how that works out.
Yeah, the twitter instant save seems kind of strange.
OK audience, there are now three ways to save an artists.
- Vote for them on-line
- Judge save.
- Vote for them on Twitter.
You know one change I’d love to see. Change the Steel in the battle and knockout rounds to a save and allow each judge to use it on their own contestant if they want. So if two artists do equally as well then the judges can keep both of them.
I like the saves, because it corrects the flaw in many of these shows that sometimes a great artist gets booted off the competition due to a statistical fluke, vote-splitting, a fanatical following for another artist that strips votes away from the other, etc.
The Judges’ save ensures that if there’s an artist they truly think deserves to be in the top 12, they can guarantee it.
The audience save helps in the situation where a fluke of voting lands an obviously superior artist in the bottom three with a couple of also-rans. For example, if there’s an artist who is everyone’s second choice but no one’s first choice, that artist can land in the bottom despite being much better than some who got higher vote totals. But once the audience gets to pick from just the three on the bottom, the best one should come out on top. But we’ll see how this actually works out.
In any event, the thing I like most about the Voice is that they work hard to make it first and foremost a show featuring great performances. They try to find the best talent without any gimmicks - just send scouts out to find them, or put people on the show who are known for being ‘undiscovered talent’ within the industry. No arena competitions and all that. So they start with the best, and then try to showcase them in the best possible way. Their band is filled with some of the best session players around, the stagecraft and lighting is top-notch, etc.
American Idol fails at most of this - it’s had some great performances in the past, but far too often you could tell that everyone was just kind of phoning it in. The great performances on American Idol generally required the singer to overcome the limitations of the format, whereas the Voice’s format helps singers achieve greatness.
As for last night, I thought Kat, Jacquie, and James were the best of the bunch. James was barely in the top three for me, but again I think that’s because of the song choice. I’m bumping him up a bit because the difficulty level was high.
Caroline is a favorite but was totally out of her style with that song. The coach made a big mistake making her do that - it’s like asking Nora Jones to do some Zeppelin. Sorry, not in the wheelhouse and that doesn’t take anything away from the artist. I hope she doesn’t get sent home over that, because when she sings from the heart she’s mesmerizing.
Josh is a disappointment for me so far. I like the guy, and really liked him when he was on Rock Star Supernova. He killed on songs like “Santeria”, “She Talks to Angels”, and “Plush”. Since then, it seems he’s become a more stylized ‘soul’ artist, and he’s really oversinging everything. Chill down, man. Pick a song with a groove or a hook, and just have fun with it.
Jonny can go home any time. He’s got no stage presence at all, he’s got a nasally voice with no power, and I just don’t see what others seem to see in him. He wants to be a rocker, but doesn’t come near to being able to pull it off. He’s too meek and mild, and can’t command the stage like a true rock star.
All right, first off, I am so glad Kat got saved. I’m really surprised she was on the bottom 3.
I ranked Josh and Jonny as my two least favorite performances so I’m not sad that they went home.
I knew that Austin and Cole would make it. There was no doubt.
And finally, for the team performances, I really only paid attention to teem Cee-Lo because “Rome” is one of my favorite songs. They did OK. I’m just glad they didn’t slaughter it.
Cee-Lo totally slaughtered Roam. It was one of the worst versions I’ve that song I’ve heard.
I’m sad Kat got saved because I don’t like her. There’s something about her that seems very calculated. The rocker girl act just feels like an act and I haven’t liked her performances anyway.
I think the whole “tweeting” save is just going to put off the inevitable anyway.
Ward Churchill got booted. That guy can’t catch a break.
Are you referring to Jonny?
I’m honestly baffled by the love for Caroline. She easily has the weakest voice of the bunch, and I hate that twee, affected cutesy style of singing. It reminds me of dozens of other faux-“alternative” pop singers with limited range and vanishing distinction.
I am honestly baffled by the love for rock music. Different strokes, I guess. 
Something was weird with the results. First off, Caroline being so early seems off to me. There’s no way her performance was that good. Then Kat didn’t deserve to be in the bottom 3. I mean, she might not have been top 3 (or even top 5), but she wasn’t bottom 3. At least the Twitter save worked - this time.
I’m happy with Jonny being gone. He never really did much for me. I woulda kept Josh longer, but better him than Kat.
There are no more judge saves. The last of those was the first live elimination round, when the teams were pared down from 5 to 3. Now the judges can only watch. The only control they have is in song selection and in shaping and coaching the performers and performances.
I thought about that. From a numbers standpoint, it wouldn’t make a difference. Either they save one from another team or they save one from their own team. But from a show dynamics standpoint, I think it would affect the flow. It would essentially negate that round of the competition. If the coach has two saves in 4 Battle rounds, that is 2 matches they can completely negate. The whole point of the Battles and Knockouts is for the coaches to shape their teams and whittle down their choice for who is best to take forward. If they can keep their own in that situation, then there’s no incentive to make a decision and no point to the round. With the “steal” the truly good performers can stay in the match, but it still makes a change as they have to switch coaches.
Amusing you don’t know the name of your favorite song. 
(It’s “Roam”, as in “Travel around if you want to. Wander around the world. Go random places without direction if you want to. Without anything but the love we feel.”)
Cee-lo’s voice didn’t fit that song.
We shall see if it ever works out significantly, or if the save one week ends up bottom looks the following week.
I think the easiest explanation is that Caroline is sweet and adorable, and Kat is dangerous and threatening. A general audience is bound to have large swaths of people who dislike hard rock in general, and really dislike a woman who stalks around and makes faces and does outrageous things like crowd surf. I love her, but I can understand that a lot of people would be really put off by it.
Caroline, on the other hand, wins hearts. Her first performances were all adorable. And she’s got a great voice with a unique tone and really stands out from the other female contestants. She’s made enough of an impression on the voting audience by now that they’re willing to overlook one weak performance. But if she doesn’t return to form next week, she could be in trouble.
If Kat is smart, she’ll take the bottom 3 position as a wakeup call and come out next week with something more laid back (but still emotional) and tone down the crazy eyes and glares into the camera. If she does, she’ll be fine because she’s got the goods. If she comes out and rocks hard again, she might wind up in the bottom 3 again.
What would be interesting is a dynamic where she’s disliked by enough of the audience to constantly land her in the bottom 3, but loved by enough of them to be constantly saved. I could see how a polarizing artist could wind up in that kind of situation.
Yeah, I forgot about no more judges saves when I posted that.
I don’t think a couple of saves here or there would change things that much, but I see what you’re saying.
D’oh! Well, we’re none of us perfect.
I did notice an almost deliberate cut, when they were focused on Kat and she started to do the “crazy eyes” and suddenly they cut to Cee Lo.
Neither here nor there, but the remaining singers on Team Blake seem to have very similar voices.
[ol]
[li]Tess[/li][li]Ray[/li][li]**Kat **& Matt[/li][li]Jacquie & Will - I don’t think I’ve ever heard that song. I think it was a bad choice, but I thought he sang it well anyeay.[/li][li]Austin - He’s a rocker? When is he going to rock out? Anyway, I thought he was OK, but not breakthrough. The ending was great, but like Adam, I wish I woud have heard more of that earlier on.[/li][li]Cole[/li][li]James - I’m not afraid or ashamed to say I love this song (the Air Supply version) and I don’t think he did it justice.[/li][li]Caroline - I was confused by, and didn’t like the musical style. Was going for a caribian beat? Funk? Whatever it was, I thought it sucked.[/li][/ol]