The Voice, Season 5

Cafe Society
81

I think I’d take Nobody’s listing and turn it upside down. I like Caroline and James and don’t like Tess as much. She seems like a nice person though. I just don’t feel whatever she’s singing. This was the first song that I understood some of the words, but mostly they’re unrecognizable to me.

But I like Austin less. I started out not liking Austin and have never warmed up to his singing. I didn’t like Cole and Matthew in the beginning, but last week’s performance was pretty impressive to me. Matthew’s start was pretty rough to me, but I don’t know if that was the audience, the band or him.

The last part of James’ vocal was off, as Christina mentioned, but was it supposed to be like that? It’s hard to believe he hit all the notes in the middle and then missed the lower notes at the end. It seemed planned, but didn’t work out.

Caroline’s song wasn’t impressive, but it was still solid.

The two people I’d miss the least are Austin and Kat.

82

Wow. Okay, last night had a lot of great songs that were delivered with a lot of issues for whatever reason.

Austin: I like the song, I wanted to enjoy it, but for whatever reason that performance just didn’t work. His delivery didn’t excite. He was mellow when he should have been strong.

Jacquie: Another song I like, another delivery that had issues. She started weak and off pitch in the quiet bit, then kicked in. But then she had a weird choice on the refrain with the tempo that I didn’t like. And there’s something in her tone that is offputting at the low ends.

Will: Not a song I know, he gave a decent performance, but the big note for some reason just didn’t work for me. He was very consistent in that note, it just grated to my ears. I like him, but that delivery fell short.

Caroline: Nice song, and even something that mellow seems to overwhelm her voice. She had an okay performance and didn’t miss notes, but I just don’t like her voice.

Cole: I was ready to be impressed. Another great song, should have been a good fit for his voice, but … I didn’t like his slow down, and wanted him to at least once sing the refrain. And I kept expecting a note he didn’t hit. Just missed as a performance.

Tessanne: Finally! Didn’t know the song, but it worked for her. The low start was still very nice tone and sultry, and then it slowly built to the end. I didn’t hear the thing Christina said about her Jamaican accent coming through, but I don’t want her Jamaican accent to come through. I loved this performance. The first big hit of the night, someone finally doing it right. I think she was #2 on the night.

Ray: Oddly, this performance really worked for him. I’ve been very critical of him before, so I will say that I enjoyed this performance and I have to rate him #3 on the night. He got the job done this time.

James: Another song I like, another delivery that didn’t quite work. He had the emotion and most of it was pretty good, but there were a few notes that didn’t hit, and the ending stuck out. He’s just a bit inconsistent.

Kat: This was the performance of the night to me. Great song choice, really worked to her style and voice. On reflection she might have been just a hair shaky right at the beginning, but I was just intrigued and missed it first time through. I liked the staging, I liked her delivery, I loved her dress. Yes, it was a Cee Lo presentation with the dancers and all that, but it worked for me.

Matthew: Ugh. First off, beautiful is an adjective, not a fucking noun. Beneath your beautiful what? That said, I can’t fault Matthew for a lyricist that doesn’t know English, but I can fault him for a bad start that was too weak and missing pitches and weird tone when he increased volume and just generally annoying me.

Top of the night is easy for me, it’s Kat, Tessanne, Ray in 1, 2, 3.

After that it gets murky in a stream of issues each singer having something off.

If I picked who was going home it would be Matthew and Caroline, for pitch issues in Matthew’s case plus both of them just having tone that I just don’t like. But I’m sure America won’t agree with that summary.

Austin and Cole didn’t miss on pitch but neither connected. (Similar for Caroline but I’ve never liked her voice.) For missing pitch I’d say it’s Jacquie and James, but Will might be in bottom looks to round out the three. Or I could be way off.

83

Hated James’s performance. What happened to stripped down and intimate? OTOH, loved Caroline’s version of Leaving On A Jet Plane.

84

I am astonished and perplexed by tonight’s results.

I am surprised Caroline ended up in the bottom three based upon America’s previous response to her. I can see Austin ended up based on a lackluster performance, but how the hell did Kat wind up in the bottom again? Fuck.

So Caroline got saved. Great. :rolleyes:

85

My top four pics made it through, so, yahoo!

I’m also surprised that Kat was in the bottom again. I wish she would have been twitter saved instead of Caroline.

Team Adam is looking pretty good. Possibly on the way to win #2.

86

I believe it is “Beneath you’re beautiful”

87

lyrics

Obviously by context he means beauty, but that still doesn’t make any sense to me unless he’s talking about things like makeup and jewelry.

88

Everyone seems to think the song title is “Beneath Your Beautiful”. Not “You’re”.

I’d accept an image from the actual album cover or album liner notes to show otherwise.

89

I just posted some of the lyrics. And again, he’s obviously using beautiful in place of beauty.

90

Right, you pasted lyrics off internet sources where the words were typed in by any random person. I was suggesting that if he wished to prove his version was more accurate, he would need something more concrete. Thus a scanned image of the album rather than what [del]anybody can type[/del] everyone else is typing on the internet.

Because google search on the song for me pulled up a video with the lyrics “Beneath you’re beautiful” written in. In fact, it had a “correction” box over the title page to make it say “Beneath Your Beautiful”.

I agree it sounds like he’s using beautiful in place of beauty. In a hamhanded way that grates my ears. The lyrics seem to be suggesting that her beauty is some kind of shield or mask she wears for the world. Maybe with some interpretation I gather that he’s suggesting her perfection is a shield, and underneath she is a vulnerable person, and he wants to be let in to the real her. But the lyrics as written are as graceful as a rockhopper penguin scaling bluffs*.

*From Waddle All The Way. Penguins on land have got to be the least graceful birds anywhere.

91

Well the lyrics I linked to conform to what I’ve heard, and I tried finding scanned images but came up empty. But whatever. It’s not a big deal to me.

92

Sadly for me most of tonight’s performances seemed mediocre. With the exception of my top two pics.

[ol]
[li]Jacquie -In my opinion she blew everyone else away. And she strongly sounds like Christina to me. But of course since that’s who is coaching her… :cool:[/li][li]Ray -Second to last performance, but the first one that popped for me.[/li][li]Will -[/li][li]James -This version was too operatic for me, but he sang the hell out of it.[/li][li]Cole - For me, it was a much better performance than last week.[/li][li]Tess -[/li][li]Caroline - I liked her singing during the chorus, but not the verses.[/li][li]Matt - His performance fell flat for me.[/li][/ol]

93

I’d agree with most of that, except I’d put Ray after Cole. Ray just doesn’t do it for me. He sings like he’s straining for every note, and his attempt to be ‘soulful’ just doesn’t seem natural. “Gimme Some Lovin’” is a great song, and I actually hit fast-forward 3/4 of the way through because it was boring me.

Jaquie just killed it. That was an amazing performance - one of the best of the season.

James should have rated higher, but the song was over-produced and left his voice back in the mix too far. And there were too many distractions going on.

Caroline is falling victim to Cee-Lo’s terrible song choices. He kept going on about how important it was for Caroline to ‘step out of her comfort zone’, but that makes about as much sense as making Norah Jones sing Zeppelin just so she doesn’t get comfortable. Caroline’s gift is a wonderful tone in her lower register and a sweetness of delivery that comes naturally to her. Forcing her to parade around and belt out high register pop songs destroyed every natural advantage she has and made her average.

Matt can go home now. I have no idea why he’s still there. Tess can go too - she’s a great technical singer but just can’t deliver a song without coming across as practiced and studied. Every little hand gesture or move felt like she’d practiced it in front of a mirror or something. Maybe it’s just me, but I just don’t connect with anything she does.

94

Yes, that’s a perfect description. I have got to work on my analytical skills.

This wouldn’t be the first time his song choices had lead to someone being voted off.

95

I liked James’s performance, but now that you mention the criticisms, I think maybe I can see it.

I put the top 3 as
James, Will, Jacquie

and I’m a little hard pressed to rank them. Those I really enjoyed. James started off the night well and made a high mark to live up to. Unfortunately, most of the rest made a race for the bottom. Ranking the others:

  1. Ray. I know, I’m not really a fan, but once again he got the job done. He sang it well and it worked.

  2. Cole. He sang well, I would have liked it better for a different song, but it was country and so I’m less a fan.

  3. Tessanne. I know Christina said to emphasize her Jamaican accent and this song did that, but it did nothing for me. I’m not a fan of this.

  4. Caroline. Probably her best delivery, didn’t get overwhelmed (mostly) and has the most power from her, but I hate her tone. And I think I agree the song choices aren’t right for her. Trying to prove she can do anything is the wrong approach - she can’t do anything. Focusing on songs where her tones make sense would be her best approach.

  5. Matthew. I’m tired of him. His voice actually hurt my ears. I’m not exaggerating. I don’t see what people like in him. Yes, he can belt out a note - a note that makes me cringe.

From those performances, I’d drop Caroline and Matthew and hope Tessanne doesn’t do what Christina suggested for next time. But I can’t guess what America’s going to do.

[QUOTE=Nobody]
This wouldn’t be the first time his song choices had lead to someone being voted off.
[/QUOTE]

That would have been the Thompson Sisters back in season 1, for Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.

96

And season 3 Diego Val, because Cee-Lo was trying to mold him into a Latin pop artist even though that’s not what he was going for.

97

And Cee-Lo’s out! As he should be. Next week, and God willing, Blake goes down. :smiley:

Out of the bottom 3 I was hoping Ray would get the Twitter save. Oh well.

It’ll be cool if Christina can get a win. I’d also like to see Adam get a second win. Anyone but Blake.

98

So Matthew and Caroline ended up in the bottom 3. Interesting. I’m pleasantly surprised that Matthew did so poorly. Ray instead of Tessanne doesn’t really bother me - I thought his performance was okay, but he never excited me. And a lot of people probably liked Tessanne’s song choice and style.

So Matthew got the instant save, and Caroline is out. That means the record so far on instant saves has merely been to prolong the inevitable. But we haven’t had that many of them, so there isn’t much of a sample to base it on.

At this point, my favorite left is probably Will, but I don’t mind any of them but Matthew.

And while Adam seems to still be doing great with 3 contestants left to Blake’s 1 and Christina’s 2, remember last season when Adam and Blake each had 3 to Shakira and Usher’s 1 each, when two of Adam’s dropped in one week. It really does come down to the individual performances.

99

For that matter, Freebird didn’t help Juliet Simms.

100

I was hoping that Cee Lo would pick a good song for Caroline, and he didn’t. She wasn’t able to recapture the magic of earlier rounds. She seemed to exert less of her own style in each performance over the course of the competition. If she had a bit more confidence and insisted on putting more of her own style into each song, I think she could have done well. She seemed to know what her style was when she started, but then seemed to get caught up in what other people wanted her to do in the end.

I’m really baffled why the coaches are surprised that Matthew was in the bottom three. I’m surprised he’s still there. Are they not listening to the same thing we’re listening to? He had one good song a while ago. That doesn’t carry over to every performance.

I can’t even nail down what I don’t like about Tess. She seems like a nice person. In the duet performance of “Royals”, I thought Caroline sounded better. Tess sounds off somehow.

At this point, I’m liking James, Will and Jacquie, but it’s hard to predict. They have all shown that they can nail it one week and flub it in a big way the next.