The Voice: Season 6 thread

Cafe Society
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I didn’t notice that. I’ll have to look. If you mean what we see on the screen isn’t what they’re saying, that’s possible.

My realization was that this is all taped months previously, so they hadn’t, in fact, seen their own performances or likely seen each others - being backstage and getting ready and whatnot. So this is likely the first time they saw what the other person did, or their own performance.

I guess it’s possible they watch an early cut of recordings that is not the polished segment we see, so they’re faking what is displayed. But I’m not convinced.

I don’t think it’s the commmercials, though it does feel that way in the middle segment when they drop a commercial break after the rehearsals and another during the coach making the decision.

Biff vs Sisaundra, “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”: I think it was Sisaundra’s to lose, and she smoked it. Biff was really good, but Sisaundra was from another world. Such power, such range, such precision on pitch and timing, smart runs. We’ve seen the favorite get beat before, but I think she’s the favorite.

Biff was good enough to steal. Adam considered it.

Ddendyl vs Deja, “Say Something”: Ddendyl has that smokey voice, but the affectation can be offputting. Deja had a more pleasing tone to me. That she found a way to connect to the lyrics and feel them was good. She’s so young to be that good.

Kristen vs Emily: Kristen (blond country girl on Shakira’s team) just got montaged again, now she’s been montaged through both Battle Rounds. Grrrrr. Still, the last person that happened to won, so it’s no comment on her talent.

Morgan vs Stevie, “Story of my Life”: Stevie still has that Jonny Gray vibe, but sings better, so I guess that’s okay. Both of them found a way to impress me. Morgan has shown improvement with getting his pitch under control, and pulling out a falsetto from nowhere is interesting. So Adam went for the save, hoping there’s potential he can bring out and shape given how inexperienced Morgan is. I guess that’s something.

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April 7, 2014

Clarissa vs Dani “Perfect” - Bad start, the judges contributed it to nerves. I thought it was a very close battle, but I preferred Clarissa by a tiny bit.

Kat vs Dawn & Hawkes “Suddenly I See” - I have a bias for power so I preferred Kat. I also agree with Blake 100% that Dawn & Hawkes should have taken command of the stage but they didn’t.

Melissa vs ‘Music Box’ “Girl on Fire” - Another close one. There was something slightly off in Music Box’s singing so I picked Melissa.

Kaleigh vs Ryan “Easy” For Me Kaleigh’s vocals needed more clarity. The judges said nerves got to her so I guess that’s what I noticed. I thought Ryan did the better job.

Jake vs Brittnee “Climax” - I thought both were great but Jake showed more range.

Bria vs Madilyn “I’ll Stand by You”- They slaughtered one of my favorite songs! :mad: I agree with Blake that neither stood out, but if you put a gun to my head :eek: I’d say I thought Madilyn just barely did better.

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Clarissa vs Dani, “Perfect”: I didn’t notice the nerves, I thought both had a good performance. It felt like to me both got just slightly out of the pocket on “don’t you ever, ever feel”, but they were in synch with each other, so I don’t know. But Clarissa had a few pitch problems, and Dani was both spot on, and had a great range. I picked Dani.

Dawn and Hawkes vs Kat Perkins, “Suddenly I See”: This was a bizarre pairing to me, they are two very different kinds of artists. And this song was styled right up Dawn and Hawkes alley, but out of Kat’s comfort zone by a wide margin. She really had to tone down and reel in, and wasn’t completely successful in that regard. Dawn and Hawkes did really well, IMO. They sounded superb together and really fit the song. But despite all that, I still give the performance to Kat. First, as observed, she commanded the stage. They’re not used to being active, they’re small stage and using mike stands as stands. Kat was moving all over, dancing around them. She just took over the energy of the performance.

Melissa vs Music Box, “Girl on Fire”: I agree it was a close performance. Music Box had some good elements, I liked her tone in places, but she had a couple spots that didn’t gel well for me. Melissa had her moments, too. I can’t argue the call here.

Kaleigh vs Ryan, “Easy”: Wow, what a song! Awesome choice, really worked for them. I see what you mean about clarity. They blended well together. For consistency, I’d say Ryan had a slightly better performance.

Brittnee vs Jake, “Climax”: Weird song, not my favorite. I liked Jake’s tone a bit better, and his lack of experience yet being so poised a performer put him over the top for me.

Bria vs Madilyn, “I’ll Stand By You”: I love this song, too, and I didn’t think this really worked. Their voices are so different, and they just didn’t mesh well. Bria has the emotional connection and her voice has that grit. Madilyn has a very smooth, clear tone. I think I’d pick Bria, but it was close.

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April 8, 2014 - Playoffs part 1

The way I ranked the singers.

Sisaundra “New York State of Mind” - Not the best I’ve heard her sing, but still great.
Audra “Broken Wing” - My only complaint was at times was too loud, but also great.
Jake “Anywhere With You” - Not his best performance, but pretty good.
Madylin “Clarity” - This was the best I’ve heard her sing. She needs more work, and I don’t care for her…accent? quirk?..But anyway, I think there’s a lot of potential.
Ryan “Second Chance” - His voice was OK, but it didn’t do anything for me. It was too safe I think.

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I’m a bit behind, but I want to play on this one.

Clarissa v. Dani - That was a tough one. I liked Dani in some moments and Clarissa in others. I was never a Clarissa fan and didn’t get why the coaches liked her in Zombies, but she was good in this. I’m not a Dani fan either, but I guess she’s getting better, so I’d pick her here.

Kat v. Dawn and Hawkes - This was easily a Kat win, but an unfair battle. Dawn and Hawkes couldn’t really shine in this, as Adam noted.

Melissa v. Music Box - I don’t like Melissa. There’s something about her that doesn’t agree with me. But Music Box had problems too. Still, I would have picked Music Box. Melissa’s voice is inconsistent to me.

Usher’s picks seem pretty predictable. He picks the people he likes, and he’s obvious about it. He told Stevie Jo in the rehearsal in front of Morgan that he (Stevie) hopefully goes all the way. The battle seemed like a formality. I’m glad that Adam stole Morgan.

Kaleigh v. Ryan - This was a Ryan win. But it was odd because, as the coaches noted, Kaleigh didn’t seem like herself. Blake noted that her nerves got to her. But she was better in the last round. She did seem a bit uncertain.

Jake v. Brittnee - Jake won this when he convinced Brittnee to do the Climax song. She wasn’t going for it when they cut off the clip. He had to do some convincing. That song showed off his range more than hers.

Bria v. Madilyn - This is another of Usher’s obvious picks. I think Madilyn did better, but he was sticking with Bria. Then again, I’m not a Bria fan, so I’m biased there.

Blake’s playoff - The picks were pretty easy. Blake’s team are my favorites for the win this season.

Madilyn did great, but a little late to overtake anyone. I went back through the roster of people left on all the teams to see if she could have overtaken anyone else in the entire competition. I think it would still be pretty tough. The field is already pretty high caliber at this point.

Jake, Audra and Sisaundra are my favorites. They didn’t do great tonight, but they were my favorites for a while. They did well enough that I’m still rooting for them.

About the new format, I’m not sure about it. The people who are clearly individuals don’t get a chance to shine when the rounds are duets for 2 rounds. People like Dawn and Hawkes got eliminated for that. People like Jake Worthington, who seems to do better in battles, was helped.

Having the coaches pick the top 3 is a lot of pressure for them. There’s a clip on hulu about how much pressure the coaches are feeling about the picks all season long.

It delays out the live rounds for a couple weeks. Less people get to experience the live rounds.

From my perspective as a viewer, it doesn’t do much for me either way. I’m not thrilled about it, but I’m not upset by it either.

66

First night of Knockouts:

Audra, “Broken Wing”: I thought she was pretty awesome, a very good performance and set the bar high. She has a slight disadvantage starting the night, as sometimes it can be difficult at the end of the night thinking about the last performance and trying to remember how awesome the first one was. And I have the benefit of rewind, which the coaches do not.

Ryan, “Second Chance”: Another solid performance, with a pretty good delivery and command of the stage. I didn’t notice a lot of problems, and the big notes were spot on. I did hear a couple breathy spots, especially in the last line he dropped the “a”. Solid performance, but I’d put it behind Audra.

Madilyn, “Clarity”: Song I like. I heard a number of pitchy moments, basically she fell just a tad flat in most of the big notes. I think it was nerves, being stiff making her notes just under her aim. Not horrible, but not up to the standard others displayed.

Jake, “Anywhere With You”: This guy is already a country music star. I’m not even a country fan, but I can see it. If he had pitch moments or whatever, they weren’t obvious to me. I totally get what he meant when he said he thought he did pretty good right after listing his issues. I’d put it that way, too. Somehow it sounds overconfident to say “I screwed up here and here, but did pretty good.”

Sissaundra, “New York State of Mind”: I’m glad Blake was able to get her to dial in the embellishments. A few embellishments enhance a performance, too many overwhelm it and detract. It’s not about how many places you can go on one note of the song, you want to deliver a clean, clear melody. She definitely found the right balance IMO. This was solid and impressive. A little jazzy, but good.

I ranked the performances:

Sissaundra
Audra
Jake
Ryan
Madilyn

And I note that seems to be how Blake ranked them as well.
This is one of the hardest nights for the coaches. Most of the weak performers are gone, everyone left is pretty good and the coaches are getting a feel for them, what they can do, and where they can go. Now they line up 5 great performers and get 5 great performances, and then have to singlehandedly tell 2 to go home. It’s rough. I think Blake got it right, but it was not a wide margin.

67

We now know that Pharrell is replacing Cee Lo for season 7 of The Voice.

I really liked Chris Martin’s advising of all the teams in the second round of battles a LOT. Let me be clear that this hypothetical is just coming out of my wild imagination, so there’s nothing to base this on. I’m guessing they must already know who is doing season 7 since they’re probably already taping the blinds for next season.

If there was a chance that Chris Martin replaced Christina Aguilera* as a coach for season 7 of The Voice, would you be happy or sad about it?

*I did read that Christina Aguilera is pregnant with her second child so she might want to take off season 7.

68

I think they’ll wait until this season is over before they start taping a new one. And if Christina skips the next season they’ll probably either have Shakira or another female singer take her place.

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I’m not sure about that. I’m pretty sure that during the live rounds last season that one of the coaches mentioned how the blinds for the next season were going. My guess is that when the coaches are already there, they do a lot of the taping stuff. You can tell there’s a big gap between the blinds and the battles and between the battles and the live rounds because of the length of people’s hair changes a lot. In Biff’s case, their baby was about to be born in the blinds and was several months old in the battles.

You’re probably right. They seem to like having a female on the panel.

70

Biff? Anyway, I don’t notice hair lengths, I just notice that Adam usual has a beard and mustache up until the live rounds, when he’s clean shaven.

I think they’ll stick to their formula of two white dudes, one black dude, and one woman. :smiley:

71

By the way, I wonder what the point of the playoffs is. I mean, if I’m remembering the knockout rounds it was like the battle rounds except each singer sang a different song with one player being sent home for each round. Now with the playoff all the singers sing and two get sent home. Is it really an improvement?

72

Based on last season, battle round 2 was equivalent to the knock-outs last season except the contestants sang their own songs in the knock-outs. The playoffs are equivalent to the first round of live rounds last season where the audience picked the top 2 of the top 5 and the coach saved 1 to move to the next round of lives. Two contestants went home, similar to the playoffs this season.

So far, there’s no difference for me because Blake picked the top 3 that were my favorites. The difference might be if a coach lets a contestant go that the audience thinks could have been a winner, because there are no saves left.

It has the potential of a Christina/Jesse moment like in season 2 where Christina Aguilera picked another contestant over Jesse Campbell, who many felt could have won the entire show. There were no saves so her decision was final. It had the audience in an uproar. With this set-up, there’s a potential for that to happen again if the coach lets a contestant go that was a front-runner. I don’t see that happening this season for my taste, since my favorites are already on Blake’s team, but there’s still the potential for it.

It puts a lot of pressure on the coach to pick correctly because the audience could turn on them if the audience decides that they chose poorly or unfairly. Last year’s set-up allowed the coach to save one, which is a lot less pressure since the audience was already set to let them go.

73

Yeah, Blake’s picks were my picks too. I’m curious to see who the other judges pick to go through.

74

April 14

West coast so Shakira got through. Since I don’t have much to say about her singers, I’ll just post my picks in the order from best to worst.

Kristen
Patric
Dani

Tess
Deja

Of course she picked

Kristen
Dani
Tess

Patric
Deja

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I have a tiny bit to say about a couple of Adam’s singers.

I’ll list the singers in the order I would have placed them from best to worse.

First, me say that it was hard to place Christina. She had great range, but her tone changes seemed abrupt. I mean, for example, when she would switch from low to high it seemed to come out of nowhere and kind of jarring. But because all the judges loved her, I figured she’d go through.

Kat -Am I the only one who gets nervous when someone directs a love song to a family member? Anyway, my favorite performance.
Morgan - Not a great start, but the middle and end were good.

Delvin - Pretty good, but not great in my opinion. I can’t articulate why.
Jake - My least favorite performance, but again, I can’t articulate why.

Adam’s picks

Kat
Christina
Delvin

Morgan
Jake

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The tough part of her picks was that some of the contestants had a great night, and her favorites had a so-so night.

I’m glad to see someone else who doesn’t appreciate Tess as much as the coaches. I think they like her because they’ve all influenced her, so they want to take some credit. But something about her doesn’t thrill me. I did think she had a great performance tonight though.

I would put Patrick, Tess and Deja as the top performances of the night. But Patrick has been inconsistent over the course of the competition and Deja is inexperienced, so I can see why Shakira didn’t pick them.

I was surprised to see Dani’s performance because it wasn’t that great to me, but I know that Shakira really likes her.

My opinion is about the opposite of yours. I loved Christina Grimmie. I’ve been a fan since the blinds, but she really wavered over the course of the competition, but I really liked tonight’s performance.

I wasn’t as impressed with Kat. She’s a belter. It’s not my favorite style.

I thought Delvin was fantastic. I’m a fan. I love that rich deep tone. He did some amazing stuff with that song. He and Jake Worthington really are taking things more seriously this season.

Jake’s voice is weak, it seems to me. He did better than I thought he would but in the rehearsal, Adam’s little piece was stronger than Jake’s voice throughout the song. Jake doesn’t ever get to Adam’s level.

Morgan is really growing and improving but he’s just getting to find himself a little late in the competition. It was too hard to know if he’d do well later.

For me, the decision of Christina, Delvin and Kat was the obvious choice.

77

Wow. I ended up pegging the coach’s picks.

For Shakira,

Kristen started strong. The only issue I had was, not knowing the lyrics, it was hard for me to pick them out.

Deja had the weakest performance, IMO. She just never brought out the full confidence/attitude/power. She did fix most of the pitch problems, but I ranked her last.

Tess - great performance.

Patrick - very good. I liked it.

Dani - started a little rough, but by the end her emotion and delivery were superb.

I thought it was a hard call, but figured with the praise ladeled on Dani, she was in, and just had Tess and Kristen over Patrick.

For Adam

Delvin was great.

Jake - he was pretty good, but it missed that something. It felt like Adam was already prepping to send him home with his comments after the performance.

Kat - spectacular. Great song, great performance. The edits for time didn’t butcher it for me. Right song for her. My top pick of the night.

Morgan - didn’t do it for me. Something about his tone just didn’t work for me. I thought it was weaker than Jake, but the coaches were all over it.

Christina - I enjoyed it, definitely her best. I think the coaches over-praised just a little, but it was a great performance.

For me, it felt like they were trying to manufacture drama in Adam’s picks when it was just no contest. Kat, Christina, and Delvin were the tops and far better than both Jake and Morgan. Maybe there was some thought to how good Jake is with zero training, but his performance wasn’t there this time and Kat’s was.

78

I was a little disappointed that the show did this. In a clip from last week, they showed the part where Adam says, “I was let down. . .” They conveniently left off the part where Adam says, “. . by no one.”

That’s going to pretty great lengths to manufacture some drama so people will tune in. I don’t think they have to do that. It just takes a moment of thought to realize that Adam would not say that he was let down by any contestant even if they did lousy. Making a contestant feel bad for messing up just isn’t something the coaches should be doing.

I’ve noticed they’ve done a couple edits like that to produce some drama in the clips. I’m not a fan of that practice. I think people watch the show for the performances and to cheer for their favorites, not for the nail-biting drama.

79

Frankly any time they tease drama I instantly assume it’s manufactured and in fact probably doesn’t exist.

80

Tonight’s results for Team Usher

I wasn’t thrilled with TJ Wilkins or Stevie Jo. They both had solid performances, but neither really excited me. I think it was song selection and song style, they just weren’t doing much for me. They were fairly even, maybe TJ with a slight edge.

I thought Melissa Jimenez was better. She had good dynamic, though her middle range sounded a bit brassy in tone to me. Still, I liked that performance better than either of the guys above.

Bria was awesome. That was the right song choice for her, it really hit her delivery and tone right. She showed her softer side as well as her power and range. She delivered on the emotion.

Then Josh sang, and was arguably better. Another perfect fit of song and style for the performer. He was precise and amazing.

So I ranked them Josh, Bria, Melissa. Once Josh and Bria were in, I wasn’t sure how Usher would go. I guess he saw more in TJ than Melissa.