The Voice Season 8

Cafe Society
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I just watched both episodes this week, so I’m posting more comments.

Kimberly Nicole vs Lowell Oakley, “Hound Dog” - I really like Lowell. In the outtakes on Hulu, Lionel Richie was shown to be blown away by Kimberly. There’s something about her that I don’t like. In some moments, she gives me the impression she’s a diva and in the next moment, she’s crying because it’s hard to break into the industry. I don’t like either of those personalities. Her singing was good, but didn’t overcome my dislike of her personality. It also didn’t seem all that unique to me. Lowell stepped up and showed his flexibility on this one, so I’m glad that Pharrell picked him.

Barry vs Jack, “Feelin’ Alright” - I agree with Irishman on pretty much all his comments on this pairing. Jack was uptight. Barry won’t get much further. Both were missing charisma or star quality or something.

Brenna vs Kelsie May, “Fancy” - This was an easy choice. I like Kelsie. She was clearer and more country on a country song.

Briar Jonnee vs Caitlin Caporale, “Fallin” - I disagree with almost all of Irishman’s comment on this one. I didn’t care for this battle. Briar stepped up but wasn’t much of a match for Caitlin. Caitlin had more stage presence. Briar had some nice ad libs but didn’t ever make it to Caitlin’s level. I’m not a Caitlin fan, so that’s not saying much.

Katelyn Read vs Treeva Gibson, “Addicted to Love” - I like Treeva’s voice. It’s really unique. It might have something to do with her hearing loss, but her tone is interestingly different. Katelyn was very ordinary. That was the difference for me in this one.

India Carney vs Clinton Washington, “Stay” - I agree with Irishman on all his comments on this battle. This was an incredible battle. I too thought that Clinton was cannon fodder. But he came out swinging. It was good that he was stolen. I think he might have actually won this battle, but picking him over India wouldn’t be the right choice either. It worked out well.

Jeremy Gaynor vs Rob Taylor, “Animals” - This song seemed almost targeted to get Jeremy out. Rob’s range gave him the definite advantage. If Jeremy had gotten more of a ballad type song, he might have done better. But this might have been a test. Jeremy came across really stiff and without much flexibility. That didn’t bode well for future rounds.

Sawyer Fredericks vs Noelle Bybee, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” - I really like Sawyer. He’s one of my favorites. I’ll be interested to see if he can shine more in the knock-outs, but he definitely has some charisma and clearly won this battle.

Corey vs Jacob, “I Want Crazy” - Despite Jacob sounding like a girl and going off-pitch at odd moments, he is still one of my favorites. I just like his straightforward style and his energy. I thought Jacob won this one. But it worked out well that Blake picked Corey and Pharrell saved Jacob. The best part of that battle was after the battle. Corey had almost no personality during the song and after he was chosen. The first time he lit up was when Jacob got saved and when he got a chance to hug Jacob at the end. That part was surprising and a little baffliing.

I saw a rumor in the comments of the Michael Slezak column that the reason that there’s a threesome in the knock-outs is because Anthony is not there. I don’t know if that was just to add drama, but it sure got me curious. I watched the preview a couple times to see if I could see Anthony, but I didn’t. Now I’m on the edge of my seat for next week.

Off the top of my head, my favorites so far are: Sawyer, Jacob, Sarah, Anthony, Cody, Tonya and Lowell. That’s 4 on team Pharrell, 2 on team Blake and 1 on team Adam (that I don’t think will make it very far if she gets to lives).

This season so far, I haven’t been shocked by one of the battle picks yet. That’s a good thing. Last season, despite a dearth of talent, the picks were awful and baffling to me. This season, the talent has been so much better and the picks make so much more sense to me.

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Interesting that two people can see the same thing and think so differently. :wink:

Yeah, during the song he was rather dull, but then he was very excited and energetic for Jacob’s save. Odd to me, too.

CRAP! Don’t do that! Fucking previews!

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Just for clarity and so I might be more mindful in the future, which part are you objecting to?

It didn’t dawn on me to spoiler it because the preview of the knock-outs was in the last show. Anyone watching the last show would have seen it unless they knew when to stop watching. And the rumor is just an off-hand rumor. It’s not more predictive of anything than anyone predicting a winner of a battle.

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Anthony will not be continuing with this season due to some medical issues. The Voice will be paying for his treatment and if he’s well enough to perform, they will bring him back next season.

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There’s a threesome in the knock outs, one of the competitors is not there.

Yeah, but I don’t watch the friggin’ previews. I stop watching before they show me what is happening next week, just like I fast forward when they say “coming up”. The people who create the previews - whether it is coming up after the commercial or coming up next week - have different goals than the people editing the show. The people editing the show are trying to create a logical, dramatic flow of events with surprises and such. The folks creating previews are trying to show all the good bits to entice non-viewers into becoming viewers and entice channel flippers into not flipping. I’m not flipping, I want to save the dramatic surprises. Previews kill them.

Tonight’s competitions…

Ashley Morgan vs Sonic: Damn, why are they up against each other? I didn’t want to lose either. Ashley Morgan sang Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker”, and while it was pretty good, there was something missing. I liked it, and I wanted her to stay, but it was missing…edge. Sonic sang Kate Bush’s “With a Woman’s Work”, and she knocked it out. She sounds amazing and has a good stage presence. Clear win for Sonic, no save for Ashley.

Brian Jonson vs Sarah Potenza: Brian sang “Nothing Ever Hurt Like You”. While he did a good job with emotion and notes, I felt he was missing something in dynamic. I wanted it to get stronger, and it didn’t. Sarah took “Wasted Love”, the original song for Matt McAndrew last season, and gave a different rendition in her inimitable style. Easy win IMO. Then Adam used his steal on Brian. WTF?

Clinton Washington vs Nathan Hermida: Clinton took on a country song, “Haunted”. While he did a good job, something in his tone was a little off. Nathan, meanwhile, delivered a very good good performance on “Leave Your Lover”, and was again the clear winner IMO.

Now we get the three person knockout, because Anthony had to leave the competition.

Mia Z, Paul Pfau, and Sawyer Fredericks: Mia was exceptional with “I’m Coming” by B.B. King and Eric Clapton. Paul tried hard with “I Don’t Need No Doctor” (“ductor”), but wasn’t quite up to par. Then Sawyer topped it off with “Collide” and was also superb. No question who the two moving on were going to be.

And a note here: a three way knockout actually gives them an advantage, pitting 2 winners out of 3 competitors. Yeah, you got to do something to determine who gets the slot when the other one eliminates himself, but just note that it works to your advantage to be in that set. Not sure what Pharrell would have done with Sawyer against Mia, and no Paul to sacrifice.

Meghan Linsey vs Travis Ewing: Meghan gave a stellar performance on “(You Make Me Feel) Like A Natural Woman”. Travis tried hard with “I Don’t Want To Be”, but I think he was off just a tad, and just couldn’t stand up to Meghan.

Kimberly Nicole vs Koryn Hawthorne: Kimberly performed “If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free” and was again a great performance. Koryn tried to keep up with “Try” by Pink. To me, it started a little rough, and she was having some pocket issues, but by the end it was easy to get sucked in to her performance. Kimberly won, but Pharrell used his steal on Koryn, so she’ll still be around.

And for a side note, what’s with Pharrell’s sweat shirt promoting a strip club?* And dude, pull up your pants, dumbass. Nobody wants to see your underwear hanging out.

*Okay, I looked it up. That’s Pharrell’s new clothing line for women, to match his clothing line for men. Still sounds like a strip club name.

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Agree 100%

Wow, agree 100% again. :eek: :smiley: I think Brian’s problem is that he was too safe. He held back too much.

Also agree. Nathan has a crazy high falsetto. I thought his range and confidence gave him the edge over Clinton.

For the three-way knockout.
Sawyer - Even though I could understand everything he said, I thought he sill could have done better enunciation. Also, too much vibrato for my taste. I would have picked him to go home.

Mia Z - Awesome range; Great stage presence, and totally at ease. I thought she was the best out of the three.

Paul - Great energy and good range. I thought he should have gone forward instead of Sawyer.

I thought that Travis gave a huge effort, but it just didn’t seem to work. Towards the end, and the long note at the end were great, but it wasn’t enough to overcome how… not great… the rest of the song was.

I thought that Koryn should have picked a different song. In my opinion her voice was too deep for the verses.

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Why are they paying for his treatment? It’s not like a network to pay for something they didn’t cause.

Where is your information coming from? That wasn’t in the broadcast.

OK, I’ll try to be more mindful of spoilering previews. I watch it live, so I don’t have the luxury of fast-forwarding through the commercials or the previews or anything else.

On the knockouts:

Ashley Morgan vs Sonic: Easy choice for me. I didn’t care for Ashley that much. Sonic has the more nuanced voice and the stronger voice.

Brian vs Sarah: Another easy choice. That was Sarah for an easy win. I’m also baffled by Adam picking Brian. Sarah has dynamics, a cool gritty voice and a good range.

Clinton vs Nathan: I was surprised by this one. I thought that Adam might go with Clinton because Nathan is a little quirky. I was happy that he didn’t. I thought Nathan did a good job. He took a bigger risk. There’s something about Clinton’s risk of doing country because no one else on Adam’s team was doing that seemed a little contrived to me.

Mia Z, Paul, and Sawyer: Totally disagree with Irishman here. I don’t like Mia. I haven’t understood a single word she’s sung since the beginning. She just always does that dolphin thing that people seem to like. I felt like I could at least understand Paul, so I was cheering for him. I’m not all that disappointed that he’s gone though.

On preview: Nobody also picked Mia, so I guess I’m the only one bothered by not being able to understand Mia’s words or the only person who couldn’t understand the words. I’ll go back later and watch it again.

I am disappointed that Anthony’s out of the competition. That changes my favorites line-up. I hope Anthony shows up next season.

Meghan vs Travis: Meghan ruled on this one. She looks so much more comfortable on Blake’s team. I’m glad that she’s getting a second chance to show what she can do. Travis got drowned out going after her.

Kimberly vs Koryn: I don’t like Kimberly, so I’m rooting for Koryn. I wanted Koryn to be better, but as Irishman noted, it was a bit of a rough start. Still, I liked Koryn’s emotion more. I wasn’t feeling Kimberly as much, but that might just be because I’ve already decided about her. She’d have to do something exceptional for me to overlook how I see her. I hope Koryn goes further in the lives.

On Irishman’s footnote: Pharrell’s clothes are not bothering me as much as his attitude. Telling the contestants to turn down the doubts in their head and then taking the longest time to choose a contestant in The Voice history doesn’t go together. He should have turned down the doubts in his head and made the decision, although it made for a fun bit of viewing.

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Wow, I just read this again and went :eek:

I liked Sawyer’s enunciation the best. I thought he was way better than Paul or Mia.

I just read Michael Slezak’s column and he seems to agree with you about Mia, so I’m the only person not seeing it.

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I’m sure there are going to be plenty of contestants that everybody loves that I won’t see the appeal of. To be honest, I was surprised that all but one of my personal picks where what the judges picked.

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I get frustrated with the coaches calling a guitar a “prop”. My guitar isn’t a prop. It’s my most important instrument. Vocals come second. Either way it’s all about creating and expressing music. To call someone’s instrument a prop is insulting.

All the faces and songs just blur in my mind. I did like the former country singer on Blake’s team that sang Natural Woman. The girl that sang early, Heartbreaker was disappointing. It didn’t have that edgy grit it needed… It seemed like the girl didn’t have the breath control to power through the song. She hit the notes but that’s not enough for a Pat Benatar song.

Several other good performances tonight. I just can’t recall them. That’s always the problem with this show. These people don’t hang around long enough to learn their names.

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Mia’s singing was interesting, but her presence and general movement on stage all seemed a little bit off. To be a bit stereotypical, she kind of moves/dances like an awkward white girl who has spent a lot of time trying to get the grace and attitude down and just isn’t quite there. That isn’t a career-level deal breaker by any means, but I did think it seeped over into her singing a bit last night and made it more uneven that it should have been.

That said, there are 30 guys doing what Paul did last night on any given Thursday in bars in any decent sized city. He might have been a little better technically with Mia, but she’s got so much more artistic upside.

(Sawyer isn’t really my thing, but he was the easy pick of the three.)

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Recap of the first Knockout round.

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My information came directly from Anthony. He is a friend of mine.
[http:// http://www.wtov9.com/shared/news/features/top-stories/stories/wtov_riley-unable-return-voice-after-sickness-8160.shtml?wap=0&](http:// http://www.wtov9.com/shared/news/features/top-stories/stories/wtov_riley-unable-return-voice-after-sickness-8160.shtml?wap=0&)

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Cody “Till my Last Day” - Good performance, but maybe a bit too relaxed.
Corey “Live Like You’re Dying” - I thought he put a little more effort into the song.

Blaze “You Found Me” - Gave it his all. I thought for sure he would win. And I saw Blake’s joke coming 100 miles away because he keeps making the same ones.
Deanna “Listen to Your Heart” - The beginning sounded like Cher was singing the song. Something was off, I guess I was noticing the pitch issues Blake mentioned.
I’m shocked Adam chose her. If she doesn’t have confidence at this point it would have been best to send her packing.

Hannah “Higher Love” - Held on to notes for too long. Picked up towards the end, but not enough to overcome the bad beginning in my opinion.
Caitlin “Warrior” - I liked her higher voice, but something was slightly off. I still liked her performance slightly better than Hannah’s though.

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Could you summarize what you’re wanting us to see in that article? It’s pretty long. There are a lot of recaps out there. They’re all a little different, depending on the opinion of the person who wrote it.

Your link has one too many http: in it in your quote. The rules here don’t allow me to change your quote, so I’m just going to just link it in my reply here:
http://www.wtov9.com/shared/news/features/top-stories/stories/wtov_riley-unable-return-voice-after-sickness-8160.shtml

It’s a link to a news station blog:

The news article also stated that Anthony was in the hospital for 2 weeks during the show. The medical reasons were not revealed.

Thanks for the info., melondeca.
On to the show results for the knock-outs:

Corey vs. Cole - This is the first time that I’ve disagreed with a coach pick this season. But I’m rationalizing why he did it. Maybe he thinks that Corey would have wider appeal? Cole is very traditional country, so maybe his fan base won’t be as big. For me, it’s Cole, and Blake made a mistake.

Blaze and Deanna - Neither of them are my favorites. Blaze’s voice cracked. When it was pointed out, he looked really frightened. Did he not think people would notice? Maybe he thought it was intentional? If his performance was stellar beyond that, I might think he got ripped off. But with the crack and nothing spectacular to offset, I was OK with Deanna taking it. Deanna does have a unique voice. I just don’t know if it’s unique good or unique bad. It could probably be unique good if it was less stiff.

Hannah and Caitlin - I’m seeing what others have been saying about Caitlin in this performance. I wasn’t seeing it before. But now I’m more in her camp. Both gave great performances in different ways. But I think Caitlin took it. I’m glad that Blake saved Hannah.

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Um, you do realize this is “The Voice”, right? It’s a singing competition, not a guitar playing competition. If your guitar is your main instrument and your voice is second, what are you doing on “The Voice”?

Second point, while plenty of times the guitar playing is a balanced part of the performance, many times the competitors are using it as a prop or a crutch. When the guy comes out an plays three licks on the guitar and then wears it the rest of the performance, that’s a prop. When the guy comes out and plays the guitar simply because he’s always played the guitar and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands otherwise, that’s a prop. Telling them to put down the guitar and focus on singing for a singing show totally makes sense. Telling them when they are not using the guitar so much for the value it adds but simply because it’s their security blanket, that’s valuable advice they need.

There is a whole crew of musicians on tap for every one of these performances. They don’t have to play their own guitar. Yes, it can be the right fit for some performances, but they shouldn’t do it every performance, or it’s a crutch.

That’s what wikipedia and recaps are for.

I have to agree with you, this was a mistake. Yes, Corey delivered this one performance with a lot of heart and emotion and connection to the song. I still felt Cole was better, and I think overall Cole has had more consistency and proven worth. I’m afraid Corey will not be as strong next round.

This could be a case of Blake supporting the weaker person he thinks he can improve more with more coaching, knowing that he already intends to help Cole get into the industry anyway. He’s done it before.

Blaze was pitchy. His lower register was good, but his upper register had issues, not just the one off note. And something in his performance is too clowny. Deanna started just a little rough, but then she eased into the performance and got a lot better. I do think her tone is different and can be interesting. Her win.

I was mildly annoyed by her line change at the end of the song. Does she not know what the song is about? She changed the last line of the refrain from “before you tell him goodbye” to “before you tell me goodbye”. Uh, Deanna, the whole song is a message to another woman about her not making the mistakes that you made. It describes the feelings she’s going through as the voice of experience, and how the singer made the mistake of saying goodbye to her fellow and now regrets is, so you, the person she’s singing to, needs to listen to your heart before you send your man away, because you just might regret it. Changing that last line just doesn’t make any damn sense.

“Hey, dude, listen to your heart before you tell the guy your pining over goodbye, don’t tell me goodbye.” :confused: Or she’s singing that to a chick? You know, lyrics sometimes actually mean something, and this is a case where the lyrics are a story, don’t fuck up the plot by a last second cast change.

Funny, I thought this performance should have gone to Hannah. When they were doing the rehearsals, Hannah’s tone was a bit harsh in places, but for the performance she toned it in and came out great. Whereas during the performance, Caitlin hit some notes that hurt my ears. I’m not saying they were pitchy, they just were uncomfortable for me. I’m glad Hannah was saved. I do think that Nobody is right that Hannah had a bit of a pocket issue with her notes.

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I didn’t care for that either. First she’s telling another woman not to leave her man, then she’s telling the woman not to leave her. Uhm, maybe they’re all in a polygamous marriage, so the woman would not only be leaving her husband, but also the singer who’s her sister-wife. :smiley:

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OK, I’m glad someone else was thinking this. I almost wrote about it in my last post. I couldn’t think of the right words. Blaze is a big guy, bobbing up and down in every song. After a while, it starts looking a little ridiculous. Couldn’t someone tell him to stop doing that? It would be easy enough to correct.

I’m amazed that both you and Nobody could hear one word in Deanna’s song enough for it to throw the whole thing off. At least she was enunciating. :wink:

I’m hoping that Blake is not picking Corey because he can help him the most. I don’t like that practice. It has the potential to throw the results of the show off. It’s now impossible to know how America would have liked Cole. I also think that this song was probably a one-off for Corey. We’ll see if Corey really does get better.

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I posted the recap to put names,faces, and songs together. I find it impossible at this stage to remember who the heck sang what. After two hours of song after song it’s hard to even recall what got sung. That’s always the problem with this show until the live rounds when the cast size is manageable.

I use the recap to go back and rewatch certain performances on youtube.

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If you’re posting the link for your own reference, please note that in the post. Without any words to describe the link, it looks like you’re posting something for everyone else to see.

Since several people posting in this thread used the names of the contestants in their recap, they don’t need to click on an additional recap to see the same thing.