I do that, too, and use wikipedia. I just don’t bother posting links to the recaps I use.
Wow. Tonight most of the knockouts seemed lopsided to me.
Tonya - “I Wish” Pretty good, but I would have liked to hear more gravel in her voice.
Barry - “What You Won’t do for Love” I liked his performance slightly better.
Kelsie - “Tim McGraw” I was not impressed.
Brooke - “Electric Feel” Much better performance, although I think she needs work on her low range.
Joe - “One of Us” Meh.
India - "Big White Room A far superior performance.
Lowell - “My Girl” I thought it was horrible. I found him boring and then half-way through he starts switching it up and it sounds confused to me. I’m surprised Pharrell picked him.
Jacob - “Life of the Party” I think I heard a slight crack at the beginning of the song. Pharrell said doesn’t use his whole range, but in this song I heard him expanding it. Not much, but I noticed.
Treeva - “Chasing Pavements” I didn’t think it was that great.
Rob - “Love & Happiness” Pretty good, and I liked his high notes.
Joshua - “Arms of a Woman” I thought he was slightly better than Lexi.
Lexi - "Anything Could Happen So, Adam keeps her because he believes she’ll be great when she gets over her nerves, and then when she does he dumps her. :dubious:
Arms of a Woman is a brand new song for me. Hearing that song got me interested in listening to other stuff Amos Lee has released.
Blake passed an important test. He picked an Indy Artist over his country gal. That’s important to prove he’s not just there to promote country talent. He’s willing to take an Indy artist to the finals.
I’ll write more later, but this is what struck me most tonight also. The picks were so easy, I could pick them almost before they sang. Brooke stood out more than I thought she would. But other than that, the winners were pretty obvious. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. In some ways, it’s good that they aren’t blowing out talent because the top talent is battling each other. But it makes for obvious winners if they put the talent against cannon fodder.
I think Lowell was supposed to blow out Jacob, but he didn’t. Jacob was one of my favorites, but still Lowell has something that Jacob doesn’t have - some intangible charisma.
Tonya - “I Wish”
Barry - “What You Won’t do for Love”
Neither of these really did much for me.
Kelsie - “Tim McGraw”
Brooke - “Electric Feel”
I was expecting Kelsie to be better, but she was a bit pitchy. Brooke was better overall and I enjoyed it. Kudos to Blake for picking the better performance, even if Kelsie could be strong.
Joe - “One of Us”
India - "Big White Room
Joe had some pitchy moments. He has a strong voice, but had a few issues. India’s song didn’t have much in the way of lyrics, but she was outstanding with what she did.
Lowell - “My Girl”
Jacob - “Life of the Party”
I came in prepared to dislike Lowell with his crooner sound and all, but I thought he gave a strong performance. He showed much greater range and versatility than Jacob, and he made the song his. I didn’t see what the judges where complaining about, his felt solid to me. I liked it a lot better than Jacob’s performance, and I think he can do well.
Treeva - “Chasing Pavements”
Rob - “Love & Happiness”
Treeva had a few high points, but overall was kinda bland. Rob was much stronger.
Joshua - “Arms of a Woman”
Lexi - "Anything Could Happen
Joshua was very good. He pretty much has his sound mapped out and knows how to use it, if you like that style of music. Lexi had a dull start, her lower register wasn’t working - seemed pitchy. When she went to falsetto, it got stronger and she opened up. She really only had one big element, and that’s not enough. Joshua was better. Maybe Christina can help her.
Um, yeah, that’s not contradictory. He paired her against Joshua, who is a strong contender and really knows how to connect to the audience. She did good getting over her nerves, but he had to stay with Joshua. Her performance wasn’t strong enough to top Joshua’s.
Blake has previously done that, picked the better performance over the country performer.
Logically I understand completely and I thought that Joshua did better too. But emotionally it felt kind of funny.
Last night’s knock-outs:
Tonya vs. Barry - The vocal performances were just OK. But I had to roll my eyes every time Barry mentioned his age. It was like watching someone shoot themselves in the foot over and over and over. Or watching someone telling everyone they have bad breath repeatedly. Every time he mentioned his age, his chance of moving on slipped down a notch. By the time of the competition, it didn’t almost matter how he sang. He wouldn’t have a chance with the public vote, so why keep him around? When people do stuff like that, I wonder if they just don’t watch the show or what’s going on there.
Kelsie vs. Brooke - Brooke had a good performance last night. Kelsie didn’t. Kelsie has the better charisma, but she’d be a risk in the lives. I have to laugh at myself in supporting Blake’s decision to keep Brooke though. In the round with Cole and Cody, I argued against the one-time good performance of Cody vs. the star quality of Cole and argued that Blake should have kept Cole. In this instance, I’m good with him going the other way. Both Cody and Brooke won the actual round, but I’m only good with Brooke moving on and not Cody. I can’t really justify it except that I think Cole had a much better chance of making it than Kelsie and a better chance than Cody, but I only have the blind audition to point to for my reason.
Joe vs. India - This wasn’t even a battle. Joe was cannon fodder. India’s stage performance won it for her. It worked for her this time, but that kind of thing can turn into overwhelming the performance easily as it did for Lowell in the next battle. I’m not a big India fan. Her voice has a shake to it that I don’t care for. She has both a shake and a vibrato. That’s a lot going on. But she clearly has the range and technical ability that people vote for.
Lowell vs. Jacob - I also didn’t get what the judges were saying about the laugh. What was he trying to cover? It was so early in the song that there wasn’t much to cover. But even if he did, that was pretty good presence of mind to cover something and then make a duplicate affectation on the next line. His theatrics did overwhelm his voice, but he at least seems to be trying new things and taking risks. It didn’t pay off in this one. Hopefully, they will in the next round, or he’ll be out. I’m sad to see Jacob go, but he had a good run.
Treeva and Rob - Rob was clearly better, but it wasn’t really a fair match. Treeva had a weird thing going on of pointing her head up but looking straight ahead. It was distracting.
Joshua vs. Lexi - Joshua really got to me last night. I really liked his song. It had an effect on me. But Lexi was really good too at the tail end of the song. I’m glad they’re both still around. Joshua is really good at what he does, but I wonder if America will vote for him. He doesn’t have the big notes or the theatrical effects.
I messed up those names pretty badly. Cody = Corey and Cole = Cody I’ll repost it with the right names because it’s too confusing otherwise.
“In the round with Corey and Cody, I argued against the one-time good performance of Corey vs. the star quality of Cody and argued that Blake should have kept Cody. In this instance, I’m good with him going the other way. Both Corey and Brooke won the actual round, but I’m only good with Brooke moving on and not Corey. I can’t really justify it except that I think Cody had a much better chance of making it than Kelsie and a better chance than Corey, but I only have the blind audition to point to for my reason.”
As for tonight, I’m really disappoint. Instead of showing new material that would have helped people vote in the live rounds, they took a whole hour to replay stuff we’ve already seen. Nothing new except that I did realize that I messed up the names above. I also remembered that Brian was the guy who helped his father with MS. I like his story, so I’m glad Adam saved him. I’m just not sure how far he’ll get. They also showed an outtake of Anthony saying that he thinks he has the flu at the rehearsal for the battle round. Maybe that was supposed to be a clue about what happened to him in the next round. My cynical side wonders if he’d do well if he was able to return in another season. I think expectations would be so high that he’d have a difficult time surpassing them.
Name corrections aside, here’s my take. Both Brooke and Kelsie have been good performers. Brooke delivered, Kelsie didn’t. You should reward the one who got it right, especially when there aren’t other factors (like a one off, or both having issues, or whatever). With the guys, Cody was a much stronger performer all along, with a more authentic sound. Corey was weak sauce who had no energy or stage presence through his Battle Round that he managed to be declared the winner of anyway by Blake. Then he had a song he really connected with, and gave a good performance. It’s arguable his was better than Cody’s that night. But overall track records showed Cody the better risk for moving ahead. But Blake picked Corey.
Fair point about the theatrics having the possibility of going too far and turning the audience. Though I like her voice shake and vibrato.
I didn’t really get it, either. I didn’t get much of their complaints against him, I thought he did great, far better than I expected out of him.
That is a valid concern. At least he made it to lives, so he can compete on his own terms and not get stuck by a bad Battle pairing. Like that one time Adam (IIRC) paired the Potbelly sandwich guy up on a Journey (IIRC) song. Um, yeah, he got his hat handed to him - he didn’t have the range for that kind of song. But he’d have done well on some more toned down folk stuff like he did for his Blind or even some rock stuff that didn’t have him trying to keep up with Mariah Carey. (Okay, Steve Perry, the Mariah Carey of guys.)
[Please excuse the off-topic ride into the past]
I can’t believe you remembered all of that so specifically. :eek: Just for fun, I went to see if I could find the name with just those facts. Is it Jamie Lono [article]? Jamie Lono went up against Jamar Rogers [youtube of a gossip tabloid] with a Foreigner song, I Want to Know What Love Is. They were on Cee Lo’s team and Jamie was clearly cannon fodder. That couldn’t be more clear going up against Jamar. Apparently, the sad part about that was that they had become best friends there. From Yahoo Music, Jamie formed a new band last July. Jamar was still raising AIDS awareness last December.
ETA: Jamie Lono with his new band youtube
Hey, we gotta remember the important stuff. 
You nailed it, despite all the stuff I got wrong. That song was not a good fit for Jamie, and the dynamics of the song strongly favored Jamar. Bad pairing, basically making him cannon fodder.
Foreigner is also a group that has a lot of range.
Good to see he’s got a group that’s working for him. That song was pretty good. Something like that would have shown his talents to their best. Like a Bob Dylan classic.
Failed to remember it was Cee Lo and his “I like sandwiches” that won over Jamie. I guess I was blaming Adam because of the impression in my mind of how he seems to force some odd song choices on folks. I forgot all about Cee Lo and his similar bent, plus is overly dramatic showmanship elements.
OK, so, from Wikipedia,
My pick for the three who should go to the final 12 from Blake’s team:
Sara - She’s my favorite. I wasn’t too crazy of how she sang “Freebird” but her awesome voice still made her performance the second best for me. (To my surprise, I thought that Caitlin had the best.)
Brooke - I haven’t heard the original of “Love Me Like You Do” but I thought her performance was pretty good.
Megan - Also pretty good, but I thought that “Till the Love Runs Out” would have been a much better choice for Sarah.
My pick for the three who should to the final 12 from Pharell’s team:
Caitlin - I never heard “Best Thing I Never Had” but her performance blew me away.
Sawyer “Trouble” - Pretty good. I wasn’t too thrilled, but I thought he did alright.
Lowell “Jealous” - To be honest, he kind of sounded generic. I’m only picking him because I thought he did better than Mia Z and Koryn.
And I’m guessing Irishman just loved Koryn’s song choice. 
I just saw Michael Slezak’s comments on the show. It was like he watched the exact opposite show that I watched. Almost every single one of his comments were the exact opposite of what I thought.
Slezak was totally impressed by the show. I was disappointed. I already thought that the bulk of the talent was on Blake and Pharrell’s team, so I was expecting a lot tonight. My expectations weren’t met. [After I wrote all my comments and attempted to pick out the top 12, I think I know what he’s saying. He’s saying that there’s a lot of talent in this show. I already expected that. Having to eliminate people off seems a bit unfair when I know that Adam’s and Christina’s teams won’t be as good. They really should forget about teams once they get into the top 20.]
I was disappointed by Sarah. I loved the end, but the beginning didn’t have as much dynamic as I wanted to hear. I’m expecting her to make it, but it didn’t blow me away.
Then it was Caitlin. She’s already not a favorite. I thought she did a good job last week, but I was disappointed this week.
I enjoyed Hannah. I thought she did a good job.
I’m not sure how I feel about Lowell. He’s so stilted, but he has a charisma. It’s like there’s something more going on in there. . . or is there?
I still don’t like MiaZ. She’s Michael Slezak’s favorite. I still can’t hear her words, so the whole song loses something for me. I really like the song, so that was disappointing. I’m not seeing what everyone sees in her, but it looks like I might be hearing it for a while.
I like Koryn a lot. I like her attitude, and I think she did a great job.
I’m ambivalent about Corey. I started out not wanting to like him because of the Cody situation. His song started off just meh. Then he pulled out his earbud, and I wondered if this technical thing was going to be talked about. But then he kept going, and it got better. I liked the last couple notes of the song. Then when Adam talked about him, he says that it should have had a bigger moment. Since I started out against him, I think he did pretty well.
Meghan was one of my favorites of the night. Slezak gave her the lowest rating of the night. For me, she was my favorite on Blake’s team. She looks like she really hates Pharrell. Whenever she looks at him, she squints like she’s glaring daggers. Then she looks back at Blake and her eyes open up with a smile. Pharrell seems unphazed.
I thought Brooke did pretty well. The coaches seems to think that she needs to loosen up more. I wasn’t bothered by it.
Sawyer was my other favorite of the night. I really like him. He’s so sure of what he wants to do. His ability to navigate a song and know what he wants to do with it is amazing and fun to watch.
My picks for the top 12.
Team Blake: (I want to see)
Sarah
Hannah
Meghan
(Will likely happen)
Hannah
Corey
Meghan
Team Pharrell: (I want to see)
Lowell
Koryn
Sawyer
(Will likely happen)
MiaZ
Caitlin
Sawyer
On preview: Heh on Irishman and Koryn’s song choice. There have been quite a number of song choices like that this season. Also, after seeing Nobody’s comments, I feel like I’m watching a different show tonight than everyone else.
I’m just teasing him because he HATES religious songs.
Oh, I don’t know. For Blake’s and Pharrell’s teams we each agree on two of the three we think should go through.
So am I. Rob did one earlier and someone else that I’m not remembering off the top of my head did one also. This is at least the 3rd religious song of the season that I can recall.
Every time I hear one now, I think to myself, Irishman is going to love this.
I didn’t think that team Adam and team Christina had much going for them, but it was a night of surprises and underdogs. Both teams came out strong.
Tonya was solid and steady, but nothing surprising or extraordinary.
Joshua was also good. He’s a steady player too. He had a good performance.
Sonic lost the song like she did in the blinds. If she makes it past the vote, it would be shocking. Somehow she loses the pitch mid-song and then goes on a journey to find it. There’s way too much competition for that to fly.
Brian Johnson was the surprise for me. I wondered WTF Adam was doing saving him. But I really like his performance. It was powerful and emotional without the pitch problems some others had.
I’m still not a Kimberly fan. The coaches were fawning over her, and the crowd was crazy about her. There’s still something I don’t like about her. I didn’t like how the song she was singing sounded, so that didn’t help. Some of the notes sounded off to me because if they were right, I really don’t like the song.
I’m liking Lexi. I know she’s the underdog. But she has a really powerful voice. I liked her performance.
Nathan washed out. He’s past his competence with this crowd, but he had a good run. He missed a note in the middle.
I liked India tonight. Her drama and emotion shine through. But it isn’t so overdone that it’s corny or anything. Her voice is powerful. I still don’t like the shake, but her ability is hard to deny.
Rob did great. I thought I was the only one who heard it, but he got a 4 coach standing ovation. He just looked like he was having a good time.
Deanna did a great job too. I wonder if that song will play against her, but she was really comfortable singing it.
My picks:
Team Adam:
Deanna
Joshua
Brian
(Tonya will probably beat out Brian, but I think Brian did a great job.)
Team Christina:
Kimberly
India
Rob
(I’d prefer Lexi over Kimberly, but no way America will see if that way.)
Over-all I thought this night wasn’t as good. I think you’re right Heffalump, Blake and Pharrell have the strongest teams.
For tonight, my top three picks for team Adam would be:
Tonya “Take Me to the Party” - I thought she and India were the two best of the night.
Deanna “Down to the River” - If I’m remembering her last performance right, then this was a huge improvement.
Brian “What Did You Think” - I thought he did well, but I also thought he could have given more. A little more power and emotion. If he gets through he has to stop holding back.
My top three picks for Christina’s team:
India “Hurt” - Like I said, I thought it tied for top performance of the night.
Rob “Earned it” - I’ll be honest. I missed the second half of the song, but I really liked what I heard. Close to best performance, and maybe if I heard it I would have thought it was the best.
Kimberly “What’s Up” - I think that was a bad song choice for her, but I think that she would have done so much better with a different song.
Team Blake: Corey, Meghan, Hannah (Blake save)
Bummed about America’s save of Corey, but happy about Blake’s save of Hannah. It left out Sarah, and that was sad.
Team Christina: Kimberly, India, Rob (Christina save)
Pretty predictable line-up.
Team Pharrell: Sawyer, MiaZ, Koryn (Pharrell save)
I like Koryn. I was happy to see her saved by Pharrell. I was also really happy that Sawyer got picked by America first. I hope they’re liking him as I do. I’d like to see a lot more of him.
Team Adam: Joshua, Deanna, Brian (Adam save)
It was right that Adam should save Brian, but it was obvious that he wanted to save Tonya because they had a longer relationship.
Overall, I agreed with all of the coach saves and only had a quibble with America saving Corey. But he did well on Monday, and Sarah wasn’t outstanding, so maybe I’ll have to agree even on that.
Eliminating by teams leveled that out some. Brian might not have made it if he had to compete head to head against Sarah, but because the eliminations were by team, he made it. I like him, but that’s just a quirk of the way that the game is laid out.
My two favorites, Sarah and Tonya are gone! :mad:
Well, Blake’s team of Anna, Corey, and Megan seems pretty solid.
Christina has the only team where America and her pick all match up with mine. Looking on how I ranked them, I also think her team is pretty solid.
Based only my opinions, I’m not crazy about Pharrell’s team.
Adam’s team seems better than Pharrell’s, but not as good as Blake’s and Christina’s. Again, based only on my opinion.
I just got done watching a video with Michael Slezak and a woman (I didn’t get her name) talking about American Idol and The Voice. I won’t link it because it was long and mostly about other stuff. But they were talking about how they don’t care which coach wins The Voice. I think the show would be a lot better if America could pick without regard to coach from the top 20. I can see how before that, the coaches need to narrow it down, but since America is already voting at the top 20, they should just use the numbers as a whole and not narrow it down by team.
Their favorites after the knock-outs were Joshua, Tonya, India and Lexi. 2 out of 4 of those are already gone. I wonder how it would have played out if the votes weren’t by team. Michael Slezak also noted that he didn’t like India’s vibrato, as I don’t. The other woman disagreed.
Off topic: Does anyone here watch American Idol as well as The Voice? I haven’t watched it, so I’m wondering if I’d like it if I like The Voice.