I loved Joshua’s version of America. His voice had a lovely warm tone and the final verse was amazing.
Joshua, Mia, and Kimberly are my favorites at this point.
I am admittedly an intermittent watcher of The Voice, but it might not be a stretch to say that last night’s episode was my favorite ever. That may have been because I knew all but about two of the songs, where as normally if I know two it’s a good night, or it may have been because there were a bunch of good performances. On the other hand, once all of the early country-only singers get out of the way and they start focusing more on rock and blues and general variety, good things tend to happen.
Anyways, I loved:
- Kimberly, House of the Rising Sun - One of the very best I’ve seen on the show, to the point where I may even buy it on iTunes
- Meghan, Girl Crush - I was all ready to be disappointed that she was doing song I don’t particularly like, and then she killed it, like she does everything
- Sawyer, Imagine - Great match for his voice, and great performance
I liked, in relatively descending order:
- Rob, I Put a Spell On You - I might just be a complete sucker for this song
- Hannah, Edge of Seventeen - Probably the worst singing in this group but the best performance
- India, Take Me To Church - Good choice for her but she could have done a little more with it
- Mia, Miss You - I think the arrangement they used live turned me off, I liked her singing a bit more this week than in the past
- Koryn, Stronger - She looked like she was working hard to get the power she had, and I wanted a little bit more
All of which were flawed performances that still would have been the best in show on a lot of other episodes.
The only two I really disliked were Brian (If I Ever Lose My Faith In You - just a bad song choice for him, I laughed out loud when Adam just effortlessly hit the high notes showing him how to do it and Brian couldn’t come close) and Corey (Why - crappy song, even worse performance, the only injustice of the night is that the girl-vote will put him through).
I want to get this in before the show airs here, so maybe I’ll elaborate later.
I really liked Sawyer, Meghan and Koryn. Rob was also pretty good.
My prediction for the people leaving is Brian and Deanna. Corey did the worst performance but I think the country vote has already saved him.
The thing for me about this season is that the talent level is really high. But the contestants are really inconsistent. Last week, my favorites were Brian and Deanna. This week, they’re the ones I think are going home. Their performances last night weren’t very good, but they weren’t horrible. It’s just that the rest of the competitors did better.
I’m not a Kimberly, India or MiaZ fan. People seem to like them consistently. I haven’t liked them very much overall. I love The House of the Rising Sun. I thought Kimberly’s low notes weren’t that good. But I’m probably biased since I already don’t like her. India’s song didn’t go anywhere. I keep waiting for a performance to change my mind for all three of them since people seem to really like them.
It’s a frustrating season for me because I can’t pick a favorite and stick with them because of the inconsistent performances. I really like Sawyer though. But even he has had some up and down moments.
The tiniest of quibbles here. I agree with you about the performance and the injustice. But I think it’s the country vote and not necessarily the girl vote that might save him. I hope we’re both wrong and he’s gone tonight.
Wow, wow, Wow!
That was a complete shock tonight. I didn’t have any idea that MiaZ had a chance of going home. I haven’t cared for her since the beginning, but somehow I felt sad that she was in the bottom 3. I think it was the unfairness that Corey walked away unscathed. MiaZ definitely did better than Corey.
There was that inconsistency again. If all 3 of those people had done last night what they did tonight, it might have been a different story. It was hard to pick between the 3 of them because they all did well tonight, unlike how they did last night.
But I was really surprised that Deanna won. It was Brian in the rankings right up until they announced it, I guess. She was completely shocked too. I like her. I hope she continues to improve.
I was also a little surprised that India was that low on the ranking. America is agreeing with me more than I thought they were.
Except for Kimberly at the top, I’m mostly agreeing with the rankings tonight.
As I watched the results being called, I thought that it was a little boring because they all know who is being called. The iTunes rankings tell the story, and everyone can see that. In the past, there was more suspense because people didn’t follow that as closely. It was actually pretty amazing that there were the couple surprises at the end. It would be nice if the show can speed up the results process since it’s not all that suspenseful and add more time for something new.
I haven’t been able to keep up. I finally got through all but tonight’s results. Going back to name who did what is a bit of a challenge I’m not ready to tackle.
I’ll just say that I was frustrated that Cory made it in, knocking out Sarah. He was the only one from that group I didn’t want to continue. I’m pleased with Hannah being saved.
I definitely get why Mia Z is polarizing - if you like what she’s doing, it’s great, but if you don’t like her style, it’s annoying.
And yes, you totally out guessed me on Koryn’s song choice. And Deanna’s. And Tonya’s.
I’m seeing as most likely winners:
Meghan, Kimberly, India, Sawyer, Joshua, Hannah
Rob has a good voice, but something in his performances doesn’t work for me. But the coaches love him.
I did not like Sawyer’s take on “Imagine”. Of course, that song suffers from the tone not being in synch with the message.
I thought Mia did a much better job with taming the upper register and keeping it more tasteful.
Koryn did great - can she keep it up?
Brian just didn’t do that well. I don’t think that Sting song worked for him.
I think all the teams are strong. Some have to cater to their niche, but India, Rob, and Kimberly are keeping Christina in this one. From Team Adam, I prefer Joshua with his tone and style. I want to like Deanna, but song choice is killing me, and I didn’t think her performance worked as well. Something about her tone makes the lyrics hard to pull out. She kinda has a bit of a Cher tone.
Hannah keeps doing well.
Brian butchered that Sting song. Irritated me greatly.
Saw the latest results show. Not that surprised other than Mia ending up in bottom three.
Here’s the thing: her style is a bit polarizing, and she kinda slurs her words. I think that’s why she was on bottom, despite a great performance on the last chance song.
That was a much better song for Deanna, and she nailed that one. That’s the Deanna that should be in the show, and on that performance I’m not surprised she got saved. What I am surprised about is how close the numbers were with Brian - they were tied at 35% until the graphic went off the screen. I didn’t think he did as well, and am not sad to see him go.
I’m happy Deanna is still around, if they can get off that “Christian”/gospel kick and do stuff like what she did here. I’m a bit annoyed that Corey is still in it - not surprised, though I have hope since he was near the bottom he’ll be out soon.
I was thinking India and Koryn should both be a little higher, but happy they’re solidly in for now.
Last night I said all the teams are strong, but that was a mistaken impression from before. Whittled down to Brian, Deanna, and Joshua, Adam’s team was looking weak. I’m hoping Deanna will keep up for a bit, and Joshua doesn’t get booted because his style isn’t suited to big R&B hits or power ballads. And Adam has got to avoid the “big risk” songs, like doing Sia’s “Chandelier” before it hit the radio playlist. I think audience recognition hurt that one. Two months later the song was all over the radio, and doing the exact same performance would have scored higher from audience acceptance. When it came out, the song was odd/different enough for people to give it a pass for something more familiar.
And I think I pegged what’s bugging you about Kimberly - her mannerisms and vocal patterns trigger “Drag Queen”. I’m not saying she is one, I’m thinking since she performed in a Burlesque club, the club was likely a Drag Queen club and she therefore picked up a lot of there mannerisms. Just a guess, but tell me if you think I’m right or wrong.
Not for me. I don’t have a problem with her style or her tone. For me, it’s just that I can’t understand any of the words she sings. That makes it more of a hum-a-long. Without the words, it’s hard to tell if there’s any emotion. When I read Michael Slezak’s column on the night she was eliminated, that was the problem a lot of people cited as well.
Who is this addressed to?
Rob doesn’t transition well between the falsetto part and the regular parts. Once he’s in one or the other, he does well. But the transitions don’t work well for me.
I guess it depends on what the message is. I don’t agree with Reba that it’s a hopeful song. She told Sawyer to smile. I agree with Sawyer’s interpretation. I think it’s an angsty song. John Lennon was an admittedly abusive man. He wasn’t hopeful that he or the world would be at peace, IMO. It was an angsty pipe dream. [Disclaimer: I don’t know the background of the song. That’s just what I’m reading into it from what I’ve read of John Lennon and reading the lyrics.]
I think you’re on to something here. I don’t think it’s necessarily because of the drag queen vibe. But I do think it’s because there’s an affectation. Her body language says that she doesn’t care about anything. Her words say that she cares about all of this very deeply. Her body language screams arrogance while her words are screaming insecurity. They don’t match. When people’s body language and their words don’t match, I think they’re disingenuous. Christina is the same way, so it was interesting that she knew instantly when she saw Kimberly that they’d get along great.
But beyond that, I don’t care for her tone much. It’s brassy and brash pretty much all the time. I like smooth tones or at least more dynamics. I could probably get over that if I could get past her body language.
Two other things I noticed. Pharrell’s team didn’t have any adults on it. When I watched the interview of them, it was in a classrom with MiaZ, Koryn and Sawyer all in school. It was like a study hall with the kids taking a break to play music.
Adam messed up his team with song choice again. That Sting song didn’t work for Brian. Deanna didn’t want to sing that religious song.
I’ve always took it as a straight-forward hippy-dippy utopia song. I’m guessing that either there was no mental disconnect between his anger issues and a peaceful world, or he figured along with doing away with everything that divides us, we would also somehow do away with all of our flaws.
I’ll post other thoughts when the show is over, but I just had to say, what a horrible opening.
And now, to start off the show, Hooray for Everything
OK, after that horrible opening, the rest of the show was pretty good. I’ll just go ahead and list the artists in order of most favorite to least favorite.
My top 3
India “Run to You” - Wow, a great performance and wonderful way to end the show. I enjoyed every part of it. No criticisms.
Koryn “Make it Rain” - A very close second.
Deanna “Somebody to Love” - A very close third. And she sounded so close to Grace Slick’s voice I’m expecting some Karaoke criticism, but I don’t care, I loved her performance.
Middle 5
Rob “A Song for You” - Good overall. The first falsetto was less than impressive, and the second one was fairly good.
Tied
Kimberly “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” and Corey “Unwound” - I know he’s not, but it sounded like he’s going hoarse.
Hannah “Shout” and Meghan “Home” - I had mixed feelings about both. For Hannah, her singing was OK, and it had its moments, but I hated the background singers going, “Shout, shout.”
Bottom 2
Joshua “Hold Back the River” - Adam said he took a risk and it didn’t completely pay off. I think that’s an understatement. Also, did his voice almost crack at one point?
Sawyer “Iris” - I was totally underwhelmed
I wouldn’t mind if these two went home.
In relatively descending order; my tiers this week have a top two, then the next four, then the remaining four.
Easily my favorite of the night: Koryn, Make It Rain.
I’ve long since realized I just don’t get Whitney outside of a couple specific songs and that one National Anthem, but the singing was obviously really good: India, Run to You
Really liked the performance, though it could have “popped” a little more for me: Deanna, Somebody To Love
We have pretty good evidence that her voice isn’t as great as the top three or four, but she uses it well and always has great performances: Hannah, Shout
We can all agree that she’s going to go back to her already-existing professional music career and do just fine after this, right? Right: Meghan, Home
Let-down after last week, but still pretty good: Kimberly, Something’s Got a Hold on Me
I think he’s probably safe, and really I hated the arrangement more than his voice, but a legitimately worrisome sign from a previously strong contender: Sawyer, Iris
Blah?: Rob, A Song For You
Don’t know the song, don’t like the singer, tried to come with an open mind anyways, didn’t work: Corey, Unwound
Poster-child for why some people in life are just risk-averse, and some should maybe be more so: Joshua, Hold Back the River
About seven more tiers down:
Five English words most likely to get me to check the scores of every single NBA and NHL playoff game: “Ten singer Elton John medley”
I happened to miss the first 8 minutes of the show, which turned out great for me. I missed the whole, ‘what’s going on here?!’ moment. Going back to watch it, knowing it was messed up, I didn’t get that feeling as much as I would if I had seen it the right way. That opening really was messed up. It sounded like they threw it together a minute before the show started. People were off-key, missing their moments to come in and just looking lost most of the time.
Noooooo!! He’s my favorite. I hope you’re not right here.
Big time spoiler. Do not open this until after tonight, if ever.
Sawyer is now #5 on the iTunes charts for that song, so I think he’s safe. In contrast, Kimberly Nicole is #72.
My favorites of the night were Meghan, Sawyer and Koryn. Meghan nailed it. Koryn is really getting better. I continue to be a Sawyer fan.
I continue to NOT be a Kimberly and India fan despite the coaches (and Michael Slezak) raving about them. I do think that the coaches going on and on about Kimberly winning might be strategy. Blake and Adam know that the fans like underdogs. Setting her up for the win this early really could play against her.
Rob, Deanna and Hannah had OK performances. Of those three, I like Rob the least. I like Deanna, but she’s really inconsistent. I like Hannah, but there’s something missing with her performances.
Joshua and Corey really messed up last night. Joshua’s performance was because of poor song choice. Adam really likes to pick impossible songs for contestants in the name of growing and stretching. It’s really about his ego. Pushing someone to the point of having a poor performance isn’t helping the contestant. He has blown out more talent by doing that than anyone.
Corey missed a lyric. It was obvious because the song didn’t make sense. I heard it, and I didn’t know the song.
My bottom three are Joshua, Corey and Deanna. But I hope Corey and Rob go. Maybe people will give Deanna and Joshua a chance despite their coach’s bad song choices.
Well, two of your least favorites went home.
As for me, I was shocked that Deanna was in the bottom, and shocked that she didn’t get saved. I guess my tastes differ greatly from the rest of America.
I was hoping for Corey to be gone, but that country fan base is formidable. I can’t believe he was the second person saved by America. That’s just crazy.
I haven’t seen the show yet. I’ve only seen the results.
This is a tough year to predict results. The talent level is high, so the differences are slight. I think some people are starting to pick by personality. By sheer performance, Kimberly might be higher than Sawyer. (It pains me to even write it.) But for me, I like Sawyer’s innovation, his humility, his powerful voice and his easy-going personality. If people are picking based on sheer technical competence, the results will probably differ. But I think the whole package counts as well. If I think about whether I want to see Kimberly in the next season pushing her album, my answer would be no.
As an aside, I started to watch American Idol. The talent level in that show is really, really low in comparison, at least in the auditions so far. I’m almost done watching the auditions.
I wanted to make a comment about the results although I still haven’t watched the show. With Koryn getting saved first and Hannah solidly in the middle, that really marks a departure from the old expectations about coach saves. Koryn was Pharrell’s save and Hannah was Blake’s save.
Before last season, it was just a given that a coach save would just last an additional week or two. With Koryn placing so high, that turns the coach saves into a different thing. They’re meaning something now. It counts who the coach saves because that person really could last a while.
It actually changed last season with Chris Jamison, but that’s still inexplicable to me.
I also saw some people in the comments section of the Michael Slezak column posting about how Blake made a mistake in saving Corey instead of Cody. One person commented that they tweeted Craig Wayne Boyd to do a song with Cody. That would be awesome. If Blake had saved Cody, I think I might be more on board with him getting saved by the country audience. Corey getting saved is just annoying.
I was considering her mumbling/slurring part of her style, but itemizing it separately works. I typically find that annoying as well.
[hijack]I find that there are two kinds of music listeners: the ones who just get the vibe or the overall sound or the flow or whatever and don’t really care what the words are saying, the the ones who listen and try to understand and interpret the lyrics to be meaningful. I’m the latter, and get somewhat frustrated when I can’t parse out the words to make sense of them. [/hijack]
Nobody and his conversation with you. So kind of both of you.
That’s an interesting observation. It has always struck me odd that the tone of the song is so melancholy for lyrics that seem so hopeful and positive about the proposed dream. I guess it’s the angsty “we’ll never really get there, wouldn’t it be great?” kind of thing or something.
Yep.
To me, it didn’t sound that much like Grace Slick, and I didn’t like what she did with the song. Too bad, because I like the song.
Agree on both. Joshua struggled with the song and it showed. And that rendition of “Iris” didn’t work for me. I’ve enjoyed Sawyer, but not that song.
Agreed. She has really shaped up into a strong performer.
Agreed, close second.
Needed something different, just didn’t work for me.
Good observation. She’s holding on more by spirit and effort than vocal skill.
Except her existing career isn’t existing at the moment. Her country duo broke up, and she’s not getting the shows and record deals and whatnot as an individual. She’s trying to revamp and change track a bit, but the country definitely came through that time.
I think I agree.
Yep.
Yep.
Wasn’t following closely. Just isn’t my thing.
Bingo. The problem with risks is the risk part.
Snerk. For me, I was expecting a few more songs in that medley. I kinda expect a medley to be more than two songs. YMMV. Also, who else was expecting “Crocodile Rock”?
Agreed - I think that’s what kept several of the contestants from picking him this season. He pushes the risks and the stretching and growing and gives odd song choices, things he thinks the contestant should do rather than what they want. It’s irritating.
I get that the contestants need to grow, to show range and diversity. But it still needs to be a song they connect with and a song that doesn’t overreach their abilities and a song that the audience at home can connect with.
Though to be fair, only him and Blake have been around for all seasons to build up a record. Cee Lo could do some bad music choices, too, but he isn’t there.
Once again, Deanna gave a strong performance in the Last Chance song, but she’s too inconsistent. Maybe Joshua can come back from this - if Adam will let him.
Not sad to see Rob go.
Tonight’s performances: first let me say, the overall quality is so good that I feel most people are voting by personality rather than performance. Anyway…
Hannah Kirby, “We Don’t Need Another Hero” - Great song, great choice for her. Superb performance. Loved it, loved it, loved it! Even the slightly spastic children dancers. Top of the night.
Joshua Davis, “Fields of Gold” - Great. Really fit for him, delivered well. If he goes home over this, it’s not the performance.
Kimberly Nicole, “Creep” - When they said “jazz overtones”, I was worried. But this rendition worked. She delivered it well. Really emotionally, really connecting. Unique, but powerful. Awesome. Maybe #2.
Meghan Linsey, “Something” - Nearly unrecognizable. Strong singing, good emotional delivery, but something wasn’t working for me. Maybe too orchestra a rendition.
India Carney, “Over the Rainbow” - Overall it was great, but there was something just a bit overdone for me. The classic version has an elegant simplicity that got lost here with too many embellishments and flairs.
Sawyer Fredricks, “Simple Man” - He certainly has a unique tone. Good, but he tweaked the melody a bit. Strong performance.
Corey Kent White, “When I See You Smile” - Blake is right, it made an interesting transition to a country song. Adam is right, there were points where his soft voice lost sound - he wasn’t loud enough to be heard. I love the song, didn’t mind the change of form, but Corey isn’t my favorite.
Koryn Hawthorne, “Girl On Fire” - I think maybe she gave in a little too much to emotion, because she lost air on parts and it came out whispy. Overall strong, but that was a slight miss up against the first three.
Hard to call who I want to be the two eliminated. Everyone is doing well and deserves to be here.
I’d drop Corey, but I think he’ll make it through. I don’t know who else should be out. I’m guessing Hannah and Joshua for silly reasons will be in bottom three.
And how not surprised am I that Blake’s new song is about booze.
Blazer’s game means “The Voice” won’t air until 2:00am here. :mad:
Bummer. If you miss it, you can catch it on Hulu tomorrow. The clips of the 8 performances are on there tonight if you just want to see the songs.