This is it! No more coach saves. The artists have to appeal completely to us, the audience. It is all up to us, America. Please don’t let me down! To review how we got to this point, check out my previous blog entries!
I’ve been looking forward to the joy and wonder that is Garth Brooks. After this week we’ve all had, let us listen to some great music and all give out a hearty Garth Brooks! To me, Garth is to country what the Beatles were to rock and roll/pop. Like the Beatles, he honors, understands, appreciates, and loves other genres. He’s performed pop and taken some rock and roll songs and made them his country own, like Billy Joel’s Shameless. Clearly, as we watch him coach the top 12 and direct the band on what to do to best support the artist, we see that GARTH BROOKS KNOWS HIS SHIT. On top of being clearly an amazing musical arranger, Garth is at times as emotional in his coaching as he is in his singing. He is probably a really crappy poker player, because at least when it comes to music and/or his girls, his feelings are on his face. It was REALLY obvious when he talked to We in her high soprano speaking voice, then heard her deep singing voice. His face was definitely “oh shit.. What the hell?” I loved that moment and frankly I love him.
As for the coaches themselves, there isn’t much more I can say about them that I haven’t already said. Now that they have no real decision making powers in who stays and who goes, they can really be positive about someone on another team. I REALLY appreciated Alicia’s comments about Ali Caldwell after her performance. She was a bit emotional about her, and Ali is not on her team. Ali killed it and it was really kismet that Ali performed a Leonard Cohen song on the week he died, and performed it so well.
THE PERFORMANCES – STAGE SETTING AND OUTFITS
You know how on Top Chef they are always big on plating because we “eat with our eyes first”? Well, I contend we also listen with our eyes as well, and that means wardrobe and staging are very important. It doesn’t mean that everything has to be flashy, as some songs just call for one spotlight, the artist and a microphone. Sure, the artists always had access to wardrobe once past the Blinds, but this week either the coaches or the stylists have really worked on some of them and they look great! I LOVE We with long hair! However, no one is inauthentic. No one looks uncomfortable. In fact, I think the makeover added to We’s confidence.
The stage is now expanded compared to the previous rounds, and they have these HUGE digital screens behind the artists (think the Olympic Opening and Closing ceremonies, only not on the floor). Steps and additional backgrounds for each performance are available as needed. They really were top notch this week. I’ve been to professional concerts that look amateur in comparison. (Sorry, Rascal Flatts) I loved the psychedelic flowers on the screen behind Darby while she was singing “Ruby Tuesday”. We’s “Take Me to Church” was like the best televangelist set you ever saw, only classy!
FAVORITES
Some of the artists may have suffered from a bit of nerves now that the show has transitioned to being live and America votes. Christian and Sundance were technically perfect, but neither had me tugged by my heart, or experiencing goosebumps. Where are the guys who grab me (in a good way)?
Team Blake: Billy Gilman Song: The Show Must Go On
There are people who pick Queen who shouldn’t. Billy is not one of them. When Garth first saw him, he said “Miss Yearwood is going to be tickled”. Trisha isn’t the only one. This felt like a great Broadway production. This is very much a compliment from me as I’m a minor musical theater geek. This was a game changer moment for Billy.
Team Blake: Austin Allsup Song: Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
To quote Garth, Austin picked a song of Aretha Franklin’s,” the greatest female voice ever, and you are doing it justice”. I completely agree. Afterward, Blake referred to a new generation of Outlaw Country forming, and that he’d be damned if any of them can sing like Austin. Brilliant comment by seasoned Coach Blake. He knows his country audience, and he just found a way of differentiating between Sundance and Austin. For the uninitiated, Outlaw Country is populated by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and yes, that fucking asshat, Hank Williams, Jr. who I can’t stand. I notice that both Monday and Tuesday Austin wore black on stage.
Team Blake: Courtney Harrell Song: I Don’t Want to Miss A Thing
Brave choice in song, an it worked. Even if I had skipped over the Garth session, I would know she was singing this to someone real, to someone she loves. I thought I would miss that cigarette and whiskey Rock and Roll sound of Steven Tyler, but the purity of her voice fit this song perfectly. A song from a silly ‘the Earth is in danger’ disaster movie that makes me cry every time and this was no different. She could be the ultimate winner.
MY FAILED TO IMPRESS
The differences this week are so subtle I don’t want to call out one specific artist and nitpick everything like I did for my favorites. Perhaps I should change this category to “failed to be memorable the next day”. I was surprised that I was indifferent to Sundance Head. Sa’Rayah was bold and smart in her song choice of Living on a Prayer; however, there was a bit of stiffness in her body language that was distracting. Aaron Gibson was my least favorite. It is one thing to show us your lesser known style of alt rock and another thing to pick a totally unknown song. Combine them together? It could be the kiss of death. Does he really think that the extreme Alt Rock people watch The Voice regularly?
THE ELIMINATION
Before I go into who was on the bottom, I DO encourage you to at least check out the non-competition performances. Team Adam’s rendition of “For What It’s Worth” by Stephen Stills (one of the most recognizable protest songs of the 60s) was simply lovely. I’ve questioned Alicia’s rookie coaching skills, but “Holy War” from her new album proves why she deserves every accolade and award she’s ever been given.
But my favorite? Team Miley. I’m sure many would disagree with me, because I am picking it for personal reasons. But I’m the blogger, so suck it. She and her team sang There’ll Always Be Music by Dolly Parton, and their outfits and and the set might have been stolen right out of Dolly’s storage at Dollywood. Miley continues to impress, and Ali held her own beautifully. It was great, but I’m starting to get tired of Darby, and Aaron looked VERY uncomfortable. Suck it up, Aaron. Dolly Parton is one of our greatest living songwriters. You should feel privileged that you are playing a rhinestoned guitar like Dolly’s, singing one of her many songs, while on her goddaughter’s team.
Before this season when I was not blogging, I sometimes skipped the elimination show. Especially after the FUCKING TWITTER SAVE WAS INTRODUCED. It is unfair to the West Coasters (and some of the Central/Mountain timers). When I got the alert that the show had started and started to read the tweets on who was saved, it was 5 PM and I was still at work. When the “twitter save” was opened, I was on my commute home. Basically, I have to choose to either spoil the results or not have the opportunity to vote. It sucks.
It is also unfair to the artists. The bottom two perform a new song each. I retweeted to save Sa’Rayah based on last night. Then I watch 3 hours later, and I see that she choked, and Aaron pulled his shit together. I’m voting without all the information I need. It worked out this time, as Aaron was saved, while Sa’Rayah went home. Slightly sweet revenge for Michael, one of Tamara and my favorites (we do agree on some things!)
I don’t know if I just hate everyone this season, or if I’m tiring of the show, but I hated EVERY SINGLE performance this week. The arrangement of My Church (Sundance Head, I think it was) was awful, I hated the Livin’ on a Prayer performance, and I pretty much have no idea / recollection of any of the performers. i ended up skipping thought a lot of the results episode and only watched to see who got eliminated
I was actually pretty disappointed this week with everyone’s song choice.
The only one I felt slightly redeemed themself this week was Wé McDonald. Ali Caldwell has yet to do any wrong!
Oh and I’m so tired of the breathy girls… that one girl, can’t even remember her name, but she was blonde and had flowers in her hair is super annoying. I watched about 5 seconds of her performance before skipping through it.
Also “get off my lawn you young whippersnappers!” LOL (I’m such an old lady)
This is the first season in a while that I’m watching (Thanks Miley!) and I’m enjoying it. I hate that people don’t “get” Darby. I get her, she’s good at that niche she’s in and should very well be there! Now, Sa’Rayah should have picked different songs IMO. I dunno she can sing but damn her picks were not connecting to a lot of the voters. Adam’s boys are going to slay this shit.
Don’t throw stuff at me but I just think We’ is “ok”.
Voice is bland this year so I’m just rooting for the people who need to go to GO! Courtney, Aaron or Austin can go and it wouldn’t be a loss. Was glad Sareyah left.
Darby
I wonder if we all just had an I HATE EVERYTHING week. I usually listen to this show while working on the site and only half pay attention. I know someone is good if I stop what I am doing and watch the whole performance. We were well into the show and I didn’t like a damn thing. I have always thought We was good, but not THE END ALL BE ALL. I’ve found some of her performances to be kind of meh.
I disagree with WOW this week because her song gave me chills this week. I thought it was the best one of the night and she performed it like a BOSS. I voted for her even though voting for her kind of works against the lessor mortals that I voted for. If you give her 10 points and your underdog 10 points it doesn’t help your underdog that much. Or something.
Anyway. In addition to We, I voted for Sundance, not because I liked his performance, but because I like him and didn’t want him to go home. I am not sure if I gave Aaron that same courtesy or not because I hated his song and he has an original sound I’d like to keep in the game. I voted for Austin because he has been trying for so long and I loved his version of the song and I worry about Blakes voters spiliting his votes with Sundance. And I voted for Brendon because he sang my favorite song of the night. It reminds me of college and playing pool at The Foundry in Athens where they had an actual jukebox with that song on it. It was a dive and me and a girlfriend of mine would go there and get drunk and play that song over and over while shooting pool, singing along and looking around for someone fuckworthy for later when we were feeling all angsty. #GoodTimes
My bottom two were Courtney and Sa ray ah. Courtney was the worst performance of the night She totally butchered that song. Blake SAVED THE WRONG BLACK GIRL in the battle rounds. I said it then, and it’s still true.
Sa ray ah suffers from bad song choices. In order for her to win, she has to win the big belting ballad contest against We. So far she is not. There is not room for both of them and Courtney moving forward and Sa ray ah is in trouble.
I hate Billy. I am not buying into the hype. He’s a try too hard. He’s slickery like a car salesman I do not believe his lyrics or his false humility. He will probably win anyway.
And finally the GODDAMN WEST COASTERS NEED TO STOP VOTING UNLESS THEY HAVE ACCESS TO AN EAST COAST FEED! You almost sent Aaron home last night. I was trying to retweet as many as I could and the hashtags were all kinds of fucked up. It must be the WC that didn’t know what to tweet. It’s #VoiceSaveName But you Erica are not allowed to use it!
xo
I can’t really talk because I don’t vote, but this live voting thing is stupid. And the instant save is the dumbest thing ever because only the East Coasters get to participate unless you are blind voting (like I am sure many of the WCers do).
I think they need to change their format up a bit.
Also TT, I think you’re right. I hate everyone and everything this week…
To paraphrase Miley, can’t stop, won’t stop. Actually he deserred to go for not rocking it with Miley. Only Ali really did that.
Oh and Ali, I have never liked Ali. I mean she is good, but she’s not “all four judges stand up and clap like trained seals good.” She’s cute. She seems sweet but she’s not all that. With Miley’s social media followers all of hers should go far.
Oh and what has happened to Garth Brooks? He failed to impress also. I used to like him, but he seems… different.
LEAVE GARTH ALONE!
He can’t help it if he is even more of a schlubby dad after retirement. Trisha is a good cook!
That’s what comfortable love can do for ya…neither of you notices how “comfortable” y’all got!!?
If you want to see comfortable… google Garth and Justin Timberlake in concert, and see what Garth wore to sing with Justin on his 20/20 tour.
I was disappointed in most all of this week’s performances. When We incorporated that dance move into her routine I thought she had toppled off her high heels, then she did it again. It almost hurt to listen to Darby sing Ruby Tuesday. There were times when she sounded off key. Ruby Tuesday is not one of my all-time favorite songs but she did it no favors, even with her quirkiness, and it surprised me that Sa’Rayah was voted off before Darby. I’ve not enjoyed any of Darby’s songs. I’m not a Billy fan. He picks geezer songs to sing. Maybe it was just an off week because of the super moon and next week they will bring the wow factor. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Hey, I love me some Garth Brooks. For the record, he was cute & very cool dude back in the day. He used to play in the local bars while I was an undergrad and before he became famous. I’m not even a big country music fan. But, he takes me back to my youth so I guess I will always love him for that reason.
You are my new favorite.
I love Garth and the people who go to his concerts (still) say he is great in concert.
Going back a week, the two people who left from Adam’s team were better than many of the top 3 on other teams. Riley Elmore and Simone Gundy (remember her Diamonds song). should still be on the show and would be killing it. I don’t think Miley should have saved Darby. Darby had a place on the show and it has played out. Blake saved Courtney and I liked Dana so much more. Kylie was more interesting than Sa’Rayah. I was shocked watching the decisions of the coaches for the top 12. Obviously, the coaches know what they are doing but last week there were decisions made that I feel showed in this weeks lackluster show.
On to the top 12.
Living on a Prayer by Sa’Rayah was awful. It reminded me of something Simon Cowell would watch and tell us we could see on a cruise ship.
Courtney was worse than Sa’Rayah. She is talented and has written amazing songs. But, she hasn’t been good for the past few weeks. Dana would have been more interesting. I don’t like the song Man-eater and Dana made it much better. I don’t want to miss a thing < I wanted to miss the whole thing.
I liked Aaron but my husband thought he was awful. My husband complained that couldn’t understand Aaron’s words. I agree but still thought he sounded great. I’ve never noticed before that his words weren’t understandable.
I’m over Darby.
Billy's the Show Must Go On was amazing. He is a bit over the top and comes off a bit inauthentic, possible because he is too guarded and poised, but he can sing.
We is awesome but the hype came too soon and overexposed her. I did not like the long hair. It doesn't suit her personality. When she walked away from the piano I thought she fell. Her voice was great and I liked the song.
I always like Josh. I think he is marketable and we will be hearing his name at the award shows in the near future.
Adam knew what he was doing when he kept Brendan. He was great.
Austin is always good and I root for him. I liked his Man-Woman song.
I remember thinking that Ali’s performance was good but it was forgettable. I don’t really remember anything she did.
Ali, Austin, Billy, Josh are my top 4 picks.
When you say top four pics do you mean your four personal favorites or who you think will be in the final four?If those are your top four who do you think will end up in the final four?