By Erica
I think there are a couple of people watching The Voice for the first time. Let me take a moment to explain just a couple of things. Monday’s two hour show is always the “competition” night. These are the performances you are voting on, or buying on iTunes. Tuesday night is “results” night. They announce one or two artists as going on next week, and we get entertained in between. PAY ATTENTION TO THE iTunes results, because if the artist reaches the iTunes Top 10 in single sales by the time voting closes, all the iTunes sales (which count as a vote) get multiplied by 5!
Tuesdays are a great way for coaches or former coaches to promote a new album, tour, or just remind everyone why they get one of those red seats with the button on them. The staging is so much better than if they are on the talk show circuit, so it feels like a glimpse into a concert. Kelly Clarkson and Pharrell Williams both performed as guest, non-competition singers before they were selected as coaches. Maroon 5, who performed well tonight, get great exposure to those tuning in because they are fans of Blake, Jennifer, and Miley.
Shout out to the stylists, as always. They really manage to elevate the artists’ looks without losing their personalities. I also LOVE LOVE LOVE that they always seem to dress the minors in age appropriate, yet interesting and professional ways. Addison and Shi’Ann looked particularly sassy tonight!
I KNOW I am not the only one who thought Miley’s dress was reminiscent of Ayana’s avant garde look on Project Runway. Liris retweeted someone giving her and the look she absolutely rocked a shout out to Miley and The Voice twitter accounts. Of course, Miley had the use of her arms and the ability to sit down.
NON COMPETITION PERFORMANCES
Coaches also ALWAYS get up there and perform with their teams. Sometimes teams combine forces. I pay attention to these as well because I believe that sometimes the difference between a good singer and a great one is the ability to sing a duet or in a group. They also bring out the house band, which I love, and even give some of them a solo part. There have been artists in the past who I liked, but who totally biffed a group performance. In Miley’s first season, Aaron was totally uncomfortable singing out of his narrow lane. He ended up on the bottom a lot.
I can’t say ANY of them were uncomfortable tonight!!! This week was Team Jennifer and Team Blake’s turn. Hot damn, they were great! Now, Team Jhud Productions’ version of The Beatles’ “Let It Be” didn’t bring me to tears like they did Tamara, who warned me to grab some kleenex. However, it was fantastic. Jennifer looked and sounded amazing, but didn’t make this the Jennifer and her backup performance. Each singer was highlighted beautifully. Beautiful choice. Team Blake swung our emotions the other direction and did a fun upbeat version of Hank Williams Jr’s “If It Will, It Will.” I hope to hear more fun, upbeat stuff like this. We all can use it.
On a side note, I DID cry during the Pitch Perfect 3 promotional video using all the artists singing acappella. They were great, but I get so emotional over George Michael’s music every time I hear it. I still can’t believe he’s gone. He has been and always will be my jam.
WHO IS STAYING AND THE INSTANT SAVE
They only mentioned it briefly, but Addison Agen was the only artist this week to break into the Top Ten on iTunes, earning herself a nice boost in the votes. I don’t know if they are announced in descending number of votes, but in order of announcements the Voice Top 11 are Noah Mack (J), Chloe Kohanski (B), Brooke Simpson (M), Keisha Renee (B), Shi’Ann Jones (J), Janice Freeman (M), Davon Fleming (J), Ashland Craft (M), and Red Marlow (B). I put the coach’s first initial in parentheses after their names.
I know I bitch every season about using Twitter to save one of the bottom two, so I won’t go into details unless someone asks in the comments. But I REALLY hate it.
Coach Adam better hope this is a fluke and not a trend as he starts off the live rounds with TWO out of his three artists in the bottom. Each artist actually prepares two songs each week. The one for Monday, and a possible Instant Save performance.
First up, Adam Cunningham. Ok, FINALLY seeing a little of what you are seeing. Adam needs to do more like this if he’s going to stay. My only issue is that both performances this week from him are more rock than country. If Adam Levine wanted a rock and roll Adam, why didn’t he keep Adam Pence?
TT mentioned to me on Twitter that she thought her local guy Jon Mero’s performance felt weird. I actually enjoyed his performance and thought he did well on stage. But I suddenly realized why I thought something was “off”. This is an ICONIC song from Jackson 5. I’ve wanted Jon to sing some Michael Jackson, but totally the wrong song dude! Ironically, I seem to remember seeing a performance on TV of this song that felt off as well. The performer? One of the Jackson brothers. I think it was Jermaine. So it dawned on me. This is totally meant to be a GROUP number with very clean, polished Motown synchronized dancing. It was this song that made everyone go absolutely apeshit when the Jacksons reunited on stage with Michael and they did those smooth moves they were so famous for. I don’t think Jon has the dancing chops, and he certainly didn’t have a partner.
So, off Jon goes. Makes me sad as I think there wasn’t anyone else in his lane this season.
ALERT! My DVR cut it off, but I think Carson said WE PICK THE SONGS NEXT WEEK! Did anyone catch that? Make suggestions if it is true!
I probably got cut off as well.
I also hate Twitter voring, Facebook voting, voting by text, and any “live voting” that shuts out mountain, Pacific timezones as well as Alaska, Hawaii, etc.
But the two tonight had the same coast and were in the same time zone, so I guess the country fans made the difference.
Confession – I didn’t even look at where they are from. LOL. Country fans are TIGHT for sure, and most follow Blake. (He is funny as fuck when he goes after some trolls. He got into a snark war with the Westboro bunch once. I think he was drunk)
At least we get to vote on the Monday performances.
Fun fact – Jennifer most likely got voted out on American Idol because there were massive power and phone outages in Chicago that night. (No Twitter to tell people what the phone number was to vote for her that night – this was when each person had a phone number assigned to them that week). Wouldn’t matter to someone who was from a teeny tiny town, but Chicago was going crazy for their hometown girl, and there are over 2 million people there!
Jennifer probably lucked out in not winning AI and having that controlling contract, but at the time that was less obvious.
I actually had to search to find out where Adam and Jon live.
And Mikey looked so good on Monday and mine of silly tonight, though still better that her outfits from her first season.. When she was perhaps channeling Cee Lo.. And that is not a plus, IMO.
Being on the West Coast, I have stopped bothering to vote for any show.
Erica, you nailed the problem with Mero’s rendition of “I Want You Back.” I wanted to love it, but it definitely failed to wow.
I still can’t believe he’s gone, though. He has the chops. Not a fan of some of the others who made it through this round.
I play along with the Voice app which lets you have your own team. There was a place within the app where it was asking me what song I would like to hear a contestant sing, so you could be right in that they are going to take song choices next week from us!
Yay!!!
P.S. My Voice app team all made the cut! I had traded Jon at the last minute with Janice and am glad I did! I didn’t expect him to get cut though, just felt like she was the stronger contender.
Congratulations! I totally spaced on the team of 3 getting locked in, but luckily I am ok with my top 3. I have Davon, Ashland, and Chloe. If I had been paying attention, I probably would have swapped out Davon and put Janice there.
I haven’t said anything about the app in the past because I thought it was kind of clunky, and didn’t let you look up the coaches’ teams, etc. Now it is definitely more useful.
I wanted to vote for Jon to stay, but based on those performances, Adam was the clear winner of that battle. Jon did more dancing than singing. The last half of the song was pretty much instrumental where he would occasionally shout out “I want you back.” I totally expected the judges to be all, “Well, too bad for you, forgetting all the words to the last half of the song.” To me it sounded like the last half of the song he sang the backup singers part.
Your save song needs to be something where you sing the entire time! It needs to be a big number! I am shocked that Jon went home, but it was the right decision.
Oh and I have no idea who Addison is. I don’t remember anything she has ever sung.
Jon’s performance reminded me of how Lucas went home for daring to try Prince’s shoes on. Big NO-NO. Jon should NEVER had tried that Jackson 5 classic as a solo act. It was horrendous and cost him his spot. He and Adam should not have been in bottom 2. That spot belong to Shi’ann and possibly the Indian girl or the Delta Dawn girl. Jon was one of my favs and I am sad I won’t get to hear him again but must suffer another week of Shi’ann ?