I'm not surprised that Will Champlin is top this week. I thought his performance was the best of the night. It was really awesome. Of course, it was a great song choice, it would allow any singer to shine.
You know, these Twitter instant saves only saves them for one more week and then they're gone anyway. It takes some of the surprise out of the next week. Whoever gets saved is getting less votes than everyone else who already moved on. Before this season, with the last singer saved you wouldn't know where they ranked in total votes.
This might be an exception though, because Matthew Scheuler is not unpopular, he just suffered from really terrible song choice. Hallelujah is easily the most popular performance of the competition, and it's just Christina is trying to make him into this weird dance-pop guy when it just doesn't fit for him or play to any of his strengths. You thought Will Champlin's was best of the night? I thought it was a good performance but out of the five I saw I thought Cole was easily #1 and Jacquie easily #2.
Cole is this year's Swan brothers for me; they are clearly popular and keep getting voted through, but I find them so unmemorable. I tune out of their performances because they just don't interest me. I'm not entirely sure why. I wish they would call these "instant saves by America" what they really are: instant saves by the East Coast. Unless you want to spoil yourself by watching Twitter or happen to have a way to view an east coast feed of NBC, a huge portion of the country doesn't get to join in.
Supposedly eastern and central time viewers are like 80% of the United States viewership. Plus if anyone really wants to vote, they can follow the live results online or with an East Coast feed if their cable provider offers it. Of course, that just means they'll tune out when it's airing their time. I never thought The Swon Brothers would make it to the live rounds, but they kept surprising me with one live strong performance after another. I thought their Danny's Song might've been the best live performance ever on The Voice. Still knew they wouldn't win, but they really show how much picking the right song means on this show. Just look at all the songs Adam and CeeLo torpedo some of their singers with.
WTF, One Direction?! As if we didn't already know Christina was the worst at song choice, holy crap. You think she'd have internalized the fact that Hallelujah, a very emotional alternative song that's been done by Leonard Cohen, John Cale and Jeff Buckley, went to #1 on the charts and weird dance pop attempt from last week almost got him eliminated. Edit: Now I'm even more confused. She goes with One Direction for Matthew and Janis Joplin for Jacquie Lee?! Jacquie is lucky as hell that Christina got it into her brain that she is an 'Old soul', otherwise she'd be singing crappy pop with Matthew and would be equally at the bottom.
^I thought the One Direction song was chosen by Matthew? Either way it sucked. Is there anyone who stands out as someone that any of you guys want to win? The past two seasons it's felt like there's more people I don't want to win than those who I do want to see win. I'm not really excited about any of them, honestly. I don't care too much either way this year.
I'm rooting mostly for Cole. But I would be satisfied with Tessanne Chin or Jacquie Lee. (Yeah, I'm turned around on her. ) Wolpert wouldn't be so bad either I guess. I don't think he's had the best performances, but he's had some of the most interesting performances. I thought his rendition of Fell In Love With A Girl was an interesting spin on the song. Really, Matthew chose One Direction? Not sure what he was thinking, he must just have no idea what his appeal is. I peeked as usual at the iTunes sales. Redemption Song was the best selling, Cole was 2nd and 4th, Cry Baby was 3rd. Will Champlin's two songs were 5th and 6th, Matthew Shuler's were 9th and 10th.
Anyone notice how Christina's turn to comment about Tessanne turned into a whole thing about Christina reminiscing about her vacation in Jamaica? Was that two straight weeks now where her time to comment about Tessanne ultimately ended up being all about herself?
^Christina's time to comment about anyone ends up being all about herself. She is either very insecure or very egotistical (or both), because she seems to feel a constant need to prove how great she is. Like when she will break out into singing the song herself. She has really started to annoy me. At least this year she hasn't been outright rude to certain contestants like she has in the past. Whenever Carson calls on her to provide feedback on an artist on someone else's team I cringe.
So Will and Cole are both in the final five. Makes you wonder how seasons 3-4 could've gone if there had been a knockout round save.
I thought you were awesome. The one thing I did notice is you're bad at singing. But I really look forward to seeing the way you develop.
While it's just as bad to listen to them drool over everyone, Christina never has a positive thing to say that isn't some cliche. I really can't wait for Shakira to be back next season.
Shakira is on the Adam/Blake gushing level though. Her hyperbole is off the chart with how much she praises the singers. I don't remember how many singers she said could win it all with her, and most of them were ones you could tell wouldn't go very far.
Perhaps it is just me, but she has been pretty blatant in talking about the staging or how it looked like fun and refusing to mention the actual singing. There is no real way to take that but as insulting when the whole point of the show is the singing.
Christina talking about the staging instead of the performance is nothing new, but it's no more superficial and unhelpful than the hyperbole Adam proclaiming the greatest singers in the world ("You could sing with Queen right now, James") or Blake calling them all superstars.
Then get critical. Cite specific flaws and mistakes, talk about why a song choice might have been not as well suited as others they have done, etc. The way she does it now makes her seem like either 1. she doesn't want to say anything good about them, or 2. She is just entirely and completely dismissive of them. Especially in contrast with the positive/constructive tone of the show as a whole it really casts her in a bad light.
I think the problem with the way they do coach comments in general is that what they say is way too influential on the voting results. It sort of offers people a 'comfort in numbers' right at the moment they're trying to make up their mind on whether they liked the performance. So if a person has uncertain negative feelings they are squashed when the coaches are positive and vice versa. If there was a way to force people to make up their minds before they were influenced by the coach's reaction, that'd be better. But since that's not possible, I'd rather the reaction be vapid and airy, or at least equally ridiculous in the same direction.
I saw all the performances except James Wolpert yesterday. I was surprised at the reaction to Tessanne Chin since, while I thought she was good, I didn't think it was the transcendent amazing performance everyone else did. Not as good as her Redemption Song anyway. Yet, she's sitting at #1 on iTunes. Sometimes I wonder how much of it is the audience's genuine opinion and how much of it is reacting to the coach comments. I, surprisingly, thought Will Champlin's was the best performance of the night. Right now there are three songs in the iTunes top 10 and two just out of it. I hope Cole was in the top 10 when voting ended and only slid down to 12 after that, otherwise doesn't look good for him. This makes it seem like the arbitrarily line of 'top ten' for the crazy multiplier is unfair, because it means just a small difference in sales can completely negate the voting.
I noticed they lowered the multiplier this year, but it still seems way too high. Even just doubling their votes would mean that the other competitors have no chance, I'm not sure why we have to times it by five. I think the top 3 makes total sense and I really wouldn't mind any of them winning. Will is the dark horse, Tessane has the most natural talent, and Jacquie has the most powerful voice. They all seem like really nice and genuine people as well, which helps. I am definitely looking forward to losing Christina next year. But, I wish we could have CeeLo and Shakira together. Get rid of Christina and Usher.