Idol Chatter & Voice Views

With three singers due to land in Twitter save territory Tuesday evening, the pressure was on for The Voice Season 11 Top 10 Monday night.

Christian Cuevas and Sundance Head certainly responded, stealing the show with vastly different performances.

Meanwhile, a front-runner stumbled (We McDonald), a former front-runner regained her footing (Ali Caldwell) and The Voice served up a couple more of those mind-boggling song choices that keep us wondering whether the artists ever cringe when they find out what they’re going to be asked to pull off on performance night.

Here are my song by song grades for Top 10 night.

Billy Gilman (Team Adam), “Anyway” by Martina McBride: Surrounded by a host of musicians, Billy’s voice soared and that performance-ending glory note was impressive. But I had trouble getting connected to the performance (part of the problem might have been camera work that shied away from closeups for the first half of the song) and I found myself wishing for a more subtle, more emotional cover of the Martina McBride classic. Anyway, Billy isn’t going anywhere but on to the Top 8. Grade: B

Courtney Harrell (Team Blake), “If I Could Turn Back Time” by Cher: If they could turn back time, here’s betting Blake Shelton and Courtney might have decided to choose a different song for Top 10 night. Courtney shows tons of stage presence and lots of vocal firepower. Unfortunately, that vocal firepower was misfiring through most of what was Courtney’s weakest performance yet. Grade: D

Josh Gallagher (Team Adam), “Real Good Man” by Tim McGraw: My favorite part of this performance was the guitar versus violin solo at the 2-minute mark. My least favorite part was watching Josh try to work the stage. He just doesn’t seem all that natural at it yet. That said, his closing was impressive and this was likely his best vocal in three weeks. Grade: C+

Aaron Gibson (Team Miley), “Rocket Man” by Elton John: I wasn’t crazy about this song choice for Aaron when I saw it listed on iTunes as his Top 10 download. And that’s before I heard Aaron’s attempt to make the song his own. Well, he accomplished that, turning “Rocket Man” into an upbeat jazzy jam. But, no, no, no, no, no. My guess is tomorrow night, Aaron’s time on The Voice ends. Grade: D+

Christian Cuevas (Team Alicia), “Million Reasons” by Lady Gaga: Song choice on this show baffles me. One week, Christian is singing a Toto hit from 1982. The next he’s singing a current single from Lady Gaga. Now guess which one went over best? Christian was simply amazing on this cover, and he kept getting better and more emotioanlly invested as the performance continued. It was simply one of the best of Season 11 so far. And just the breakthrough moment he needed after fading a bit over the last three weeks of live shows. Grade: A

Austin Allsup (Team Blake), “Missing You” by John Waite: “Turn the Page” was a great moment for Austin. Unfortunately, this week was a step in the wrong direction. I’m blaming song choice more than I’m blaming Austin, because his vocal was as distinctive as ever and he provided a nice ending. The song just wasn’t a great match for what he does best. Grade: B–

We McDonald (Team Alicia), “God Bless the Child” by Billie Holliday: Call this the experiment that failed. First, I found myself wondering what the heck We meant by her ab lib opening: “I may be only 17, but I’m learning so much.” Huh? Far worse, were the operatic moments We and coach Alicia Keys indeed decided to force into the jazz number. If you just watched the performance video, minus the intro clip, you’d wonder what the heck We was doing. Now We learned something else: Don’t force an operatic ending on a jazz song. Grade: C

Brendan Fletcher (Team Adam), “True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper: My first thought: Yet another Cyndi Lauper cover on The Voice? But Brendan did a nice job making the song his own and it was smart to use this week to slow things down for the show’s lone rocker. My guess is that the performance would have been more emotionally raw without the sax playing in the background. It detracted, rather than added, to the moment. Grade: B

Sundance Head (Team Blake), “Me and Jesus” by Tom T. Hall: This was just flat-out fun and perhaps the most memorable moment yet for Sundance. After all, how many singers have taken to the Voice stage during a live show and performed a bluegrass tune? If Christian provided the evening’s most emotional performance, Sundance provided its best upbeat cover. And both of those performances kept getting stronger. Grade: A–

Ali Caldwell (Team Miley), “Without You” by Mariah Carey: Last week, I accused The Voice of trying to sabotage Ali by making her perform first and giving her a silly song (“9 to 5”) to sing. The week, the show gave her the pimp spot and a much better song. Kudos to The Voice for playing fair and to Ali for reminding us what a powerful voice she has. My only complaint is that the ending seemed a little too shouty and a little too overbaked. Grade: B