Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Billy Gilman holds a big edge on social media.

Sundance Head has been the show’s iTunes leader three of the past four weeks.

Wé McDonald hasn’t done nearly as well on iTunes, but had a big enough following to overcome that and earn a spot in the finals on fan voting.

And Josh Gallagher appears to be peaking at the right time, though he’s more likely to play spoiler — splitting the country vote with Sundance — than winner in tomorrow night’s finale.

Oh, and Miley Cyrus doesn’t have an artist in the finals. I’ll be interested to see how many reaction shots of Miley we see anyway since The Voice cameras seem to gravitate toward her with a ridiculous frequency.

The Top 4 from Season 11 of The Voice each take the stage three times tonight — once to perform an original, once to perform a new cover and once to perform with their coaches.

For tonight’s song choices, head here. And for my final ranking of the Top 4, head here.

Now, it’s time for song by song grades …

Billy Gilman (Team Adam): Cover — “My Way” by Frank Sinatra (1968) — Billy says the song portrays his feelings about his time on the show. He’ll open a cappella. Nice simple opening for a show where the sound mix sometimes muffles the vocals. Technically, Billy is turning in another solid performance. There’s the big ending we’ve come to expect. Hey, and he showed some emotion on the final line. That’s important because I haven’t been moved by many of his performances. Grade: B+

Josh Gallagher (Team Adam): Original — “Pick Any Small Town” — Nolan and fellow Season 11 contestant Nolan Neal are co-writers on this song, which is a nice tough. Shame it’s yet another “small town” song, something we’ve come to expect from every single new country singer, right? Yep, the song is pretty cliche. The good news is that Josh sounds good on it, continuing his recent string of solid vocal performances. He also looked more natural performing his own music, and wisely stuck in the mainstream country lane. Grade: C+

Wé McDonald (Team Alicia) — Duet with Alicia Keys — “Ave Maria” — Nice opening by Alicia. Of course, Wé is the contestant. She gets her chance to take over and doesn’t sound quite as good, until her voice soars on the high notes. Remember, Wé has a background in opera, which might explain this song choice. All in all, another solid performance. It was wise to get that out of the way first, though, because I’m not sure it will be a fan favorite. Grade: B

Sundance Head (Team Blake) — Original — “Darling Don’t Go” from his 2015 “Soul Country” album: And Sundance is singing a song he wrote for his 2015 album. Love that. And he says this is exactly what he wants his sound to be. It’s a song he wrote for his wife. Love the emotional investment Sundance has in this performance. And, wow, the power in his voice. It’s easily the most heartfelt performance we’ve seen so far tonight, and that makes a huge difference. Aptly described as soul-country. That should certainly score Sundance some votes. Grade: A–

Billy Gilman (Team Adam) — Duet with Adam Levine — “Bye Bye Love” by The Everly Brothers (1958): Nice fun performance, but it feels like a throw-away song choice on a night when it doesn’t seem like you’d want to throw away any chance to make a huge impression. I didn’t care for Wé’s song choice for her duet either, but it made more sense from a technical standpoint. The only thing this is proving is that Billy can sing a hit from the 1950s. Grade: C+

Wé McDonald (Team Alicia) — original — “Wishes”: Alicia had this song written for Wé by one of her collaborators. Hmm, not sure this is working very well for Wé. Her voice seemed to waver on that first verse and some of the lyrics got very garbled. Nope, we’ve heard three originals so far and this is my least favorite of the three. It’s not one of Wé’s stronger vocals either. Once again, Carson reminds us she’s the youngest in the competition. So young, she leaves the stage before the critiques are finished. Grade: C–

Josh Gallagher (Team Adam) — “Smooth” by Santana (1999): We hear Carson talk about how much Adam wants to win with a country singer, then we get this song choice. And Josh sounded absolutely horrible on his first solo part. I mean horrible. This made absolutely no sense except for giving Adam a chance to play a guitar solo that drowned out Josh’s vocals. WTF. Grade: D

Sundance Head (Team Blake) — Duet with Blake Shelton — “Treat Her Right” by Roy Head (1965): Yep, this song was recorded by Sundance’s dad. So at least this older song choice makes some sort of sense. And if you’re going to pick a fun song choice like this, it’s important to convince the audience you’re having fun. I’ve also always like the fact that Blake doesn’t hesitate to let his contestant shine in a moment like this. Grade: B

Josh Gallagher (Team Adam) — cover — “Jack and Diane” by John Cougar Mellencamp (1982): Adam says Josh straddles the line between country and pop the same way John Cougar Mellencamp did, which helps explain this non-country song choice. But it’s a far better match for his voice than “Smooth.” Problem is, Josh is serving up a solid cover of this song and doing little more, when he needs to create moments to vault past Billy, Sundance and Wé to win this thing. This isn’t going to do it. Grade: C+

Sundance Head (Team Blake) — Cover — “At Last” by Etta James (1960): Okay, I could do without the background singers on this. Interesting that Sundance went soul rather than country for his final performance. Not sure that’s the wisest move, but we’ll see what happens. As usual, Sundance is delivering a heartfelt vocal, but between the background singers, the violins and his vocal, this just isn’t fitting together than well for me. Grade: C+

Billy Gilman (Team Adam) — Original — “Because of Me”: Apparently, this was going to be a Maroon 5 song at one point. Now it’s Billy’s. Okay, it’s official. Sundance’s original is my favorite. Billy sounds okay on this, but not as good as on most of the covers he’s performed on the show. Adam says he thinks something magical could happen with Billy and that song and predicts that will become one of the most momentous moments of his career. We’ll see. Grade: B–

Wé McDonald (Team Alicia) — Cover — “Don’t Rain on My Parade” by Barbra Streisand (1964): So how is it that she gets to close the show? Is it the prize for being the youngest contestant? The show favorite? For being the only finalist who couldn’t crack the Top 10 on iTunes last week? Wé says she picked the song because of its message and because it’s fun. Another odd sorta song choice. But that was easily Wé’s best performance of the night and one of the best of finals night. In a couple of spots the backing music was too loud, but that’s not her fault. Grade: B+

In the end, little changes about the way I think the Top 4 should finish. In my book, it goes like this ..

#1: Sundance Head
#2: Billy Gilman
#3: Wé McDonald
#4: Josh Gallagher