Idol Chatter & Voice Views

 

Whatever you think of The Voice finals format for Season 9, it’s led to this pressure-packed week.

Nine singers will take the stage; four will advance to the finals. Five go home. This week.

Tonight’s top three vote-getters will automatically advance to the finals.

Tomorrow night, the contestants who finish fourth through sixth in the voting will compete for the final instant save of Season 9. And a spot in those finals.

As for what we’ll hear tonight, you can check out the song choices below.

Barrett Baber, Team Blake: Barrett’s got what I think is the best song choice among Team Blake’s country trio. He’ll be putting a country spin on Ella Henderson’s “Ghost.” Blake says Barrett has flipped some country songs, but hasn’t done it with a pop song. So tonight, they’ll swing “for the fences,” Blake says. Nice opening, but that “swamping up” of the opening verse didn’t work as well for me. This is a mixed bag. I wasn’t thrilled with some of the changes made to the original and there was one point where you could barely hear Barrett. That said, he looked as comfortable on stage as ever and that ending — complete with a choir — was very good. Grade: B–

Previously: Live playoffs — He sang “I Drive Your Truck.” The song his number 17 on iTunes, third best among 24 live playoff songs. Top 12 — He performed “Right Here Waiting for You.” The song hit number 11 on the iTunes Top 200, fourth best from the night. Top 11 — He performed a rock version of the classic country hit “Delta Dawn.” The song hit number 29 on iTunes, sixth best of the night. Top 10 — He performed Conway Twitty’s “I’d Just Love to Lay You Down” and hit number three on iTunes; only Jordan Smith did better.

Shelby Brown, Team Adam: This young lady went from dead last on iTunes to the Top 10 last week by singing a religious country song. Here comes another: “Even God Must Get the Blues.” Shelby says this is one of her favorite songs, but she’s a little worried because it’s not super well known. She says this is a good example of the type of music she’d like to do post-Voice. Shelby needed a show-stopping performance tonight. I’m not sure that was it. She delivered a nice vocal, but the song was a little forgettable given the fact that she’s singing second tonight. It’ll be very interesting to see how that does on iTunes. Grade: B–

Previously: Live playoffs — She sang “You’re No Good.” The song hit number 66 on iTunes, 12th best among 24 live playoff songs. She was voted into the Top 12. Top 12 — She sang “In Color;” the song hit number 35 on the iTunes Top 200, eighth best from the night. Top 11 — She performed a country version of the Lady Gaga hit “You and I.” The song hit number 96 on iTunes, ranking last among the songs from Monday’s show. But Shelby was voted into the Top 10. Top 10 — She went from worst to Top 10 on iTunes with “Go Rest High on That Mountain.” That placed her seventh on iTunes among the remaining singers.

Jeffery Austin, Team Gwen: The guy I moved into the number one spot in this week’s The Voice Top 9 rankings will perform Cher’s “Believe.” And the iTunes version of this sounds superb. Jeffery says he can relate the lyrics of this to his experience on The Voice. Are the opening and closing doors behind Jeffery designed to sabotage him? Because this needs no embellishment. Wow. Now that was a finals worthy performance. Not to mention a very nice reworking of the song. Simply a great vocal. Easily the best we’ve heard tonight. Blake says Jeffery just proved he deserves to be in the finale. Grade: A.

Previously: Live playoffs — He sang “Say You Love Me.” The song hit number 25 on iTunes, sixth best among the 24 live playoff songs. Top 12 — He sang “Let It Go.” The song hit number 9 on the iTunes Top 200, third best of the night. Top 11 — Jeffery performed “Dancing On My Own” and hit number 27 on the iTunes Top 200, fifth best of the night. Top 10 — He sang Labrinth’s “Jealous.” The song hit number seven on iTunes, fifth best of the night.

Braiden Sunshine, Team Gwen: Bye, bye Braiden the rocker. Tonight, he’ll serve up a fan favorite — “Amazing Grace” — in hopes of getting at least a chance to compete for that Twitter save. The iTunes version is not that good. Braiden says everything that happened in the past week on the show led to this song choice. Gwen is encouraging him to make sure the emotion comes through. Braiden sounded great on the first voice, and the part where the choir joined in was pretty special. In between Braiden fell short of finals worthy. There were several spots when I couldn’t make out the lyrics he was singing. Grade: C+

Previously: Live playoffs — He performed “Everything I Own.” The song hit number 62 on iTunes, 11th best among 24 songs from the live playoffs. Top 12 — He performed “Renegade.” The song hit number 75 on the iTunes Top 200 (worst of the night), but number 1 on the rock singles chart. Top 11 — He sang the 1980s hit “True.” The song hit number 63 on the iTunes Top 200. Only one song did worse on the charts, but Braiden was voted into the Top 10. Top 10 — He performed Imagine Dragon “Radioactive.” The song hit number 113 on iTunes, well behind everyone else on the show. But he got the instant save over Korin Bukowski to make the Top 10.

Zach Seabaugh, Team Blake: If I had to list the songs I most detest, this one would top the list — Miley Cyrus’ “Climb.” But that’s what Zach will be singing with a spot in the finals on the line. Zach calls this his theme song and one with an important message. I still think Blake and Zach should have gone young and fun again. But Zach delivered a better vocal on that than I expected. And his young female fans are likely to love that performance. That’s probably Zach’s best vocal to date. Gwen says she has a suspicion he’ll advance. Grade: B

Previously: Live playoffs — He sang “Brand New Girlfriend.” The song hit number 21 on iTunes, fourth best of 24 live playoff songs. Top 12 — He sang “My Love.” The song hit number 26 on the iTunes Top 200, sixth best of the night. Top 11 — He sang “Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not” and landed at number 31 on the iTunes Top 200, the seventh best performance of the week on that chart. Top 10 — He sang “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” The song hit number 20 on iTunes, eighth best of the 10 remaining artists.

Madi Davis, Team Pharrell: Get ready for another pretty dramatic rearrangement from Madi, who will tackle “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” from The Four Seasons and Frankie Valli. Be forewarned: It won’t sound at all like the original. Madi says this is one of her all-time favorite songs because it makes her happy. And it’s a song she sings at each of her shows. Pharrell and Blake are both on their feet for that performance, but after hearing the iTunes version, I was a little disappointed. There were times when Madi’s voice nearly faded away. Same for the background singers. Still love Madi’s voice and will keep my fingers crossed that she makes the finals. Grade: B–

Previously: Live playoffs — She sang “Songbird” by Fleetwood Mac and hit number 22 on iTunes. That was the fifth best among 24 songs from the live playoffs. Top 12 — She performed “Who Will Save Your Soul.” The song hit number 34 on the iTunes Top 200, seventh best of the night. Top 11 — She sang “Love is Blindness” and hit number 16 on the iTunes Top 200, fourth best of the night. Top 10: She performed Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and scored her biggest iTunes hit yet. The song checked in at number four, third best of the night.

Emily Ann Roberts, Team Blake: Dolly Parton is this week’s mentor for the Top 9 and Emily Ann will be taking on one of her songs — the fun and up-tempo “9 to 5” from the film of the same title. Emily Ann says Zach has been having too much fun on stage. She wants a fun, sassy moment as well. This young lady is absolutely as cute as possible. But Dolly is missing, and the show isn’t telling us why. She was supposed to be mentoring the contestants tonight, wasn’t she? Emily Ann has improved her stage presense over the course of the show, but I always get the feeling that she could still cut loose just a little more. Fun performance. Nice vocal. Let’s see Emily Ann in the finals. Grade: B+

Previously: Live playoffs — She sang “In the Garden.” The song hit number six on the iTunes’ Top 200, the second best performance of 24 live playoff songs. But Emily Ann needed the Team Blake save to make the Top 12. Top 12 — She sang “Blame It on Your Heart.” The song hit number 20 on the iTunes Top 200, fifth best of the night. Top 11 — She cracked the Top 10 on iTunes for a second time, reaching number 10 with her cover of The Judds’ “Why Not Me.” That was the third best performance of the week on iTunes. Top 10 — She performed “She’s Got You” by Patsy Cline and hit number five on iTunes, fourth best of the night.

Amy Vachal, Team Adam: After three weeks of rearranging current hits, Amy is stepping back in time, at least a bit, singing Bob Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love,” a song covered artists ranging from Billy Joel to Garth Brooks. Amy says she’s looking for a heartfelt moment this week. Given what we’ve heard so far tonight, I think this is a really smart song choice on Amy’s part. And she’s delivering a very nice, emotional vocal. I won’t be surprised if this is the night’s most successful song on iTunes. This could have easily been tonight’s show-closing performance instead of giving Jordan the pimp spot yet again. Grade: A–

Previously: Live Playoffs — She sang “The Way You Look Tonight.” The song hit number 29 on iTunes, seventh best among 24 live playoff songs. But Amy needed the Team Adam save to make the Top 12. Top 12 — She performed a stripped down version of “Hotline Bling.” The song hit number 6 on the iTunes Top 200, second best of the night. Top 11 — She covered Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” and hit number four on iTunes, best of the night. Top 10 She perform *NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” and her reworking of tune hit number eight on iTunes, sixth best of the night.

Jordan Smith, Team Adam: One singer — Jordan — figures to be advancing this week regardless of what happens. That makes it the perfect week to mix things up, and Jordan and Adam will be doing just that when he tackles Queen’s “Somebody to Love.” Jordan says he’s always admired Freddie Mercury. Adam’s encouraging him to go “totally bonkers” on this performance. Oh, for crying out loud, this time Jordan has an entire choir to accompany him. OK, Jordan, let’s not try to play rock star. OK, kudos to Adam and Jordan for pulling that off. That was actually lots of fun. And after a so-so start, Jordan slayed the last 90 seconds of that performance. Grade: A.

Previously: Live playoffs — He sang “Halo” by Beyonce and scored the week’s biggest hit on iTunes, hitting number three on the Top 200. Top 12 — Jordan sang “Great is They Faithfulness, and the song soared to number one on the iTunes 200. Top 11 — He sang Jessie J’s “Who You Are” and cracked the iTunes Top 10 for the third straight week. The song hit number eight, second best on the show. Top 10 — He performed “Hallelujah” and topped The Voice on iTunes again, hitting number two.

See also …
iTunes results for the Top 9
Photo gallery of Jordan Smith, Amy Vachal, Shelby Brown
Photo gallery of Barrett Baber, Emily Ann Roberts, Zach Seabaugh
Photo gallery of Jeffery Austin, Braiden Sunshine
Photo gallery of Madi Davis