Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Adam Cunningham needed two straight instant saves to make it to Top 10 week of The Voice finals.

He didn’t need an instant save Tuesday night, sailing into the Top 8 on fan voting.

And that left three singers performing for an instant save who had never been in the situation before, Ashland Craft of Team Miley, and Davon Fleming and Shi’Ann Jones of Team Jennifer.

Coincidentally — or perhaps not — they were also the three lowest ranking singers from the Top 10 on iTunes when voting closed on Tuesday.

Davon wound up getting the save, though teammmate Shi’Ann was eliminated after dodging the bottom two despite show-lowest iTunes performances the past two weeks.

And for the second straight week, Team Miley lost a team member as Ashland departed, leaving only Brooke Simpson to pose for the traditional post-show photo with her coach.

Before the show pulled the numbers off the screen, the Twitter save vote breakdown was 48 percent for Davon, 35 percent for Ashland and 17 percent for Shi’Ann.

Here are the Voice Views song by song grades for their save-me performances.

Ashland Craft: Known for her spunk and sass on stage and her honky tonk background, Ashland surprisingly opted to go the ballad route for her save song, performing Keith Urban’s “Tonight I Wanna Cry.” The title was appropriate, because Ashland wound up shedding a few tears during her farewell exchange with Miley. Her performance? Early in Season 13, Ashland wowed me with her powerful vocals. The last couple performances have left me wondering how her voice is holding up under the strain of the competition. She did not sound like the same powerhouse who breezed through the early rounds. Grade: C

Shi’Ann Jones: The youngest singer on the show decided to tackle Etta James’ “At Last.” And faltered from the word go. Hey, look, I agree with Jennifer Hudson. The young woman has potential, a distinctive voice and some star appeal. Otherwise she wouldn’t have made it to the Top 10. Now she needs to return home and work, work, work to refine her skills, then return and win American Idol a couple of years from now. Lesson number one when she gets back home: The importance of enunciation so fans can understand the lyrics when she releases original music. Grade: C–

Davon Fleming: He sang “Ain’t No Way” and, at first, I was thinking “ain’t no way” Davon belongs in the bottom three. But then I looked at the singers sent to safety, recalled the string of strong performances from Monday night and, thought, “If not Davon, then who?” I didn’t come up with many answers. As for the save-me song, it was overblown and too full of vocal gymnastics. But it was also pretty easily the best of the three. I mean, Davon’s range is awfully impressive. Grade: B