Idol Chatter & Voice Views

The Top 11 on The Voice include (from left) Pryor Baird, Kaleb Lee, Jackie Foster, Christiana Danielle, Brynn Cartelli, Britton Buchanan, Spensha Baker, Kyla Jade, Jackie Verna, Rayshun LaMarr and Sharane Calister. (NBC Photo)

The Top 11 on The Voice take the stage tonight, singing songs suggested by fans.

And they’ve made some interesting suggestions. Front-runner Brynn Cartelli tackling “You and I” should be interesting. Christiana Danielle will sing a song by her coach.

And Pryor Baird’s cover of Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” is classified as country on iTunes. If he’s going to start putting a country twist on classic rock songs, that could turn into a winning strategy. And wouldn’t surprise me coming from a member of Team Blake.

Just one singer goes home this week and the standard overnight voting window is in place.

I’ll be back with song by song grades later tonight.

Britton Buchanan (Team Alicia), “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran — Based on Carson’s intro, Britton is now a “heartbreaker.” Oh, my. But this is sweet. Britton is dating Livia Faith from Season 14. In fact, he’s dedicating this song to her. Here’s a prediction: That lands near the top of the iTunes charts tomorrow. Britton delivered a very, very nice heartfelt version of the Ed Sheeran hit, showing a different side of his talent than in recent weeks. Telling you, he and Brynn will be duking it out in the finals. Grade: A–

Brynn Cartelli (Team Alicia), “You and I” by Lady Gaga — Brynn turns the Lady Gaga tune into an ode to New England and looks perfectly comfortable — at age 15 — as frontwomen for The Voice band, even exchanging high fives with the band members when the tune ends. Not a perfect vocal, but she delivered lots of sass, and I fully expect to see her in the Season 14 finale. Grade: B+

Christiana Danielle (Team Alicia), “Umbrella” by Rihanna — Alicia predicted magic and there were magical moments. But that performance and vocal didn’t come together quite as well as most of the others we’ve heard tonight. For instance, Christiana absolutely nailed the high note the first time around. I’m not so sure about the second. Grade: C+

Jackie Foster (Team Alicia), “Love Reign O’er Me” by The Who — That was absolutely Jackie’s best performance on the show so far. I was impressed with the opening, let alone when she cut loose with glory note after glory note after glory note over the last 30-45 seconds of so. Her reaction of “Toxic” last week was interesting. Her cover of The Who was blistering. Top 10 worthy for sure. Oh, and Jackie’s boyfriend looks familiar. Have I seen him on a singing show somewhere? Grade: A–

Jackie Verna (Team Adam), “Strawberry Wine” by Deana Carter — Jackie said she’s never performed this song before, but she sounded very nice on the traditional country tune. Now, is that going to trump Pryor or Kaleb on the country chart tomorrow,\? I doubt it. Will it advance Jackie for another week on the show? It just might. She sounded especially pretty on that ending. Grade: B–

Kaleb Lee (Team Kelly), “Trouble” by Travis Tritt — About a month ago, Kaleb said he still had a bit of rust to knock off after performing so little just before auditioning for The Voice. That rousing song choice should knock a lot of rust off. That was fun, especially the ending. And, heck, if the entire Hamilton family votes for Kaleb, he should have absolutely no problem making the Top 10. With that performance, he shouldn’t regardless. Grade: B+

Kyla Jade (Team Blake), “Sweet Sweet Baby (Since You Been Gone)” by Aretha Franklin — Nice to see Kyla go upbeat. And she certainly commanded the stage and delivered a big ending, with the background singer accompanied by her own background singers this time. The vocal seemed a bit shouty in spots, but I’m honestly going to have to watch that back again later because my video stream stopped about four times. Grade: B

Pryor Baird (Team Blake), “Night Moves” by Bob Seger — Blake Shelton called this the perfect song choice for Pryor. Pryor seemed pretty happy with it too. Here’s betting their happy with the results. I’ll be shocked if that isn’t another iTunes hit for Pryor and if he doesn’t advance to the Top 10. He sounded especially great when the music quieted down. You could almost hear the ache in his voice. Grade: A–

Rayshun Lamarr (Team Adam), “Try a Little Tenderness” by Otis Redding — Adam calls this the perfect song at this juncture for Rayshun. He faces heavy odds when it comes to avoiding the bottom two. No singer who landed there on Top 12 night has not landed there the following week. Wow, energetic Rayshun is back, doing his best to tear up The Voice stage. That was a bit over-the-top for me, but you can say Rayshun didn’t pour everything into winning over the show’s voters this week. Grade: B

Sharane Calister (Team Adam), “Hero” by Mariah Carey — I was hoping for a high-energy, current pop song for Sharane because I think that’s when she’s at her best. This Mariah classic gave her a chance to show off her big voice, and Sharane seemed confident throughout, but I’m not sure it’s going to make the impression she needs to considering: 1) she was one of three singers who didn’t crack the Top 200 last week; 2) she’s performing early in the show. Grade: B–

Spensha Baker (Team Blake), “Better Man” by Little Big Town — The first verse was live playoff Spensha, very shaky vocally. The good news for Spensha is that she quickly gained her footing when the chorus rolled around and kept her footing for the remainder of the song. It’s going to be very interesting to see how the four country songs from tonight do on the charts later. It’ll give us a good idea of where the show’s country fans are leaning. Grade: B