Idol Chatter & Voice Views

The Top 10 on The Voice includes (from left) Katie Kadan, Rose Short, Joana Martinez, Jake Hoot, Ricky Duran, Kat Hammock, Shane Q, Hello Sunday, Will Breman and Marybeth Byrd. (NBC Photo)

Spots in the Season 17 semifinals are on the line this week.

The Top 10 perform tonight with the top seven vote-getters automatically advancing to next week’s show.

Those who land in the bottom three will have to compete for an instant save on Tuesday.

Here are the Voice Views’ grades for Monday’s performances.

Rose Short (Team Gwen), “God’s Country” by Blake Shelton — We open with the night’s most surprising song choice, Rose singing the song that just won an award for Blake Shelton. Blake said his biggest concern is that Rose will make it seem like she should have been the artist to record the song. This was a really smart move by Rose, and she sounds great on the song, taking us to church, which is appropriate, right? I liked that more than any of the performances from last week. A great start to the night. Grade: A

Marybeth Byrd (Team Legend), “Lose You to Love Me” by Selena Gomez — This was another smart song choice. Marybeth is at her best when she can impress with her vocals and at the same time deliver emotion in her perrformance. This offers a chance to do both and she’s doing both very, very well. She sounds so much better than last week. While, the Voice Top 10 are on fire if they keep this up tonight. John Legend calls it her most artistic performance so far. It certainly should get her into the semifinals. Grade: A–

Kat Hammock (Team Blake), “You’re Still the One” by Shania Twain — Blake calls this a perfect song choice, partly because it’s an innocent sounding love song, partly because Kat’s tone instantly makes the day better. I will agree that Kat has a very nice, unique tone. I will disagree that this was the perfect song choice. In fact, I’d classify it as a mistake. It just didn’t work very well, but Kat might very well still sneak into the semis. Blake does better with his critique, saying if the angel atop a Christmas tree could burst into song, she’d likely sound like Kat. Grade: C

Shane Q (Team Kelly), “Caribbean Queen” by Billy Ocean — Shane says this was one of his dad’s favorite songs. Coming off the instant save, he needs a standout performance. Shane unleashed a husky growl on the vocal a couple of times and sounded very good. But there were other spots where the backing band drowned out his vocals. And I can’t see that performance keeping him out of last night’s bottom thre. What was supposed to be a big ending wound up being a misfire. Grade: D+

Jake Hoot (Team Kelly), “That Ain’t My Truck” by Rhett Akins — He’s dedicating this performance to his cousin, who died in Afghanistan and going a bit more up-tempo this week. This is well suited to Jake’s deep country voice and could very well lead to a third straight week as the show’s most-streamed artist. Gwen calls it his best performance yet. This is for sure: He’s one of the singers who doesn’t have much to worry about heading into tomorrow’s double elimination. Grade: B+

Joana Martinez (Team Gwen), “Impossible” by Christina Aguilera — You have to love the teen’s honesty. Telling her family about the song choice, she says it’s going to be a really good kill or a really bad kill. The end result: More good than bad, I’d say. Joana looked like a star, delivered plenty of attitude, got shouty here and there, but also delivered her best vocal in weeks. That song choice offered plenty of chances for her to show off her vocal firepower. Grade: B

Katie Kadan (Team Legend), “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele — If anyone on The Voice can handle an Adele song, it’s Katie. And, yep, she nailed it with vocal power to spare, though that wrinkle at the end didn’t really work for me. She’s not just semifinals bound, she’s finals bound. Blake can’t believe she hasn’t already made it in music. That was worthy of a show-closing performance. Grade: A–

strong>Hello Sunday (Team Kelly), “Stone Cold” by Demi Lovato — The opening was really impressive, but then the duo started oversinging and, in the process, robbed thee song of much of its emotion. And the oversinging just kept getting worse and worse. They deliver an emotional ending, but I was really hoping they’d bring the song back down many, many notches before doing that. Grade: C–

Ricky Duran (Team Blake), “Born Under a Bad Sign” by Albert King — Ricky says the first music he fell in love with was the blues and he connects to this song because he’s lost both of his parents, including his dad to suicide. And one verse in, I can already tell you this is going to be Ricky’s best performance yet. This was a really smart song choice, and Ricky leaves time for an impressive guitar solo too. Ricky seems to be performing with more intensity tonight too. Grade: B+

Will Breman (Team Legend), “My Body” by Young the Giant — Will is one of the dark horses on Season 17, and now he gets to close the show. Will is sure to deliver a high-energy performance, but the vocal was pretty shaky on that opening. Okay, he just sang a portion of the song from flat on his back. And now he charged into the crowd. This kind of fun performance is going to earn him a spot in the semifinals. Just watch. That might not have been vocally perfect, but it was a lot of fun to watch. That’s the best show-closing number since the live shows started. And my favorite performance of the night, even if there were stronger vocal performances. Grade: A