Idol Chatter & Voice Views

A word of advice to remaining contestants on The Voice.

If your coach utters the word “versatility” and it isn’t your idea or something you’re completely comfortable with, stomp your feet, pout, throw a diva fit.

Plead for a different song.

Because “versatility” — as good as it sounds — could prove your undoing.

I don’t know for certain that “You Smile” was all Christina’s choice for Dez Duron this week.

Considering how often Dez professed his admiration of Christina, I’m sure he was fully invested in this week’s performance.

But in the pre-performance video, Christina said she wanted Dez to show his “versatility.”

And I immediately thought, “Oh, no, Dez is in trouble.”

That’s how often I’ve seen contestants on this show go away from their strength and end up going home as a result.

Anyone remember when Nia Kete decided to shun reggae in Season 2.  Or when country singer Karla Davis decided to rap.

Or when Christina forced country duo The Line and rapper Moses Stone to rock out to “Satisfaction.”

I do.

In truth, Dez’s Monday night performance of the Justin Bieber pop tune wasn’t horrid.

But it wasn’t much better than average.  It wasn’t nearly as good as his performance of the classic hit “Feeling Good” the week before.

And average isn’t going to cut it on a show with this much talent.

Voters apparently agreed. Dez’s song was the least downloaded tune performed by the top eight. And now he’s heading home.

So much for my theory that he might make the finals based on his Twitter and Facebook support.

But congrats to Dez for this:   He certainly proved over the past few weeks that he’s more than a pretty face.  That, given the right material, he could make it in the music business.

I’m just not sure Justin Bieber imitations are going to be his niche, Christina.

On Tuesday, though, I was actually more sorry to see the departure of Cody Belew.

Now there’s a guy who would end up making me smile every time he stepped in front of the camera, whether it was that outrageous reaction to his blind audition success, his brilliant vocal on “Jolene,” or his bam-bam-boom, but not-so-brilliant vocal on Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” a week ago.

Monday night, I actually thought Cody turned in one of the better performances, finding the right mix of bam-bam and vocal prowess.

I’m not sure he was Freddy Mercury spot-on with “Somebody To Love,” but he was pretty darn good. It was a great choice to show off his vocal range. I probably would have rated it my second favorite performance of the night.

Unfortunately, he also performed very early in the show, and that might have hurt him.

You have to think there’s a future for such a charismatic entertainer.

Meanwhile, The Voice is left with an incredibly talented top six: Cassadee Pope, Terry McDermott, Melanie Martinez, Amanda Brown, Trevin Hunte and Nicholas David.

I’m looking forward to next Monday night already.

Between now and then, I’ll be posting photo galleries from this week’s shows and ranking the top six heading into next week’s performances.