Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Zach Seabaugh, Jeffery Austin, Braiden Sunshine and Jordan Smith all cracked the Top 10 on iTunes for The Voice. (NBC Photo)

Well, this reckons to be it.

I mean, let’s face it. Next week will be about as suspenseful as the Season 8 finale, when everyone knew Frederick Sawyer would claim the crown.

Barring a voting miracle, next week’s only suspense will be who finishes second behind Jordan Smith.

But let’s not allow that to spoil tonight, when we’ll find out the identity of the three singers who will be performing alongside Jordan next week.

If you missed it, eight singers cracked the Top 10 on iTunes today. So we can’t look at the iTunes results as an indicator of who will advance and who won’t.

Will Gwen have a chance to become the first female coach to coax a singer into the winner’s circle?

Will Team Blake manage to get more than one of three popular singers into the finals?

We’ll find out over the course of the next hour. Plus we’ll get special performances from Cassadee Pope and Dolly Parton.

And the last few minutes of tonight’s show should be as tense as it gets with three singers competing for the final instant save of Season 9. I’ll be grading each of those performances.

We start off the night with a performance of “I am Invincible” by Cassadee Pope. Great to see The Voice invite back a past winner. They should do much more of this. Great song from Cassadee. I’ll be posting a photo gallery from her performance later tonight.

Second performance of the night: Dolly Parton sings “Coat of Many Colors.”

And it’s time for results. Carson tells us a record-setting number of votes were cast last night.

Advancing to the finals:

* Jordan Smith, Team Adam: No surprise there. Wise to actually move him to safety first and save the suspense for fans of everyone else.
* Emily Ann Roberts, Team Blake: Way to go, Emily Ann. She’s the best of Blake’s country trio. I’ve been wondering what might happen if only one country singer made the finals and the county voting block was united behind one contestant.
* Barrett Baber, Team Blake: And a second member of Team Blake makes the finals. He was eighth among the singers on iTunes, but voters pulled him through.

Now we find out who gets to sing for the instant save. Hate to say it, but I fear hope just ran out for Madi Davis and Jeffery Austin. Not sure they have the social media support to pull it off given the singers they’ll be up against.

Performing for the instant save …

* Jeffery Austin, Team Gwen: He deserves to be in the finals.
* Madi Davis, Team Pharrell: She’s been one of the best all season long.
* Zach Seabaugh, Team Blake: Not surprised to see him get that opportunity.

That means Amy Vachal, Shelby Brown and Braiden Sunshine head home.

Save performances

Zach Seabaugh: He’ll sing “Live Like You Were Dying.” Another ballad? Not sure that’s wise. Zach started off decenlty, but this isn’t his best vocal and will probably be the weakest of the three unless Madi and Jeffery falter. Zach did end with a nice glory note. Grade: B–

Madi Davis: She’s perform “Don’t Dream It’s Over.” Yikes, you can hear Madi’s nerves in her voice. Her timing is a bit all over the place, too. I take back what I just wrote. Zach’s performance was better than this. We see glimmers of what makes Madi’s voice so special, but she struggled under the pressure a bit there. Grade: C

Jeffery Austin: He’ll perform “Make It Rain.” Two lines in, it’s apparent who should get this instant save. Four lines in, I’m thinking it will be a crime if he doesn’t get it. Dang, Jeffery is slaying this. Why hasn’t The Voice plugged him the way the show plugs Jordan? And he adds one hell of an ending. Grade: A.

And the instant save goes to: Jeffery Austin.

See also …
Song by song grades for the Top 9
iTunes performances 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