S07.E27: Live Finale

[rab01]

I thought Meghan Trainor had to be lipsyncing - her mike was completely off when she tried to respond to a comment from Carson immediately after she finished ... or did I imagine that?

 

As someone in his 40s, I can totally understand name-checking Michelle Pfeiffer if any of the songwriters were over the age of 35 (or into movies from the 80s).  Back in the day, oh my god was she pretty. I would also say that modern music is no worse than most of what was popular back then. I still remember bands like Mister Mister when I was in school.

[Diana Berry]

I keep hearing Craig's song in my head and I'm not even a big fan of country music.

So was the lady holding his son his wife,gf, or sister? Just curious.

I do have to give a big thumbs up ( pardon the pun) for the campaign against distracted driving ( ie texting, calling, makeup, eating, etc). Hey if it saves one person....

[saber5055]

 

So was the lady holding his son his wife,gf, or sister? Just curious.

Further back up this thread someone said the woman was his ex; they are no longer together. I guess she was just there to hold the "single dad" son.

 

 

I do have to give a big thumbs up ( pardon the pun) for the campaign against distracted driving

So did The Voice invent the red thumb ring thing? It was all new to me.

 

Hey, I'd take coming in fourth on this show if it meant a new car. I hope the show took care of all the taxes or else all those cars are in the "For Sale" ads today.

[twistygirl]

 

Coldplay.....no. Just no. I just can't.

 

Looool, I get that.  I really do.  But if you like something harder, there are still lots of good modern artists who are harder... Shinedown, AFI, Against Me!... I'm just saying, if somebody wants to like modern country, fine, but it is NOT the only option for people who like rock music. 

[mercfan3]

Honestly, I really don't see the similarity between country and classic rock. At all. I can see it with Bro Country and some of the Southern R&B of the 90s/2000s (Nelly), but not rock. 

 

I'm glad Craig won. The Country winners have done the best so far, Matt and Chris have potential for a future, but it would probably benefit them to get away from Republic. It made me giggle, but also feel a little bad for Adam. Two years in a row the guy thought he had the surefire winner. 

 

The finale was pretty good in itself. Jessie J. and Chris were the highlights for me. They had great stage chemistry, and he looked like he was having a blast. Really great of her treat him so well. 

 

As for the season itself. I've gone on record as saying I thought Chris had the best voice (I don't think it's particularly close either..hello pitch control and range. ) and that I wish Adam had found a way to keep him current and still show off his voice and sell itunes. (It's possible to do both....really.).  Matt wasn't a good enough singer to win the show, IMO. He's a great performer. He got fantastic songs the whole season...but he's off pitch half the time. Craig's really good. He went from Southern rocker to straight up country, which bored me a little..but he's really good. 

[Sammich63]

I agree that the country fans tend to do the best on this show.  The Swon Brothers, Danielle Bradbery and Cassadee Pope are still touring and recording.  I haven't heard much about any of the other winners, except that Josh Kaufman is now on Broadway starring in Pippin.  I hope he's able to record soon.  CWB is a seasoned performer, so I think this will help his chances.  

[mercfan3]

The Country winners go on a different label than the other winners. Big Machine has the first option (and has taken all three, Cass...Danielle..and now Craig) and they tend to be a lot more invested. 

[basiltherat]

Label may be important to the country artists, but being under the wing of Blake/Miranda is way more important --  just ask (cringe) RaeLlynn!

[realdancemom]

I also like how Blake/Miranda help their contestants.  I'm hoping Pharrell does the same since he said that he would work with Sugar and Luke.  He might work with others too like Elyjuh (don't know how he spells it).  In that case, it still works out if contestants pick Pharrell even if they don't do so well on the show.

 

Somebody mentioned that more people should sing Jessie J.  I thought the same thing after the women sang Bang Bang and did a good job.

 

Sugar was in Matt's and Craig's groups.  DaNica was in Damian's and Craig's groups.  They also had the women's and top 20 group songs.  Taylor Phelan was in Chris and Matt's groups.  Don't know if anybody else was in multiple friend groups.

[howmanywords]

So Craig beat Matt.  Just like Ruben Studdard beat Clay Aiken.  Oh well, either way, we'll never hear Craig or Matt's name again.

Nah. Blake will make sure Craig stays relevant.  One thing I give him a ton of credit for is hes does a crapload to help his winners after the show unlike say Usher and Adam.  The country winners have done the best after the show and at the least I expect him to do better than the last 2 winners. Matt though, well yeah I'm getting Christina Grimmie vibes off him.  Big itunes sales, rabid fanbase who thinks he'll go onto be huge but will fall short. 

[Noreaster]

As for the season itself. I've gone on record as saying I thought Chris had the best voice (I don't think it's particularly close either..hello pitch control and range. ) and that I wish Adam had found a way to keep him current and still show off his voice and sell itunes. (It's possible to do both....really.).  Matt wasn't a good enough singer to win the show, IMO. He's a great performer. He got fantastic songs the whole season...but he's off pitch half the time. Craig's really good. He went from Southern rocker to straight up country, which bored me a little..but he's really good. 

I think this season's finalists can't really measure up to previous winners in terms of vocal talent.  Chris has a nice voice but lacks power. Matt is not a great vocalist although he has an appealing tone. Craig doesn't have much range and has a tendency to mumble. Damien is probably the best of this bunch but his voice can't compare to those of R&B/soul contestants from past seasons.

 

(In my opinion, Pharrell had the best vocal talent going into the live shows.  His problem is that he focused too much on the stuff that he's good at (producing) and not enough on making those voices stand out on reality TV.)

 

I have to say, given the lackluster talent this season, I'm quite impressed by Adam's coaching. My general view has always been that most of the credit should go to the contestant rather than the coach (say an 80/20 split between contestant/coach). For example, I think Tessanne winning in season 5 didn't have much to do with Adam, and Josh winning in season 6 had little to do with Usher. But this season, Adam did pretty well with middling talent. Based on what we saw onscreen, Adam seemed to be very involved, chose songs that highlighted the contestants' strengths, and offered advice that made the songs more impactful.  Seeing how Adam worked on the original songs with the contestants also makes me think he did a really great coaching job. I want to say the credit should be more like 60/40 or 50/50 contestant/coach. 

 

Maybe the same argument could be applied to Blake and his coaching of Craig. Hard for me to say as I didn't care for Craig at all. Nothing about him stood out to me. It could be my negative country bias but I still had a much better appreciation of contestants like Cassadee and Danielle.  

Edited December 20, 2014 by Noreaster

[mercfan3]

Meh, I think we got spoiled by the last two winners. Josh and Tessanne are incredible vocalists. 

 

I think Chris is at around Danielle's level. And they are both significantly better than the first three winners. 

 

I also think Adam has been far more involved since the season 4 disaster. But he's still off with song picks. Usher is probably the best there, finding a combination of good current and classic songs..and itunes bait and what his contestant wants to do musically after the show. Blake is very good with song choices too. But Adam, Christina, and Usher are really good at helping contestants learn how to perform. 

 

I hate the myth that only Blake has helped his contestants. It's just not true. Blake has more power in the country world. His backing means something. Adam has signed Tony, taken contestants on tour, offered to sign Grimmie and had her at public events. Kept in contact with numerous contestants (like Melanie.) Christina has taken Jacquie to different events and helped her pick out the best fit for a label for her. Usher was actually part of Michelle's process of creating her album. (His favorite song is "Lottery" off the album.) Josh hasn't even started creating music yet. Cee Lo worked with Vicki...the only one who hasn't done anything is Shakira, and she doesn't live in this country before. (Heck, we've already seen Gwen get Taylor John Williams and opening spot for Christina Perri.). 

 

The others just can't do as much as Blake can. The only exception is Pharrell. And I am so excited to hear Sugar's smash hit this summer. (Where's the vomit emoji?) 

[howmanywords]

Josh hasn't even started creating music yet.

 

He has actually.  Last week his first single popped up on Amazon and Spotify. Its called Try Again and I downloaded it yesterday.  I initially thought it had to be a premature error since not a peep was mentioned about it but it hasnt been taken down.  I know he tweeted about recording it last month but yeah so far it looks like a VERY low key release.

 

Craig is already slated to make his Grand Ole Opry debut January 6th. I fully expected that to happen eventually but not this fast.  IIRC Danielle and Cassadee waited several months after their win to get a shot to play there.

[mercfan3]

I'm pretty sure Republic screwed that up. They pushed back his release because of his Broadway gig. They took it off of itunes but left it on Amazon and spotify. 

[viajero]

I only got around to watching the finale today.  I was too busy last Tuesday to watch it live, but I pretty much figured CWB had it in the bag anyway.  He had the right "story", was the most experienced and professional in his performances, was on Team Blake, and was bound to benefit greatly from a split vote among the other finalists.  Any doubts I may have had about CWB's inevitable triumph were erased when Adam gave Matt such a lame song to close out the performance night.  So I was very surprised to come on here and find that so many others were surprised at the outcome.

 

"Bang Bang" was so good. It made me pretty sad that there weren't more ladies present in those last few weeks. I also missed hearing Bryana (who didn't get to perform in any group routines, while Sugar was in about a billion... what) sing.

 

I agree that Bang-Bang was one of the stand-out performances of the night, but one of the reasons for this is that Bryana was simply spectacular.   All five women did a good job, but I thought Bryana´s vocals actually overshadowed the other four.

 

I also can't complain too much about Sugar being chosen for so many songs, given that she performed well on all of them.  I think it is interesting that Sugar came off so badly with so many TV viewers, given just how popular she proved to be with both the coaches and other contestants. 

[mercfan3]

Sugar was just really sharp and really loud. If she wasn't those things she wouldn't have been as disliked by the audience. 

 

She was far less sharp during the wild card and finale. (Although, she still was..) 

[Noreaster]

Any doubts I may have had about CWB's inevitable triumph were erased when Adam gave Matt such a lame song to close out the performance night.  

I wasn't crazy about the "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" song choice either, but Matt just didn't do a good job with it. Was probably much better in rehearsals for the producers to have slotted it last.  

 

I also can't complain too much about Sugar being chosen for so many songs, given that she performed well on all of them.  I think it is interesting that Sugar came off so badly with so many TV viewers, given just how popular she proved to be with both the coaches and other contestants. 

I agree. Sugar did a great job in the finale. I also never really found Sugar objectionable (maybe it's her name that bothers some people?) and thought some of her pre-elimination performances were decent to good. Actually now I remember, she overdid the growling a bit and I wished she would sing more softly at times.  But overall she wasn't really that bad.  

[ToxicUnicorn]

(maybe it's her name that bothers some people?) and thought some of her pre-elimination performances were decent to good.

 

I warmed up to Sugar a bit, but I was put off at first.  Definitely, the name was a part of it.  Also, her personal style.  Can't remember well enough, but she also did not seem to be that warm to the other contestants - which tends to affect my impression in the early rounds.  To me, she improved on nearly everything that bothered me, so no hard feelings.  Just a shame she's still stuck with the name.

[mercfan3]

Had Matt sung "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" well, it would have won him the competition. 

 

I think it's likely a little too hard for him to sing well (He's not that great of a singer, song selection is everything for him and he's a strong performer), but if he couldn't hit the notes, they could have changed it up a bit. (The Reggae version is easier, for instance..and still would have been loved.) So in that way, I blame Adam a little..but really, it's mostly on Matt for being a pitchy mess. It's likely he did sing it well in rehearsal or that song wouldn't have been last. 

[Noreaster]

Had Matt sung "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" well, it would have won him the competition. 

I wouldn't go that far. Ending the show with a mediocre performance certainly didn't help Matt.  But like viajero said, there were a number of things in Craig's favor.

 

My guess, based on itunes, is Matt and Craig were leading and running neck and neck throughout much of the competition.  But an emerging Chris over the past couple of weeks ate into Matt's votes due to coach and genre (and maybe even an age demographic) vote splitting. The addition of Damien, another Team Adam member, into the finale didn't help matters.

 

In the end, no way to say for sure. We have zero visibility on votes outside of itunes. For all we know, Craig had an insurmountable lead throughout much of the competition. 

[mercfan3]

Personally, I think The Voice is a casual voter show. And the casual voters (likely choosing between Matt, Chris, and Craig) would have chosen Craig that night. 

 

Matt's final performance was terrible, and his best performance was first. That hurts with the casual voters, particularly because a lot of times casual voters tune in at 9. 

 

Chris wasn't going to win the second the song choices came out. It didn't matter what he did or not.

 

But Craig? Craig had the typical safe Blake songs. He sang them well. And him and Blake were fantastic in their duet. To me, Craig had the best combination of song picks and performances. So he won. 

 

But if Matt had a "moment" with "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" instead of butchering it, he likely walks away as the winner, IMO. 

[Jolie]

I wasn't sure where to put this since there aren't any contestant threads, but I came across these sales figures for Craig, and I thought they were interesting int that they showed approximately how many paid downloads there are for iTunes (less than I thought).

 

From Headline Planet:

 

Craig Wayne Boyd’s original “The Voice” single “My Baby’s Got a Smile on Her Face” did not sell as well as “Wasted Love” by runner-up Matt McAndrew, but it did perform well enough to achieve a very impressive feat.

The song debuts at #1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.

That impressive bow puts the season seven winner in very powerful–and very limited–company. The only other artist to launch a song at #1 on Hot Country Songs was country icon Garth Brooks, whose “More Than a Memory” debuted at the top in 2007.

(Worth noting: At that point, Hot Country Songs was based exclusively on radio airplay; it is now an all-encompassing chart in the same vein as the overall Hot 100).

Boyd’s “My Baby’s Got a Smile On Her Face” commanded 99,000 paid downloads during its first week of availability. It is #1 on this week’s Country Digital Songs chart.

Other chart news for Craig Wayne Boyd:

— His “In Pictures” sold 30,000 copies; it debuts at #4 on Country Digital Songs and #28 on Hot Country Songs.

— His “Boots On (with Blake Shelton)” sold 23,000; it debuts at #9 on Country Digital Songs and #33 on Hot Country Songs.

— His “The Voice: The Complete Season 7 Collection” album sold 4,000 copies; it starts at #35 on the Top Country Albums chart.

The post Craig Wayne Boyd Debuts at #1 on Hot Country Songs, First Since Garth Brooks appeared first on Headline Planet.

[mercfan3]

Good for Craig. I hope his label capitalizes on it. 

[Noreaster]

Personally, I think The Voice is a casual voter show. And the casual voters (likely choosing between Matt, Chris, and Craig) would have chosen Craig that night. 

 

Matt's final performance was terrible, and his best performance was first. That hurts with the casual voters, particularly because a lot of times casual voters tune in at 9. 

 

Chris wasn't going to win the second the song choices came out. It didn't matter what he did or not.

 

But Craig? Craig had the typical safe Blake songs. He sang them well. And him and Blake were fantastic in their duet. To me, Craig had the best combination of song picks and performances. So he won. 

 

But if Matt had a "moment" with "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" instead of butchering it, he likely walks away as the winner, IMO. 

I'm happy to agree to disagree that Matt's performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" moved the needle from him winning to him losing.  These are things we'll never know for sure since there's no vote transparency.  

 

But I also want to say that your "casual voter" reasoning doesn't really make sense. What does "casual voter" even mean?  There is no one monolithic group that thinks exactly the same way...who mainly tune in at 9, thinks Chris's song choices were bad, thought all of Craig's were good, and felt that Matt butchered his final song. All these things are subjective.

 

And if people cared so much about contestants simply executing well, why didn't Damien finish better than 4th?  And how did Josh Kaufman win with a subpar final performance last season?  Voting decisions are driven by a lot of different factors, some of which have nothing to do with the finale performances.  

[mercfan3]

Casual voters...people who vote every week based on performance and song choice, not based on fan loyalty. 

 

I'm not saying it would be a perfect consensus. I'm saying that I think the majority of those people would have sided with Craig finale night. Given Matt's performances and Chris's (who was at a disadvantage anyway) song choices. I'm not saying every single one..but there are enough predictable patterns to say things like:

 

-So long as you sing a song well, itunes bait will get you very far. Itunes bait consists of sensitive, almost acoustic ballads..current music from Adele, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, and Bruno Mars will get the job done, but won't be nearly as effective as older classics. "Hallelujah" is the ultimate itunes bait, for instance. (Which, bonus points for having a religious reference.) And a country song always has potential there.

 

They are song picks which people have a tendency to think singers are emoting extremely well on, and at the same time shows off their voice. All a contestant has to do is sing the song "well" and they'll be considered the best of the week, casual voters vote for them, and they move forward. 

 

(If you want to look at the anti-itunes bait, take a look at Chris's song list - every one of them except "When I Was Your Man."  Sexual current pop songs are the opposite of itunes bait.) 

 

-you have to sing a song technically well in order for casual voters to vote. I know people bring up Josh Kaufman here, and his win against Grimmie and Jake. But Grimmie and Jake also didn't sing their songs particularly well, and Josh had been an incredible technical singer the entire competition (Something Matt is not). 

 

- people like creativity, so long as it's done well. If a contestant re-arranges a song in a way that sounds good (TJW's "Royals" for instance) that is another version of itunesbait. The problem is, it's much riskier. (And typically, contestants strip back a song so it sounds like the typical itunesbait song in order to "change it up." For instance, TJW's "Heartless." But look at Kris Allen for examples of that.) But it's risky because for every one of TJW's "Royals" there's a Reagan's "Fancy" or Bria Kelly's "Rolling In The Deep." (Which I loved, but wasn't executed well and the arrangement wasn't going to be something people liked. Remember, tone it down, don't blast it.) 

 

-genre. Genre matters to the Casual voter. They like country, WGWG (Kris Allen, Phillip Phillips, Matt McAndrew. Sort of a Damien Rice/John Mayer style), Blue eyed soul seems to be an emerging one as of late too. This seems to be far less of an issue with The Voice as it is with other shows of this type though. (Although, Country does have an advantage.) 

 

A huge example of the casual voter situation was Matthew Schuler. Matt sang the itunes bait song "Hallelujah" incredibly well. His song is in the top 3 show singles of all time. You would have thought he had a lot of fans. Incorrect. Matt was getting the casual voters. A week or two later when his performances weren't up to par, he was in the bottom 3. (And Carson said, without the twitter save he would have gone home.). With Matt's performances faltering, fans jumped to the contestant performing the best...Tessanne Chin.

 

That's not to say there aren't other factors. For instance, fans of a contestant, fans of a coach, performances throughout the seasons etc.. but because this is a show where it's hard to get attached to any certain contestant, given the format, The Voice has always been a casual voter show. Which is why we get winners like Tessanne and Josh.  People who performed excellent every week and could sing very well. The truth was, IMO, Matt is not a great technical singer. (This show has never had a not great technical singer for a winner.) He's an excellent performer. He emotes well. But he's not a great singer. Adam did a brilliant job masking it the entire season, but it reared it's ugly head when he got a more challenging song with "Over The Rainbow." 

 

But anyway, I don't see what's so controversial about saying "if you pick songs that people don't tend to vote for (Chris) or if you don't sing your songs particularly well (Matt) and someone else does (Craig) the person that does is likely to win." Isn't that how it should be?  

Edited December 26, 2014 by mercfan3

[Noreaster]

I don't know. There seem to be a lot of generalizations with no real basis. Agree to disagree.  

[viajero]

The new weekly Biilboard charts are out and there are a lot of firsts for The Voice.  All four original singles made the Hot 100, with Matt's Wasted Love coming in at No. 14 (highest ever for a voice performance), followed by CWB at No. 34 (but No. 1 on the Country charts).  Plus, both Matt and Chris's duets also made the Hot 100.  The Voice has never before come even close to having 6 songs simultaneously on the chart at the same time.  Of course how long these songs are going to last on the charts is a different story.  But I´d say the investment they made this season in those original songs has already paid off.

[Babalooie]

viajero,  I think that the reason Sugar came off so badly with the viewers  was because too many of them sensed that there was something going on between her and Pharrell.  He seemed too enamoured of her.

[Padma]

I have to give Sugar credit. It wasn't Sugar who was feeding into the vibe with Pharrell. As far as I could see, the creepy "I'm really into you" vibe all came from him. He didn't help her at all with that (she also may have hurt her chances with the choice of name--just seemed fake, trying too hard...I'm not really sure what made it so annoying). In any case, without Pharrell and chosen as other singers' "talented friend I want to perform with", she was great in the finale.

Pharrell should have learned from CeeLo that the creepy vibe never helps anyone. (I'll say for Blake and Adam that they both have kept it professional-appearing for 7 seasons. Pharrell couldn't make it through one.)

[viajero]

Padma, I would tend to agree that Pharrell did Sugar no favors.  But was Gwen's "obsession" with Ryan Sill really any less creepy?

[Padma]

Padma, I would tend to agree that Pharrell did Sugar no favors.  But was Gwen's "obsession" with Ryan Sill really any less creepy?

No, it was worse in a way because he seemed to be playing into it all the time (singing to her, flashing her his "cute smile" at the end, saying, "I've missed you so much!" after the break, etc.) Now he might have just been a sweet grateful kid smiling at his mentor who was rooting for him, but it seemed a bit much to me. I always gave Sugar a lot of credit that she didn't do any of that, didn't flirt back with Pharrell at all, so maybe part of what gave her the "edge" over Ryan in irritating me was "Pharrell's flirting + her annoying name". If Ryan had called himself "Rock Sills" or somesuch, he and Gwen probably would have edged them out.

[mercfan3]

I didn't think Pharrell came off creepy (or Gwen for that matter.) I think people are two quick to make bonds sexual. (It was even done with Michelle and Usher. )

 

Ryan was just a sweet kid who was happy all the time and seemed really eager to learn. It's probably the kind of positive energy that anyone would be drawn too. (He seemed to be popular with the cast.)

 

Sugar looked very marketable and had a name that Pharrell was immediately drawn too. He could have had a crush. He also could think he can make a star out of her. (After all, despite not liking her voice, she's more talented than a lot of the people he's worked with.) Regardless, he wasn't creepy about it even if he did. CeeLo was creepy. Pharrell was like a school boy. 

 

And yes, Kudos (sort of..maybe it should just be expected?) to Adam, Usher, and Blake for never doing that. Could you imagine if Melissa from last season had been on CeeLo's team. 

Edited December 31, 2014 by mercfan3

[dizzyizzy01]

I think Ceelo has really been the only creepy coach with his sometimes off-color comments and the obvious leering.

 

I don't always agree with the other coach's decision making and they all clearly have their favorites, but I have seen nothing inappropriate from the other coaches.  All the fuss over Sugar and Pharrell seems to be just that people don't like that he kept her.  I don't see how he did anything appropriate with her.  I definitely don't see anything between Ryan and Gwen other than Ryan being over the top earnest.  I guess Gwen called him a cute guy?  I don't see how that's inappropriate though.

[mercfan3]

She called Chris, Matt, Menlick and Taylor cute too. That's not that big of deal though..