S08.E14: The Live Playoffs, Part 1

[sydneyjane]

Sawyer is still my favorite, but I haven't really liked his song choices since the audition. And, his best showing on itunes so far has been Man of Constant Sorrow, I think, which went to #2 on the country charts. So, I will be curious to see if Pharrell might try to get him to do more old timie country songs. And, I wonder what will happen to him once The Voice stylists get to him! I just hope the public doesn't get tired of him.

 

This is the first year, though, where I haven't felt that Blake has a good chance of winning. Although, another Blake win might not have been good for the show. I think Pharrell's got the strongest team, though.

 

Looking forward to tonight!

[Magic]

What an odd way to start the show with ADAM singing when it was the first week Amerika gets to vote so the attention should be on the contestants.  I can see putting him in the middle but it was an odd "start" to the program.

 

This is always the stage I have such high hopes for the season and they kind of get smashed in the next few weeks.  The way the show is designed so that there is a LOT of judge interaction during the Blinds, the Battles and the Knockouts.  It's exciting and in the good seasons, the judges interactions are really fun.  Also, I really enjoy seeing a bunch of new talents from a lot of different types of music.  I don't really care so much about their back story, but I do get drawn in to the fact that contestants have a chance to make it big. 

 

But once we hit the Lives, so many contestants get dropped so fast, after taking so many weeks of the selection process, AND a lot of times the dropped contestants are ones who make it interesting to sit through 1-2 hours worth of singing (especially the tired old songs), AND the judges quit making almost any interesting commentary so the Lives ends up having a lot harder time maintaining my interest.

 

Once the Lives start, it is hard for any contestant to emotionally connect with a song, sing it well, and perform it well for so many weeks in a row.  And even if one contestant kind of does, it isn't that interesting if there aren't a lot of equally competitive contestants so there really is a good contest who is going to win.

 

Even though there are so many more contestants who aren't as good in the other rounds prior to the Lives, the competition aspect at least "seems" higher because contestants are going to get chair turns or not, or for sure at least some of them are going to be cut after each battle and it makes the anticipation/competition level more exciting.

 

And, sometimes it seems like Amerika seems to vote for the safer more generic singers so this is a show that tends to get more boring, instead of more exciting, as each week of the Lives goes on for me.

 

I'm hoping there are enough good, and interesting contestants that this entire season will be interesting.

 

I agree with pivot's analysis with the added guess that it is Koryn that Pharrel will save:

  

 

What I think is going to happen:
    Team Blake - America Saves - Corey (he's going to make the finale as the only country artist and is dull as dishwater) and Meghan. Blake picks Hannah. The coaches all loved her performance and Blake couldn't stop raving about her perfect pitch.

    Team Pharrel - America Saves - Sawyer and Mia. Pharrel saves Koryn or Caitlin. I think he wasn't thrilled with Lowell last night and he just isn't good enough to continue.

 

[loveoutloud]

 

Unpopular opinion here: I don't get the Sawyer love. He's fine, but I honestly do not see the "special" thing that everyone is talking about practically everywhere. I keep waiting to "get" it, and I just don't. Would he be this popular had he been in his twenties? Maybe, I don't know. The only thing that stands out to me is his perfect gorgeous hair. Oh well. Maybe next round.

 

Same. He's a talented kid, I'll give him that. He certainly has a lot going for him, but I don't really like his voice. It's the vibrato I think, it ends up sounding too goaty/Bob Dylanish for my taste lol. I know he will be around for a lonnnnnng long time though on this show so I've accepted it. ^_^

[Keekski]

I'm with the unpopular opinion about Sawyer. I thought Trouble was terrible. I also love Ray Lamontagne, and I just did not like his performance at all. I did love Mia, though. And I love Brooke so, so, so much that I hope Blake saves her over Hannah or Corey. I think Sarah & Megan are locks for his team. Caitlin is good, but boring. And Lowell was pretty bad last night. 

[Sammich63]

I also like Brooke and wish she was going through instead of Corey. Wrong song choice for her and I'm disappointed. Corey is so boring and it's a shame to lose any of the other four gals to him. I like Sawyer, but he's also had some poor song choices lately. I really want to see a female win this year as I think most of the girls are very talented!

[viajero]

I agree with Christina. This just may have been the best Live Playoffs episode in Voice history.  I thought all 10 performances were pretty good and a few were exceptional.  Because of this, I suspect that any ranking is going to be purely a matter of personal taste.

 

In my case, after having watched all the performances again on YouTube, I think my top 3 were:

 

1. Mia Z
2. Hannah
3. Sawyer

 

I thought the weakest was Lowell, whose version of Jealous paled in comparison to Chris from last season.  Second weakest was Corey.  I agree completely with Adam that he could have done more with that song.

 

Of the rest, I just didn’t like Sarah’s arrangement of Free Bird and Meghan seemed a little too detached during the first half of her performance.  Koryn was good, but I don't like it when they use hymns on these shows as there is no relevance to what they might sing after the show.  All three of them were better last week.  Caitlin’s vocals were impressive and it’s unfortunate she comes across as kind of bland.
 

I don't get why Brooke got such negative reviews compared to the other contestants. I liked the song choice for her and her voice on it. She sounded great with the many textures in her voice, especially her lower register. It's rare for female singers on these kind of shows to have such a strong lower register, so I really appreciated it. She only sounded iffy on the falsetto part. I don't think she was stiff either. I can't believe the other coaches gave Lowell and Corey a pass over Brooke's performance. I'm hoping Blake's soft heart for younger singers comes into play here and he saves her. She has so much potential.

 

I agree.  Though Brooke wasn’t perfect and I didn’t put her among my top 3 for the night, I thought her overall performance was pretty good.  What I particularly liked was the way she took the first verse of the chorus way down, before exploding on the second verse.  But if Blake is going to put through only one of his younger female singers, I have to admit I hope it's Hannah.

 

My preferences for who gets through to the next round are:

 

Team Pharrell:  Mia, Sawyer and Koryn

Team Blake: Hannah, Meghan and Brooke

 

Unfortunately I just can’t see Corey not making it far in this competition.  I just hope Hannah doesn’t get knocked out as a result.

Edited April 8, 2015 by viajero

[hincandenza]

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, because I had some radically different opinions of last night's show.  Partly, I've lost my patience with the fluff and 2-hour run time, so at this point I FF through the preparation segment, the coaches' commentary (unless the performance was noteworthy enough to want to hear them react), and sometimes the second half of the songs.  And partly, because like pivot above I think this show has morphed into AI, with a bunch of too-young, inexperienced non-professionals who are like those 8-year-olds who sing Whitney Houston to great applause from the local community: yes, they hit the notes, but they're just mimicking what they've seen.  The world of difference between 95% and 99.9% of "talent" is so huge, and these kids don't even understand what they'll need to do to become great.

 

Sarah (Blake): Pretty good, I didn't like the song choice but she showed off that she's more than a "Janis Joplin" clone.  Freebird is such a classic rock band jam type of song, I agree with Adam (I think) who pointed out that the song is kind of defined by that guitar solo.  Still, she's clearly a very very good and polished/mature singer, and major props to her for what Blake said about how she emails constantly.  That every contestant isn't doing this every week is to their own detriment.

 

Caitlin (Blake): I think it was okay, but I don't remember it the next day.

 

Hannah (Blake): Not my favorite song at all, but once again she sings so clearly and without unnecessary embellishment while also keeping the audience entranced with her moves.  Is she goofy/quirky/weird?  Yes, and that's why she's my favorite contestant this year.  Pharrell can't hide his genuine enthusiasm, and he's clearly a big Hannah fan.  The fact is, I look forward to seeing what she'll do next, unlike almost anyone else; she strikes me as the Michelle Chamuel of the season with a better voice, keeping us entertained even as others might do more impressive runs or belting. 

 

Weirdly, I think Adam made a comment about her needing to be "more exciting" or something, which... short of cartwheels mid-song, I don't know what more she could do.  That was the most animated performance of the night, as it turns out.

 

Lowell (Pharell): And just after Adam dings Hannah for not being exciting... we enter a run of songs that had me hitting FF judiciously.  This performance of Jealous was terrible for the first 30 seconds, and I assume it didn't get better.

 

Mia (Pharrell): Good lord, this was one of the worst performances I've ever heard on this show.  She was every bit a 16-year-old DivaBot Mk. II model 1183; no feeling, no connection, and a bunch of unnecessary runs and vocal curlicues on a song that just wallows in pathos.  I finally had to FF because it was painfully bad.  Jesus, she doesn't belong on this stage, she's like a microwave pizza that was put in for 10 seconds; inedible and cardboard.

 

Koryn (Pharrell): Another laughably bad performance that I quickly skipped over.  Her shaking and LOUD SINGING wasn't authentic or moving or believable; it was painfully amateurish and laughable.  Also, fuck the pandering.  I skipped the judging, but if at least the usually honest (in her body language) Christina was giving her a stink eye, then I can take comfort that at least one coach wasn't exactly won over by the gimmick.

 

Corey (Blake): Anemic.  Bland.  Yep, FF.  From what I could see while fast-forwarding, the judges seemed to like it?  This is the American Idol element; a bland and uncontroversial middle-American pretty boy/girl singing passably well for a state fair talent show.

 

Brooke (Blake): Eh, she was pretty mediocre but I at least watched the whole thing.  She only seemed decent enough because of the shitshow that preceded her.

 

Meghan (Blake): Aw, not Meghan too?  I did notice that a lot of people in this show were taking out their ear monitors; Meghan was pretty bad here, she was flat almost the entire time.  Listen to the almost-last note where she started singing and rose up to meet the actual pitch; that was the whole song for her, until that moment: just a little flat.

 

Sawyer (Pharrell): At this point, I was losing hope for the season, since other than Hannah and Sarah, I had hated every single person so far.  Sawyer redeemed things a little bit, at least.  He was a mite rough in patches, and the middle section kind of meandered without having a really powerful ending, since that song needs to have a sense of abandon once the singing really kicks up (what I heard of the practice sessions sounded better).

 

Still, the kid does have a pretty solid tone and presence.  I mean, he's slightly younger than Mia Z, yet he looks far, far more ready to sing about things he may not have experienced, or to approach a song and lyric without excessive adornment.

 

 

All in all, I found this episode a huge disappointment.  Some real stinkers, some "not ready for primetime" forgettable AI clones, and a couple of interesting people.  If tonight isn't much better, I don't think I have the patience for more than a YouTube recap.

[Donny Ketchum]

Caitlin (Blake): I think it was okay, but I don't remember it the next day.

Caitlin is on Pharrell's team, not Blake's.

[hincandenza]

Well, I did say it wasn't very memorable... :)

[ToxicUnicorn]

My strongest impression of the night:  I HATED Koryn's How Great Thou Art.  That was awful.  She and Lowell were simply terrible.  I don't mind Corey as much as most here seem too, but he ran out of gas at the end.  He is outclassed, but at least it's not as awkward to see as Gwen's contestant Ryan.  (Corey and Ryan both look similar to me.  All American blond wholesome good looks.)

 

Speaking of blonds... Re: Sawyer

coupled w/ his Mmmbop era Hanson looks

That's it!  Thank you so much.  I can stop wondering who he reminded me of, now.  That was his weakest performance...I was nervous for him, I thought he quavered through that entire song.  Doesn't matter - he's here for the long haul.  (And he deserves it.)

 

As for the women -  I am liking Sarah more and more.  I enjoyed her Freebird.  First, it was much better than I expected.  Second, I kept thinking it was nice to hear a woman's voice on it.  Last, she is seeming more like a genuine artist and less like a hipster poser, which really needed to happen.

 

Caitlin worries me: I just think she looks unhealthy.  No one else has mentioned it, am I the only one?

 

Blake messed up big time with Hannah's song.  Vocally, I think it suited her, but it was so dated.

 

Someone sang an Ellie Goulding song.  I've decided I don't like Ellie Goulding songs.  There, I've said it.

 

I can't remember another thing, except the judges were useless all night and Christina looked like a kewpie doll.

[Padma]

Wasn't it Lowell who asked the judges if they'd let him stay a crooner? Or maybe I've confused him with someone else. In any case, I'm really disappointed in Pharrell for doing everything imaginable (from song selection to advice) to get him to dial down the crooner and dial up the generic soul-pop singer, complete with an Adam Levin-esque "false".

 

It failed the first time he had Lowell do it, so why have him do it again? I blame Lowell, too, though for being too malleable. He should have tried to keep to his idea of crooner-soul, regardless of what Pharrell and Nate told him.

 

Even if it only meant he got to give one more final solo performance it would, imo, have been worth it.

[ToxicUnicorn]

It failed the first time he had Lowell do it, so why have him do it again? I blame Lowell, too, though for being too malleable. He should have tried to keep to his idea of crooner-soul, regardless of what Pharrell and Nate told him.

 

Even if it only meant he got to give one more final solo performance it would, imo, have been worth it.

 

I couldn't agree more.  Even if Pharrell was trying to update Lowell, that Jealous song was not the way to do it.

 

Lowell was pretty special.  I thought he had tons of potential,  WIsh he had been with Team Blake now, instead.

[AwesomO4000]

I'm with the unpopular opinion about Sawyer. I thought Trouble was terrible. I also love Ray Lamontagne, and I just did not like his performance at all.

 

Another unpopular opinion. I like Sawyer and Ray LaMontagne, but my favorite performance of "Trouble" is Taylor Hick's performance from American Idol. ::ducks in case of rotten vegetables:: I may have been influenced in that it was the first time I'd ever heard the song, but for me, Taylor killed it and made me want to go find the original song - which I liked, but liked Taylor's even better - so that was accomplishing something in my book.

[ToxicUnicorn]

my favorite performance of "Trouble" is Taylor Hick's performance from American Idol. ::ducks in case of rotten vegetables::

 

I thought of Taylor Hicks' performance while Sawyer was singing, too, Awesom04000.  I preferred Taylor's as well.  (I never understood why he was so unpopular at TWoP.)