Last week America Voted to send Chris Thomas and Josiah Hawley home from The Voice, leaving Usher and Shakira with just one performer each. Holly Tucker pulled herself from the bottom by doing a heartfelt moving rendition of the Christian Inspiration/gospel song, “How Great Thou Art.” Adam Levine had Judith Hill do the Michael Jackson song, “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Both choices show the importance of song choice, and it’s not surprising that veteran coaches Blake Shelton and Adam Levine are masterful at it.
Chris Thomas, Sharika, and Sasha Allen
Adam had Judith Hill do the Michael Jackson piece to deal with the unspoken issue that swirls around her – Michael Jackson. Honestly, I’ve never thought twice about it, as there have been singers on The Voice who’ve worked with big names before. Amanda Brown from season three was backup for Adele, and season two’s winner Jermaine Paul was backup for Alicia Keys. Still, Michael Jackson is a huge icon, a landmark performer in history – who died way too soon. Apparently, Judith has gotten criticism for “using” his fame to propel herself onto The Voice, or that she shouldn’t be on The Voice because she has this huge advantage because she’s worked with Michael Jackson. By having Judith first add her own unique spin to the song at the beginning and then do the rest as a tribute, they were able to address both issues, not only by the performance, but in the discussions around it. Clearly Judith has her own style and talent – but she really had a close connection to Michael Jackson. She’s not trying to exploit his name, it’s just a fact of her life. What it also did was show Judith being emotional, which is another criticism that’s been lobbed at her – all style and vocal power, but no heart. It’s a brilliant move by Adam. Hopefully, it will pay off.
Blake meanwhile, realized he needed to show off more than just Holly’s voice. Holly has a really pure sound, and as Shakira pointed out, excellent control over it. More importantly though, Holly has a lot of heart. She’s a pretty woman, but trying to have her sell songs that are strong, sexy, or sassy, doesn’t work to pull in the audience. There are many sides to country music, but Blake went to the part that underlies the whole country music culture, Christian faith. It was a choice that let Holly really tap into her emotions and just be herself, a woman whose faith – not her confidence – has carried through life. It pulled her out from the bottom, and probably won her a larger fan base.
At this point, fan base is the name of the game. A fan base will vote for an artist even if they don’t give the best performance of the night. At this point in the game, singers have to really fight to pull a vote from another artist’s fan base. This has me worried for Team Shakira. Usher will be fine because Michelle Chamuel will be in the top three, as the likely second to Danielle Bradbery - who basically has won the title already. It’s that third spot that’s gonna be a fight, and unless Sasha Allen pulls off something amazing, I don’t think she’s got enough support to make it through to the next round, which will put Shakira out of the competition.
I know I keep talking about this, but it is still beyond me how Shakira set up her battles to keep Garrett Garden and lose both Monique Abbadie and Mary Miranda? It went totally against what she said she wanted to do – which was support Latin artists. Now, if those girls weren’t talented that would be one thing, but both of them ran rings around Garrett. In fact, when she saved Garrett over Monique she actually said that she did because she thought Garrett needed more help! I’m always going to be suspicious about those choices, because both Mary and Monique had a strong Latin fan base that was keeping them at the top of the contenders list. When they went into the battles, they were three and five in popularity on YouTube. Danielle Bradbery was twelve and Garrett was 24. Danielle has gone from twelve to being number one with four key eliminations: Ryan Innes, Mary and Monique.
Ryan Innes sabotaged himself (or was sabotaged) with a song choice that didn’t showcase what he did at all. It definitely let The Voice avoid a season 3 Nicholas David type of situation. Caroline Glaser was going to have to go, because she was the weakest on team Adam, even though she was stronger than anyone on Blake or Usher’s team. However both Mary and Monique’s eliminations were completely orchestrated. First by pairing Chris Thomas with Mary – which Blake called out as being strange – and then choosing Garrett over Monique. Of all of them, Mary was the most crucial because she’s the only one whose age and attractiveness rivaled Danielle’s and her story could have also won over America as a triumph over adversity. While I can buy that Shakira had a soft spot for Garrett and it impeded her judgement, combined with the Chris and Mary pairing it just doesn’t sit right. Granted, there isn’t any way to know if those eliminations were a producer’s idea or if Shakira was just a really bad player, but those choices absolutely are what bumped Danielle up to the top three.
Now, I like Danielle, don’t get me wrong. As an artist though, she’s not that interesting – she’s only sixteen after all. Even though Mary Miranda’s was also young, her background gave her more to draw from artistically. I would have liked to have seen more of her just to see what experiences she pulled from. Nevertheless, I certainly like Danielle a heck of a lot better than last season’s Cassadee Pope, and I certainly down begrudge Danielle if she wins this thing. More than anyone else in the competition, she’s someone who really will need the guidance of a record label to build her career, while I think everyone else is going to be able to manage it just fine. Heck, I think Adam is going bring back Caroline Glaser and sign them as a girl group, because they really are amazing on stage together. Call them “Adam’s Angels” - I’m telling you, that would be a major chart topper! Anyway, I digress. Danielle Bradbery is s a sweet kid, and Taylor Swift needs some competition for America’s sweetheart. Talent-wise, I would pick Judith Hill as the top spot, with Sarah Simmons a close second – but I don’t think either of them can trump being sweet sixteen. Besides, it’s not like Danielle doesn’t have a gorgeous voice herself.
The only way Danielle won’t win The Voice is if she d doesn’t break the top ten and Michelle Chamuel does. That iTunes voting bonus number for breaking into the top ten is counted in the final vote tally for the winner – if you want you can check the rules yourself. ( http://www.nbc.com/the-voice/vote/ ) Now, these rules are still better than last season. Last season you could download an artist’s song ten times for ten votes and have THAT multiplied by ten, which was just ridiculous. Still, with these new rules, even if everyone else were to start breaking the top ten, Danielle is still going to be way ahead because she’ll be one bonus ahead. While Michelle Chamuel has a super-strong fan base that could push her over if she breaks the top ten – an upset win would still depend on Danielle missing a top ten iTunes bonus. Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen. It would make things more interesting if it did though!
Of course, we aren’t at the top three yet, we’re at the top eight where the question is, “who’s going home next?” We know it’s not Danielle or Michele, as for the rest, it is honestly anyone’s game. It’s all going to come down to song choice. Interestingly enough, Judith’s performance of “The Way You Make Me Feel” was not released on YouTube. I don’t know if it’s a copyright issue, but being that “I’ll Be There” was released I really can’t say. All I know is that it makes it a bit more difficult to judge where she stands. However, on itunes she charted lower than The Swon Brothers. Sasha Allen and Amber Carrington now have the lowest placement on the charts, but just as Holly Tucker pulled out an awesome song choice and performance, it’s possible for anyone else to as well. So, starting Monday, the race for third place begins!
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