23 April 2012

The Voice: Live Quarterfinals April 23, 2012

Knowing that the coaches on The Voice (i.e. CeeLo and Adam) will have to immediately cut a singer, let's see if the performers throw down.

  • Jamar - singing "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi
    • A really interesting, heavy metal arrangement.  Perhaps a bit on the slow side but I was really listening to the words and Jamar's performance as opposed to comparing the performance to Bon Jovi's.  He did a great job, sang his heart out.  I hope going first doesn't hurt him in the voting.
  • Katrina - singing "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri
    • Did they get her extensions?  Or did her hair grow that much before the live rounds and it was always up before today?  I'm glad she stuck with the full voice rather than try and make it wispy, it was a much better performance.  Really solid this time, very confident.  Even the little cracks over her break worked in this song.
CeeLo and his team performed "Dancing in the Street" - the old TV/retro look wasn't quite as fun as the disco possibilities for staging (CeeLo wore a truly awful James Brown wig).  Everyone sounded pretty good.

Commercial break had a new iPhone4S ad (or, at least, new to me) with Zooey Deschanel.  A great improvement over the kid with the stupid music questions/band names.

  • Mathai - singing "I'm Like a Bird" by Nelly Furtado
    • Hate to say it Adam, but Mathai sounds A LOT like Nelly Furtado (and she totally got upstaged by the awesome acrobat up on the fabric trapeze or whatever it's called).  She sounded less like like Nelly Furtado by the end.  It was a good performance - I wasn't blown away but she did a good job.
  • James - singing "Just the Way You Are" by Billy Joel
    • Gotta hand it to CeeLo - he knows just how to pick songs to suit his artists this season.  This song really fit James's style and vocal type.  He has a really smooth tenor sound.  I personally would like a bit in a dynamic range out of him (I'm with Blake - he sang well but it just laid there).  Adam had a good idea - maybe some old school Sinatra would be good, from early-on in his career.  While James doesn't do it for me, the teen girls love him so they'll probably carry him.
Goody Mob?  Sorry, Goodie Mob.  I am not well-versed in Southern hiphop.  Should there have been more rapping?  CeeLo sounded good until the light-up grill he sported gave him a lisp.  Adam was really into it but I really didn't get it.  Maybe I had to be in the auditorium for it to work.

  • Tony - singing...Carson didn't say??
    • wait, what is he singing?  Oh, my god, he's singing Britney Spears.  I love it.   I love that arrangement of "Hit Me Baby One More Time" with the rock rhythm rather than the pop.  I like him so much better this week than with the Peter Gabriel.
  • Cheesa - singing "I Have Nothing" by Whitney Houston
    • I got goosebumps.  This is the first performance where she knocked it out of the park for me.  She didn't shy away from those high notes and just killed it.  Fantastic perfomance, very well-done (the staging looked a bit like "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from Evita).  CeeLo looked like the cat who got the cream.
  • Pip - singing "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane
    • Thank you for not wearing the bow-tie (and he does have a similar voice type to Adam).  This is a much better song choice for him.  Except for the falsetto - not my favorite part.  It was good otherwise, perhaps not better than his other three team members.
Team Adam performance (and I could do without the Christina Millian filler) of "Instant Karma".  I love how they did the accompaniment with a little assist from the Voice band (Adam didn't sing, also kind of cool).
  • Juliette - singing "Crying" by Aerosmith
    • Her hair is getting lighter, not sure if I like the blond.  Aerosmith is a great choice for her, just the grittiness of her voice suits the tempo and the emotion of the song.  That voice just pulls at you (what record exec listened to her and thought "girl band"??  not a smart person).  I love her.  Love. Her.  (Next week, can we please have her do some classic sixties rock?  Please?  It would be so awesome.)
Ugh, instant elimination.
CeeLo sent home (so heart-felt that he took the time to write out what he wanted to say on his BlackBerry): James.  A good choice.  Of the four singers, he was the only one not to really stretch.  He's a good singer, but not quite at the level of Juliette, Jamar, and Cheesa.
Adam sent home (poor Adam, babbling since he's stalling):  Pip.  Also a good choice.  He was pretty much neck and neck with Mathai, in my opinion. 

Tomorrow night's show should be interesting.

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