The Voice 2012 has several promising contestants

[Tom22]

I've mentioned in the Xfactor thread that I've really been enjoying "The Voice."

The battle round elimination format was a little strange but I've come to understand it as a vehicle for the Mentor/Judges to actually use as a decent tool for them to challenge and see what the musicians on thier teams could do with songs they felt were challenging to them in directions they should be challenged and .. IMPORTANTLY, used at that point for the mentors do decide themselves who they should take to the final 12.

It was a very important distinction that while they were introducing the contestants to the public that way, the mentors had also been working in teaching the contestants during the week. The battle rounds were a place that they used what they saw in rehearsal as well as how the contestants on their team could shine in under the pressure of the bright lights side by side with the team-mate to make the heart wrenching decision about which 1/2 of their handful they'd give a chance to go forward.

The battle format isn't nearly as lame in that context and I've come to think if I had to choose among kids I worked with that it would actually be a great way to help me make that decision intelligently.

Once you got to the final 12, the format is much more like Idol's.

We're down to 10 now (or is it 8 ?) so if you come to the show at this point you don't need to be bothered with that format anymore anyway.

That's post one...

Miguel doesn't let me divide up subsequent posts but I'd like to separate them out by contestant.

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In years of watching these shows no-one has remotely caught my attention like Haley.

There have been plenty of very very talented singers on the shows... some perhaps with better "diva" voices. Some with both power voice and meaningful emotion and subltely (perhaps Jessica Sanchez ... her Beyonce and Whitney Houston covers were insane.. yet not better than the originals.. just extrodinary copies)

There have been people who sung things I respected but just didn't stimulate that extra level of musical irony or bring an uplifting sense of the world to songs serious or not.

None that I could listen to over and over and over again and be pushing repeat because I loved the music.. ONLY Haley.

but... this guy on The Voice is at least in Haley's musical league. I'm not going to track his every performance I don't think and he's maybe only 80% of what haley is (but Haley is like 300% above the crowd.. so thats pretty damn good)

Here are some performances:







Below is a battle-round. with the distraction of the other good peformer.. but I think you can see the benefit of the side by side in helping cee loo decide which smooth voice soul singer to bring along:



but here is a studio version of this with only nicholas on it:

[Tom22]

I'll introduce you guys to a few other artists on the show that also are pretty good... far better than a lot of the fodder we get on idol and much of Xfactor (although there are a few tremendous voices there and those little girls have insane voices coupled with what sounds to be connections with the songs that can only get better as they live longer).

This girl is really interesting to me:

Melanie Martinez - I'm not going to compare her to Haley because I think they are really different

She does seem open to jazz and sang "hit the road jack" which is in the Video below. I like Haley's version far better, but Melanie sings it her way in her style and props to her for that.

Melanie is only 17 so... who knows what a few more years of music will do to broaden out her skills ? She definitely seems interested in what she can do with music.. not in how she can sing like others.


Blind Audition :



Last week's 12 contestant round performance:




Her "Hit the Road Jack" (not quite Haley yet. .not bad at all for a 17 year old and props to her for singing a jazz song!)




her other battlerounds also not bad at all:

[Miguel]

I haven't watched The Voice since the auditions. Melanie caught my attention then. I didn't see Nicholas perform. I like his tone.

[Tom22]

I haven't watched The Voice since the auditions. Melanie caught my attention then. I didn't see Nicholas perform. I like his tone.

The key to Melanie to me is her interpretation and stylizations in her personal style ... and a slightly different approach to the world, that is her own comfotable in her own skin ,, the way she is, and looking for possiblities. She has a nice voice, and plays with her husky breathyness as a tool for savoring the words she expresses.



More than anything though, it is the phrasing.. when she comes in on abeat and how she rolls out of a note that makes it for me.

And, that is very precisely what I find so impressive about Nicholas.

Last night his stand by me was just flooring again for me. Must have listened to in 11 times so far... listened it to 3 times in a row before I moved on to the next performance.

It is exactly the same thing I hear in Haley, although Haley alternates between soul and jazz conventions more than Nicholas's more exclusively soul conventions.



It is the pauses before he comes in, Pause 1, 2 3(breath, on downbeat come in on the upbeat)... the breath is part of the feeling for the from the gut feeling.. then he'll bring the next phrase at a distance to what he just sang that is both logically spaced in distance yet also relating to the next bar. He'll roll succevise entonations as Ying/yang contrasts to the very extent the songs allow ... the whole thing given a certain moving momentum without it being some sort of yabbering acceleration .... where what he's singing one bar kind of carries with it a hint of what was just sang and sometimes forshadows what is to come, with a mild surpise where a sound wouldnt' be complete without the less known to follow.

Ok that's a lot of words as usual.. I swear though that its the same sorts of things I love so much about Haley (even as Haley does it in Her own way)

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All in all it was a super show last night.

There are 3 or 4 other performers with dead on powerhouse voices that im am not embedding performances for... the Brit sings Rock with such clear power that is at the level of any pro who's songs they were originally to me... I'm not sure they are different though or bring anything new ... and truly I feel that the straight rock songs belong as much to the band as the singer - contrast it with Halye's what was and what shall never be zepplin cover where she put her very special stamp on the song.

A couple very good crooners on a level we rarely rarely hear on idol with the new york song and the finishing number.

Started off with a great powerhouse Christine Agulara and Blake performance.. great live perfomance by the judges showing why they are pro's - a small step above the amateurs on the show.. no dubbing etc ..

The the first performer sung with everybit the power of Agulara in that type of rock/pop ballad which is a bit too straight on for my tast.

The girl Casadee Pope covering the beautiful Miranda Lambert song did as well and more moving to my own taste than Miranda's




Astounding show.. the performances I didn't mention weren't half bad either.

[Himm2]

I got into this show late in the game with only sporadic viewings but when I saw the title of this thread I thought for sure your chosen contestant almost as good would be Cassadee Pope...who won it all:

I was actually surprised that Nicholas David made it as far as he did, but I've never been one to have as much appreciation for a guy or a WGWG to sing to me. (except for Harry Reinhart)

I got really disgusted with the format of "X Factor" and refused to watch it this season.

[Outcast]

I liked Amanda the most, her performance of Dream On was epic, she's basically a better version of Elise Testone (AI11). Cassadee is extremely pitchy and her chipmunk high register is irritating but she's quite marketable. I think Universal Republic may give her more support than they gave Javier and Jermaine. But Avirl Lavigne style pop rock isn't burning the charts anymore, she's probably going to have go the country pop route.

[Miguel]

I liked all three of the finalists. And Amanda Brown.

I think Cassadee is the most marketable winner yet. Maybe because the show seems to have matured and found its stride.

Nicholas David's performances were enjoyable. Like Haley, he seems to take joy in singing. I think they share some of the same musicality. Love his covers of the classics. But what new songs can he sing that will find a following?

Terry McDermott has a nice voice. I find it easy to listen to.

[mercfan3]

Cassadee is extremely marketable, but I found her voice irritating. Haley is more marketable too.

I preferred Amanda Brown and Terry.

[Tom22]

The thread title was (and still is) a bit of a hook.

I really enjoyed The Voice this season and I was surprised more people here weren't watching it. I didn't enjoy the last few weeks as much but that's because I don't really enjoy the idea of "competition" in singing.

It wouldn't be practical nor would it give budding artists as good an opportunity to be exposed and pushed to grow if they kept around 24 artists for 9 weeks. The drama of eliminations of contestants that didn't find a following it ok.

Once you get down to the final handful, you should have some really good singers unless a show picked and promoted pure fodder to assure that their chosen "story" played out (and they get really upset when someone like Haley changes the script)

Once you have that handful of very good singers left, it comes down largely to personal taste in styles of music with execution being a smaller and smaller part the closer you get to the end when all the remaining singers should be good at their genre. Personality is also a factor, and to me a fair factor because after all Entertainers, in the Bob hope school .. are supposed to be cordial and warm and make us feel good about the world and that has to do with connection and speaking the same language etc.

Different people will want different things… so its silly to me to figure if more people feel a connection to something that makes the one attractive to the majority “better”. In the end the “winner” is a demographic study. Getting down to a handful has more to do with skill at a given area so people fond of a type are motivated enough to vote and when there are lots of contestants people don’t need to chose and can cast votes based on merit in music types that aren’t their favorite helping hone based on quality before later people will select on preference between a remaining few strong contestants.

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On Nicholas David … he peaked for me the last time I posted. I didn’t hear anything all too special after that but the sum of his work over the season was really pretty darn good. A few of his songs are songs I both think are great songs and that I think he performed as well and uniquely different as anyone who I’ve heard sing them.

I think he is most like Haley in that he understands blues and he understands that the timing of pauses, the shuffle of a beat, which words in lyrics are annunciated and spoke and which should be slurred or alternatively be sung full throttle… he relates to songs on that level which I think is what really really distinguishes Haley as a singer to me (and she’s better at it than him.. certainly more versatile in bringing that sort of quality of interpretation across so many genres of music).

I downloaded all of Melanie Martinez’s songs. I’ve found that I’ve really really been enjoying listenting to them on my phone walking the dog. There was far more to enjoy than the moderate appreciation I had the first time I heard them… I thought they were good at first but … to me the test of good music is wanting to hear it on repeat mode.

I liked Melanie's interpretations and it also helps that I’m not as familiar with the songs she sung .. which makes them fresher to me …. And their nature is less cliché than the stuff Nicholas was singing.. cliché is something great the first time around but just beat into the ground so much it’s lost its profound charm or insight. The songs Nicholas sung are such standards and are so good that they've become cliche.. kind of like a picture of the Golden Gate bridge.. priceless, and something I never tire of seeing in person frequently..but.. I don't need pictures of it.

I thought Casadee had some really strong performances and what is more, has something very special to her voice in tone and in style that makes her a special kind of artist. When she was on stage with the stars, I really saw that .. yeah, she belongs in the big leagues.. she had something equally special when side by side with them, where terry and Amanda seemed to pale to me sitting next to the super stars.
Cassadee will wander on pitch, especially in her lower range… but as an artist, she brings that around in a way that seems to create a special vulnerability to those words in that range (and thankfully , the lower tones are often the more vulnerable moments as written). I really felt a window to her heart as well as an interesting broadness to her tone mid range (and creative use of her personal bag of tricks to emphasize lyrics).

Terry and Amanda (and I see them in a very similar light) … had tremendously powerful voices, and also possessed an ablity to sing the non diva moments of songs with affection . What they were missing to me was that certain kind of special window to the heart, as well as that undefinable thing that an artist in any field .. music , painting, architecture, literature. .. brings that gives a sort of unique insight and nuance and color to things from their perspective that the audience hadn’t yet thought of or felt exactly so.

OK.. that’s Tom22 philosophy for the day.
Bottom line, I liked the voice..
There were some good performers in the final 6 and I don’t care how they finished in order.
I do think that the finalists were all deserving of recognition and that the winner is a special enough artist to deserve good things coming her way - (I don’t need to say she’s better.. I would have been happy enough with most of the finalists – I abstained from voting because, well I probably felt like she deserved to win but didn’t want to vote against Nicholas. Lol ) .. I’ve been listening to Melanie.. but that doesn’t mean I think she deserved to win.. just that I like listening to her performances NOW.. not that I think they were better... actually I think Cassadees were better .. I just get enough of those songs more quickly.

[buzzenator]

Mrs. Buzz got me into watching The Voice this season. I too liked the final 3. I predicted that Nicholas David would come in third just because he was out of the box with today's music. I enjoyed his covers of the classics, especially the Joe Cocker stuff. I thought Terry would win because of the preteen/teen girls. At least in The Voice they limit the overkill voting by the young girls, so a female can actually win on that show.