The top 10 had lots of help from some guest mentors before taking the stage to sing their hearts out for America, in one of our best live shows this season.
Diana Ross! Colbie Caillat! Patrick Stump! Christina Aguilera! A bunch of untalented people stopped by The Voice this week, and with their help, the top 10 gave us a show to remember.
Group Performance
Our top 10 kicked off a night of great performances with a group performance of some of Rascal Flatts’ greatest hits. The girls, DaNica, Reagan, and Anita, started off with “Bless the Broken Road,” and while they’re three very talented vocalists, they did not make a great trio. They seemed to be struggling individually with pitch and pacing. It got better when the boys took over with “Stand.” Craig, Taylor, Luke, Ryan, Matt, Damian, and Chris sounded great, and seemed to enjoy themselves. Even the girls sounded better when they joined in at the end.
Top 10 Performances
Matt McAndrew
Matt McAndrew got some help from new Team Adam mentor Patrick Stump (from Fall Out Boy) for his top 10 performance. Adam chose Coldplay’s “Fix You,” in order to marry the sweet and bombastic performances we’ve seen from Matt thus far in the competition. In his performance, Matt went into the audience, on Adam’s suggestion, and the ladies lost their minds. Looks like Matt just might be the ladykiller this season. The coaches had nothing but good things to say, and Pharrell thinks rock stations should be playing all of Matt’s tunes.
Anita Antoinette
Anita had the benefit of being coached by two awesome Voice ladies this week: Gwen AND Christina! Gwen chose Passenger’s “Let Her Go,” because she felt like it sounded like a record Anita would record. Anita struggled a bit with the rhythm of the song, until she sang a duet with Gwen, which I think would really help all of us in any situation. It was painful to hear this song as a reggae song, but Anita gave it her best, and put a lot of energy into it.
Damian
Adam chose Stevie Wonder’s “You and I” by Stevie Wonder for Damian, which is quite the honor coming from Adam, who loves Stevie Wonder. He said he wouldn’t have given it to Damian if he didn’t think he could do it, but he feels like the song was made for him. It was a very simple arrangement, just Damian and the keyboard, which meant that Damian would have to bring importance to each and every word. And it was beautiful. It seemed to drag a little bit when he was singing in his lower register, but the big stuff was gorgeous.
Reagan James
Reagan James decided to mix things up this week and perform her own take on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy.” After duetting with mentor Colbie Caillat on Colbie’s song, “Try,” Reagan showed Blake and Colbie just how fancy she was. They were both impressed, though Blake cautioned her to not get lost in the lyrics. It did seem to take a lot out of her in the performance, as she seemed to be tumbling over some of the lyrics. While it was great to hear someone covering a female rapper on The Voice, it didn’t do Reagan’s voice any favors.
Luke Wade
Luke Wade had the honor and privilege of working with Diana freaking Ross, alongside his coach Pharrell. Both Pharrell and Luke tried to keep their cool, while Diana comforted Luke over his screw up last week, saying sometimes she forgets the words too. Pharrell chose Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness,” sticking right in Luke’s wheelhouse after his tough time last week. It’s the perfect song for Luke, and his performance was unsurprisingly great, though he possibly said “squeeze” more times than any other single performance on network television.
Craig Wayne Boyd
Blake chose Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” for his buddy Craig Wayne Boyd, and Craig wasn’t intimidated in the least by The Man in Black. He turned it into a ballad, which worked really well. Colbie and Blake cautioned him to build his performance, but not hold everything till the end. Well, the performance was amazing, best of the night by far, and Blake was ready to throw his panties at him. There’s no doubt Craig’s going to have a successful career in country music.
Ryan Sill
Ryan couldn’t believe his luck getting to work with Gwen and Christina. After a successful rock performance last week, Gwen chose another rock song, “Starlight” by Muse, to make the most of Ryan’s rocker potential. Ryan’s biggest problem is finding his inner rocker, and working the stage. His vocals are great, without question, but he’s like a pop star treading lightly in rock territory. If he grows more comfortable with it, he will improve by leaps and bounds.
DaNica Shirey
Danica Shirey was absolutely thrilled at the chance to meet the legendary Clive Davis, whom she loves so much she wrote a report about him in high school. She chose a song by one of Clive’s superstars, Whitney Houston. Talk about huge shoes to fill: Whitney has been done and done again on reality TV, usually with disappointing results. DaNica, however, proved to be one of the best. She has the emotion to sell it, and the coaches felt she held her own.
Taylor John Williams
Taylor John Williams came to rehearsals with ideas, and he wanted to do The Beatles’ “Come Together,” even though his coach Gwen wasn’t totally on board. But they workshopped it with Christina, helping Taylor develop a different personality for the song, and find a little rasp in his voice. All of their hard work paid off, because Taylor’s performance was phenomenal. It was dark, it was cool, and it was sexy, in spite of the weird headband. Well done, sir.
Chris Jamison
For the final performance of the night, Team Adam’s Chris Jamison tackled “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars. Chris’s vocals were on point, but his big struggle was with the charisma and swag that the song requires. He needed to be a little more confident, and add a bit of attitude to his delivery. Luckily, Chris had frontman expertise in front of him in spades, as Adam and Patrick pointed him in the right direction, and sang along with him. The level of his performance, stage-presence-wise, was worlds ahead of his previous performances, and he had the vocals to back it up.
Stay tuned for The Voice top 10 results airing Tuesday at 8 p.m. on NBC.
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