The Voice 2014 - Recap - Live Semi-Final Performances - 05/12/2014

Welcome to the live blog and recap of "Live Semifinal Performances" on The Voice 2014 Season 6! It's the last chance the remaining artists have to make it to next week's finale! Which artists will rise to the occasion?

Add your thoughts in the comments below, and keep refreshing for analysis, thoughts, and videos of the night's big matchups! Videos will be added later. If you can't see them due to being outside the US, Rickey will be posting individual videos later that anyone can see, so check out the individual posts later if you can't see the videos in this post. Let's get this show on the road!

Credit: NBC

RECAP

-So because we only have five singers, we kick things off with filler. But hey, at least it's good filler this week...

USHER opens the show!

-Usher performs his new single, "Good Kisser". The song is the kind of lounge-tastic treat that's really difficult not to love. It really doesn't get said enough, but the man is an INSANE performer. His live vocals are downright stunning, considering he's dancing his ass off and looking about three seconds away from banging one of his backup dancers at any moment. He gets a standing ovation from the three other coaches, as the crowd goes positively apoplectic for the performance, as well they should. The man is one of the most complete performers in the game right now.

-Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz from Transformers: Age of Extinction are here, and they promote the movie as basically being more of the same, with a little bit of something new, which isn't the most ringing endorsement, given how the first trilogy panned out, from a quality standpoint. That said, the sneak preview they show, complete with "Battle Cry" by Imagine Dragons (the official theme of the movie) looks kind of fun. So who knows? Could be great. Not that I really plan on finding out.

KRISTEN MERLIN is up next!

-This performance is dedicated to Kristen's friends and family back in Massachusetts. Kristen talks about first getting into country music through Reba McIntyre, Martina McBride, Tim McGraw, and others, and going on to writing her own music as she began doing gigs around the city. A friend suggested she try out for The Voice, and now she's here at the Top 5, which she still can hardly believe. She'll be singing "Gunpowder and Lead" by Miranda Lambert, which should be a good fit for her voice, and should show off a more aggressive side to her style, as she's spent the better part of the competition as a balladeer.

-Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling this. Her voice just doesn't have the grit or power necessary to make this song work. However, her actual performance almost makes up for the underwhelming vocal, as her facial expressions and movements are tremendous. She interacts with the crowd, makes use of the stage, and generally comes across as if she's having the time of her life. It's kind of infectious, really. I still like Kristen quite a bit, but this wasn't the bar-setting performance I was hoping it would be.

-Adam says the performance illustrated just how far Kristen has come. After comparing Adam to Barney Rubble (I would love for this to continue to be a running gag until he dyes his hair back), Blake applauds Kristen for her performance, even though her facial expressions in no way lined up with the message or attitude of the song. Usher praises Kristen, before things devolve into another joke-off with Blake and Adam, at which point Shakira asks for her fellow coaches to "get serious" for a minute. For her part, Shakira says that Kristen represents the minorities, and that she has a distinct voice that people will be able to identify on the radio someday. Eh, I don't begrudge anyone praising Kristen, since she's pretty great. But that performance still just wasn't my bag.

JOSH KAUFMAN is up next!

-Josh talks about growing up in Florida before moving to Indianapolis for college, where he got into the music scene. He formed his band, met his wife, and started a family, all while pursuing his music dream. He talks about how overwhelmed he's been by the support he's received from his hometown, from his students, the local news, and his family, to whom he's dedicating his performance, saying he's doing this all for them (really? Not even a little bit for you? Come on, man, it's okay to admit that you have a dream you want to accomplish). He'll be singing "All of Me" by John Legend, saying his family has all of him.

-My favorite Josh performance this season. Completely and utterly flawless from start to finish, and with an arrangement that I think is eminently superior to the original. Josh's vocals somehow get stronger and more deeply felt, owing to a certain soulful quality that I'm not sure has ever been matched in this competition before. Seriously, so impressed with this, and as soon as the show is over, I'm downloading it on iTunes. The standing O he receives from Usher is well-deserved.

-Shakira thinks Josh has an incredible gift for reaching people with love songs, and says he delivered a great performance. Adam, meanwhile, once again illustrates that he can't make any comment about Josh Kaufman without first prefacing it by noting what a moron he was for letting Josh go in the first place, which is sweet, but is beyond old. Still, Adam thinks Josh was great. Blake is borderline speechless, saying that he has no doubt Josh will be in the finale. Lastly, Usher tells Adam that he's not a moron like Blake or anyone else might say, but rather a genius for recognizing and nurturing Josh's talent and bringing him to a point where the other coaches on the panel could help bring that talent to wider recognition.

-Back from break with Carson promoting The Voice tumblr page, where users are "remixing" the performances, whatever the blessed hell that means. Then we throw to THE REVENGE OF ADAM LEVINE, as Adam decides to pay back Blake for giving out his phone number to the world by bringing in two cranes to dump manure all over his precious pickup truck. Kind of tame, since none of it actually gets inside the truck itself, but Blake doesn't seem all that amused by it, so I guess turnabout is fair play.

KAT PERKINS is up next!

-For some reason, we get no mention of Kat's hometown or family and friends, or any word of any dedications whatsoever for the upcoming song, which has me wondering what gives. (I hope they're not busing Kat) For her part, she talks about how proud she is to have been the one to break the Instant Save Curse, as she's ready to keep moving forward. Adam gives her "Chandelier" by Sia, and...well, this should be interesting, to say the least. It's not quite rock, but it's not quite pop either.

-I can appreciate the risk Adam took with the song choice, but I think this would have worked better if 1) they'd stripped back the arrangement so that it was less of a rock song and something she could instead use to highlight the complexity and depth of her vocals, and 2) if they'd gotten rid of the elaborate set decoration and over-produced feeling of it all. The entire performance just smacks of trying too hard, as she does this whole Gothic Katy Perry routine with her fashion and performance movements that feels not at all authentic to the kind of artist Kat has shown herself to be in the past. That said, I can't really front on her vocals. She's always impressed me, and her voice sounded great on this.

-Blake said he can't imagine her doing anything tonight that was better than what she just did. Shakira then notes that while Sia does the unexpected with her songs and her voice, she feels it was smart that Kat did her own thing and didn't try to replicate Sia. Adam says Kat should be in the finale because she is, hands down, one of the best singers The Voice has ever had, and that she is the embodiment of the show's title.

JAKE WORTHINGTON is up next!

-And we're right back to contestants thanking their family, friends, and hometown, as Jake talks about how touched he is to see how his hometown is reacting to him. He talks about having his face cut out of pictures and put on sticks to make signs, and similar "I wouldn't be here without them" type stuff. Jake dedicates his performance of "Good Ol' Boys" by Waylon Jennings to his friends back home, and I actually think this could be Jake's best performance in some time, since it's a song that lines up pretty nicely with his smooth tone.

-Well, I wasn't crazy about this performance like I thought I would be, but man, Jake really has such a lovely tone. Even when he's underneath the pitch, his voice is just so pleasant to listen to that I basically don't mind when it isn't a perfect vocal. And this was far from a perfect vocal. In fact, if this were his only performance tonight, I'd predict he'd be in trouble. But he's still got another song, so the middle-of-the-road nature of this vocal could easily be washed away by his next performance. Just to reiterate, this wasn't bad by any stretch. But it was far from the heights of what Jake is capable of doing.

-Usher says that he was sold on country with that performance, and notes that Blake has won with country before and very well could again. Adam praises Jake for being the real deal, and notes that all the other contestants on the show who aren't on his team are people he either wanted on Team Adam, or people he foolishly let go. Blake says that America needs to vote for Jake because this is exactly what music needs. He proudly boasts that a 20-year-old kid just went out there and performed Waylon Jennings on The Voice. "I love you, Jake!" he declares. "I love you, Blake," Jake responds. A new bromance in the making, I'm sure.

CHRISTINA GRIMMIE is up next!

-Much like with Kat, we get no mention of friends, family, hometown, or dedications, which is strange in a lot of ways, since apparently only the Southern contestants are allowed to have pasts. Adam praises Christina for being fearless, and his song choice for her this week reflects that, as she'll be singing with a vocoder. Thankfully, it'll be in service of one of my favorite songs, "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap. I'll always be partial to , but here's hoping Christina can slay it. There's absolutely no reason in the world why she shouldn't be able to. Fingers crossed.

-Christina starts off with the vocoder, but smartly ditches it on the subsequent verses, replacing it with a choir behind her. There's no accompanying music here, just voices providing the melody and harmonies of the song, just like the original. Well, at least until the last third of the song, when light instrumentation kicks in (just a piano and guitar, really). I'll admit that for the first half of this, I found the choir insurmountably distracting, as they seemed to swallow Christina's voice whole. But as the performance rolled on and the power of her voice built to a crescendo, I ultimately ended up loving this. Great stuff.

-Usher felt disconnected at the beginning, but says he began to feel it once she ditched the vocoder, gripping America with her vocals. "That's the Christina Grimmie I love," he says. Shakira says Christina represents all the little people with a lot of power ("like me!"). Adam then gets bold and says he's kind of sick of the things people do on this show, saying he doesn't ever want to do karaoke. He wants to do fresh things that people haven't seen on this show before. I can certainly appreciate what Adam meant, but he pretty much lost the right to say anything about doing fresh, non-karaoke performances the minute he gave Delvin Choice "I Believe I Can Fly." Still, I did love that performance from Christina.

[CORRECTION: User "Wfm200" noted below that Delvin was said to have chosen "I Believe I Can Fly," and Adam only agreed to it after realizing how much the song meant to Delvin. I apparently either overlooked or forgot this point, so blinded was I by my frothing rage that we were hearing "I Believe I Can Fly" on a singing competition in 2014. But I still think the point stands. No coach should ever give the okay to "I Believe I Can Fly," for any frigging reason. Or they deserve to lose that act]

JOSH KAUFMAN is up next!

-Josh talks about trying a lot of things with his life, from going back to school for his master's, to working as a tutor for SAT prep. However, he says music is the one constant he's always had in his life. Usher tells Josh he couldn't be more proud to have him here. He'll be singing "Love Runs Out" by OneRepublic, which I've never actually heard before, so I'll be interested to hear what he does with it, since it'll be completely new to me. I can't wait.

-This was a good song for Josh, and a nice change of pace for him, showing a bluesy rock side to him. In a different time and place, this could have been a Rolling Stones song. Perhaps that's why this feels so right for Josh, as it has this classic rock quality to it that he can easily make his own. Either way, I was really impressed with Josh's take on something that wasn't an R&B ballad or a love song.

-Adam is practically speechless, and throws to Blake, who compares Josh to Robert Palmer, which is a pretty apt comparison given the song choice. Sounded a lot like a parallel universe-version of "Addicted to Love". Usher, meanwhile, gives Josh a hand for how far he's come, and how much he's delivered as a competitor. And I can't say I disagree a single bit. This was one of my favorite performances of the night.

KAT PERKINS is up next!

-So now we get Kat talking about her hometown of Scranton. Apparently, the local station was a country station, which was her first musical passion until moving to Minnesota and discovering that rock was more her wheelhouse. She talks about the support she's received, particularly from one of her favorite radio stations, which holds a Twitter party every week for her (so I suppose we can thank them for helping her break the Instant Save Curse). She particularly wants to thank the kids she nannies for back in Minneapolis, as they support her and give her strength. She took them to see Frozen and ended up becoming obsessed with it herself, so she'll be singing their favorite song from the movie and dedicating it to them. I'm a bit iffy on Kat singing "Let It Go" (seriously, when will people realize that "Do You Wanna Build A Snowman" is the REAL money song from that movie?), but if she mixes up the arrangement, it could be a moment.

-The arrangement is a bit more rock tinged, which makes this much better than it would have been had it been a straight rendition of the original. However, the vocal is strained in places, and the arrangement also lops off the critical "Let the storm rage on" part, sending her right into the "Cold never bothered me anyway" part, which just doesn't sound right at all. That said, it's not like this was a bad vocal. In fact, it was far better than I was expecting it to be, as her voice has a certain force and verve behind it that made this compelling. But I wish she'd have chosen something else, because I don't think either performance she delivered tonight was a fitting representation of the kind of artist she plans on being once this show is over.

-Blake was a fan of the performance, while Usher was similarly happy with it, saying she completely blew it out. Shakira felt it was an unexpected pick, but felt it showed that Kat is more universal, and not just a rock artist. Adam says that no one has ever been more consistent in this competition than Kat, and he tells her she deserves this. It was certainly a good performance, just not a great one, and not up to Kat's usual standard, unfortunately. But then, that's just my opinion. What do ya'll think?

KRISTEN MERLIN is up next!

-Kristen is nervous, and Shakira notes that Kristen is under a lot of pressure, as not everyone realizes how much pressure these artists are under. Kristen says she feels overwhelmed, but has to believe in herself if she wants to advance. Shakira says her choice is "Foolish Games" by Jewel, stating that it's "folky" but also allows for Kristen to be vulnerable. She calls it a potential "showstopper," and declares she's confident that this is the perfect song for Kristen. And honestly? I agree.

-Love the arrangement, with the excess of violins and other wonderful string instruments (there's almost nothing on this Earth that violins won't improve -- not that this song needs improvement. It's one of my all-time favorites, full disclosure). Kristen does a tremendous job with this, just enough to erase the underwhelming first performance. This is really her wheelhouse, and I couldn't have been happier with this. She just sounded like she felt every single, solitary note of this, and it helped to make the song more deeply felt for people like me, watching from home.

-Blake says this was the most connected Kristen has ever been with a lyric, and says she dumped her heart and soul into that performance. Usher calls Shakira a "giant" who has steered Kristen in the right direction all this way. Shakira, for her part, says she's unlikely to be the only person with chills after that performance. "The way you narrate stories, you're so emotional. And that's something I revere in artists." She tells Kristen she's so happy with this moment. As well she should be. It was a great song choice by Shakira, and a damn fine vocal from Kristen. But will it be enough to save her? I'm genuinely curious. I think Christina and Josh are headed to the finale no matter what, but that last spot is very much up for grabs, with Jake the presumptive frontrunner to get it just because he's Team Blake (I'm no Voice scholar, but has Team Blake ever been locked out of a Voice finale?).

CHRISTINA GRIMMIE is up next!

-Christina talks about her awkward upbringing, explaining that receiving a keyboard at age 10 changed her life. Her mother dropped everything to move her out to California to help her achieve her dream, and while it hurt to say goodbye to her friends, she's given up a lot to get this far. She dedicates her performance of "Some Nights" by Fun to her hometown, and to all her friends who never let her forget where she came from. Cute video, although I'm a bit iffy on the song choice, since I'm not sure this is going to be a good fit for her Voice.

-Well, Christina has some nice moments in this performance, but overall, I think it's her weakest since the live shows began. It's just all over the place, going from shouting to whispers, with hardly any middle ground. In parts, it seemed like she didn't even know what the harmony was supposed to be. Granted, I'm sure she was just trying to change it up vocally, and not sound so much like the original, but it was kind of distracting how bad a fit this song was for her. I love Christina deeply, but I hated this almost as deeply.

-In reference to the popping balloons onstage, Blake says he thinks Christina may have just won The Voice, adding that this song was the biggest departure of anything she's done. "I loved it. I liked the hell out of that," he says. Usher enjoyed this because it gave him a sense of what a Christina Grimmie concert would look like. Shakira, meanwhile, loves how unique and independent Christina is as an artist. Adam then chides Blake, saying he's probably figuring out how to get drunk on the balloons. Turning his attention to Christina, he says that Christina has always remained true to herself. "You're never pandering to get a reaction," he says, continuing to throw shade at everyone because apparently it's Shade Week on The Voice. Once again, I totally love Christina, but I kinda hated this, honestly. As commenter JacelynPatJordheim writes below, if Christina wants to sing with power, she'll need to learn to get her pitch under control.

JAKE WORTHINGTON closes the show!

-Blake couldn't be prouder to have Jake as the last person standing on Team Blake, which isn't surprising since that seemed to be the end result he's wanted all season, judging by the song choices he gave to Sisaundra and Audra. However, their friendship is kind of adorable, as they joke about the word "versatile" in relation to his upcoming performance of "Heaven" by certified Canadian panty-dropper Bryan Adams. Jake isn't sure if he can control his upper register, as his voice starts to give out during rehearsals, but towards the end, it honestly doesn't sound bad at all. In fact, this could be a moment.

-Starts off a bit rough, but it really picks up as the performance rolls on. It's not exactly Jake's most colorful performance, nor is it the most interesting arrangement. But I think there's a poignant honesty in Jake's vocal style that makes this more deeply felt than it would have been from another singer, particularly given the slightly country-tinged arrangement. I don't think it's his best vocal, but I found myself loving this all the same, simply for how it remained restrained and stripped back, allowing Jake to dig into the lyrics and meaning in painfully honest-sounding ways. It actually felt like he was singing this to somebody, which doesn't always come across from contestants on shows like these. Maybe Blake's advice to sing this to his girlfriend paid off. Jake's family is in tears in the audience, in a sweet visual.

-Shakira found it refreshing and said it was very nice. Adam liked that Blake took Jake out of country town and more into pop town, although he notes that he likes country music a lot, and much more than fellow judge Usher probably does. Usher, for his part, states he likes country when Jake sings it, adding that he's very good at what he does. Adam cuts back in and says he loves Jake too. Lastly, Blake declares he's so proud of Jake, and says he'd be proud to share this stage with Jake every night for the rest of his life. He calls him the real deal, and Carson cuts off the praise as we're out of time!

-So what did you think of tonight's show? Which performances were the best? Which were the worst? And which artists will make it into next week's finale? Sound off in the comments, and check back tomorrow for our live blog and recap of the results show! Until then, thanks for hanging out!

GOODNIGHT!