The Voice 2014 - Top 8 Post-Show Power Rankings
The Top 8 hit the stage on The Voice 2014, and it was an interesting mixed bag.
I'll say this about Top 8 night: while some performances were boring, and there was a lot of unnecessary filler (I like Blake, Pharrell, and Gwen Stefani, but I don't think I needed to see performances from all three), there were at least three solid moments from three of the remaining eight contestants. Of course, I continue to be miffed at some of the confounding song choices these people get saddled with on a weekly basis, as I'm not sure Sisaundra Lewis, Audra McLaughlin, or Delvin Choice were served all that well by what they sang this week. But that doesn't necessarily mean I thought they performed badly, or deserve to go home. It's a difficult situation this week, since three singers will be going home. Yes, Mark Burnett confirmed that we'll be going straight from the Top 8 to the Top 5, which makes this week more crucial than just about any week so far.
If you missed tonight's show, I've got a full recap up, along with videos for both U.S. and non-U.S. residents thanks to Rickey, who's been lightning fast on a crammed night of television. So hit up those links and then come back here and contribute your own power rankings in the comments! A reminder, these are in no way meant to be my predictions for which artists will be in the bottom 3 or which will go home. These are simply my own subjective rankings for whom I think the best performers of the night were, and whom were the ones to take a bit of a hit in The Voice standings.
Let's get to it!
Credit: Tyler Golden/NBC
1. Kat Perkins: Yes, I loved this. I really did. I know this version of "Get Lucky" is going to be a really divisive performance given how far she strayed from the original, but I thought she took a song that many people know inside and out, and turned it on its head in a fashion that I don't think anyone would have predicted. It's not just that she delivered a rock arrangement, it's that she delivered a hard rock arrangement that bordered on metal. And yet, she somehow still made it work within the context of a singing competition, delivering a powerful vocal that matched the intensity of the arrangement surrounding it. I could seriously hear this on the radio right now, which is more than I can say for a lot of contestants who hit The Voice stage on any given season. There only ever seems to be a select few who feel like potential mainstream artists, and even fewer who deliver mainstream-sounding performances. But I thought Kat was right on the money with this. Of course, it would suck if, for the second time in a week, my No. 1 pick for a post-show power rankings thread ended up going home after my top pick in last week's Idol rankings got the boot. But I'm not ready to call it a curse just yet. Besides, Kat is in the unique position to break some curses over her own. If she survives this week, she'll be the first person to survive more than one extra week after earning the Instant Save. Naturally, with three singers going home, it'll be a tougher road for her than it might otherwise have been. But with her version of "Get Lucky," I'd argue it's far from impossible. (WATCH: "Get Lucky")
2. Christina Grimmie: Another pick that could be construed as controversial, given how similar this was to what she did last week. Of course, it's only a surface similarity. She rearranged another rap song. That's it. But I feel that to minimize her accomplishment with this performance by writing it off as "just another rap makeover" would be a real disservice to what amounted to one of the night's best performances. Christina has an insane upper register, and it's a delicate balance to hit those high notes without coming across hoarse or screechy. While she wasn't flawless on every single note, I still feel she brought the performance home in a big way, delivering a vocal that was on par with what she achieved with "Hold On, We're Going Home." More than any other contestant left in the field, Christina comes across as someone who's actually fighting to win, and not just to survive another week. The past two performances have made a wonderful case for why she should be The Voice Season 6 champion. At this rate, I could honestly see her becoming the show's first major, mainstream success. Of course, all that remains to be seen, but "How to Love" certainly doesn't hurt the argument. (WATCH: "How to Love")
3. Josh Kaufman: "I Can't Make You Love Me" is kind of a tired, worn out song choice on a singing competition such as this, but even while I rolled my eyes at the pick, I couldn't front on the arrangement, or, particularly, Josh's stellar vocals. Every note the man sings sounds like a plea, and I'm not sure anyone left in the competition has that quality of deeply felt emotional connection that Josh possesses. He can take even staid, boring song choices and imbue them with a spirit that's been lost over the years of being performed on singing shows by lesser talents. Josh continues to impress, and his connectedness with each song he performs does as much of the work in making him memorable as the actual vocal itself does. He's just such a complete, fully-formed artist, and that alone makes him compelling to watch. (WATCH: "I Can't Make You Love Me")
4. Kristen Merlin: I admit, I practically rolled my eyes to the back of my head when I heard Kristen would be performing the treacly, overly sentimental "I Drive Your Truck" by Lee Brice. But in much the same way Josh has that passionate, soulful quality in his voice, Kristen has tremendous earnestness, such that she could get away with singing a song like this because she sells the story, and the emotion behind it. This was a beautiful vocal that only grew stronger as the song went on, and the story (and arrangement behind it) built to a crescendo. Each and every week, Kristen proves me wrong and makes me even more of a believer. In short, I've never been so happy to be so wrong. (WATCH: "I Drive Your Truck")
5. Jake Worthington: I love that Jake was given the opportunity, with "Hillbilly Deluxe," to change it up from his usual balladeering. The man has far more stage presence than I feel many might give him credit for, and he imbued this particular performance with a certain swagger I didn't know Jake had. I don't think Jake could do this sort of thing every week, but this uptempo performance was a welcome departure from the norm, and his vocals more than held up under the strain of something that might have been outside his comfort zone, since he's been more of the "classic storyteller" country artist and less of the Brooks & Dunn "rock show" country vocalist. This was a fun vocal that showed how much more there is to Jake as a performer than what we've seen. (WATCH: "Hillbilly Deluxe")
6. Sisaundra Lewis: I went back-and-forth on whether to put Audra in this spot, but ultimately went with Sisaundra because, for the most part, she had the more memorable performance. Granted, if I never heard "River Deep, Mountain High" on a singing competition again, it'll be too soon. But I can't pretend as though Sisaundra didn't sing the hell out of it. Yet I'm still having trouble understanding where, exactly, Sisaundra fits in. Not just in the current music landscape, but in the context of this competition. Blake says in his critique that her intention has been to tackle various types of music as the competition rolls on, so she can learn to grow as an artist. But she hasn't really done that. She's mostly remained in the wheelhouse of 70s R&B. Sure, she's done songs outside of that particular wheelhouse, but now matter what she sings, that's invariably what it ends up sounding like. It's almost as if she feels that if it's a song she can't belt, it isn't worth her time. I've been one of Sisaundra's staunchest supporters on the blog, yet I'm finding it increasingly difficult to recall anything she's done from one week to the next, since it's all starting to kind of blur together, for me. I'd love to see her tackle something subtler, to show that there's more to her than just the big, powerhouse songs. She's an incredible vocalist, but even in winning a show called The Voice, more is required. (WATCH: "River Deep, Mountain High")
7. Audra McLaughlin: Of course, I'm not sure anyone left in the competition has a bigger problem with performances blurring together than Audra. Maybe it's that Blake keeps giving her deep cuts from the country music catalog, but I'm finding it almost impossible to remember anything Audra does from week to week, and that's troubling. I'd seriously never heard of "Forgive" by Rebecca Lynn Howard before tonight, and if you're going to give a singer a song people don't know, it needs to be an amazing song, which this just wasn't. Audra is a great singer, but Blake has pigeonholed her into this country crooner archetype: always with the ballads, always with the pageant-singer movements, always completely still and never making use of the stage. I wouldn't be so constantly miffed about it if she weren't such a damn good singer, or such a likable person underneath it all. Audra is easy to root for, but these snooze-worthy performances are making it hard to actually want to vote for her. I mean, I like her and all, but do I like her enough to want to see this same performance next week? Pennsylvania, represent, yeah. But still, I'm leaning towards "no." (WATCH: "Forgive")
8. Delvin Choice: I wanted to put Delvin here on principle, since it's long been my thought that anyone who sings "I Believe I Can Fly" on a singing competition past, say, maybe around 2005-2008, deserves to go home automatically. But I cast aside that bias in the name of objectivity -- or at least the attempt at it. Even ignoring the damnable song choice, Delvin frankly didn't do enough to overcome his fellow contestants this week. He did a decent enough job with it, as it played into his vocal strengths in significant ways, but "I Believe I Can Fly" is a song that will easily swallow a singer whole, particularly if he sticks to the original arrangement. Such was the case here. If the band didn't overtake Delvin's performance, the choir certainly would have. It was all too damn much, and not nearly good enough to justify the excess, as Delvin's voice wavered all over the place, as if his confidence in what he was performing had been shaken. Delvin is a talented performer, but with three people going home, I can't think of an argument for how/why he should stick around over any of the other contestants. I just didn't enjoy this at all. (WATCH: "I Believe I Can Fly")