The Voice season seven is now down to just 10 contestants. Last night (Nov. 18), the contestants handpicked by Gwen Stefani, Adam Levine, Blake Shelton and Pharrell Williams found out their fate. Following performances from Team Gwen, Team Blake and Ella Henderson, the best singers (and one terrible contestant) moved forward in the competition.
It's clear that Matt McAndrew is the one to beat this season on The Voice, as he's won over the coaches and the audience. After Monday's charged performance of Hozier's "Take Me To Church," McAndrew once again launched into the top 10 charts on iTunes, giving him 10 times the amount of downloads and making him the first artist to come to safety.
The audience also rightly got Anita Antoiniette safe off the bat as well. Her emotional, passionate and on point cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" was among one of the best takes this season. It was hard to watch someone represent their homeland like that and not feel a connection.
The next two saved artists are some of the safest choices on The Voice, with DaNica Shirey and Craig Wayne Boyd moving on. Both artists actually had a lot in common on Monday night - they added their own twists on classic songs, sung them with technical perfection and were calm, cool and collected on stage. Though they both lack a real punch, they're consistent performers with stunning voices, even if they're not particularly sexy.
The following two saves came from The Voice veterans' teams, with Damien from Team Adam and Reagan James from Team Blake, bringing up the point that these two may be much stronger than they initially appeared.
At the initial team formations, Adam Levine in particular looked weak, but he and America trimmed the fat far better than, say, Pharrell Williams did. His final three: Damien, Matt McAndrew and Chris Jamison are all unique to this competition and unique on their team, blending together soul, R&B, indie rock and alternative music for something wholly original.
And this translated to the results when Jamison was saved, making Levine the only coach to have all three of his singers secure before the Twitter instant save. Pharrell, who seemed to be the frontrunning coach of the season, was left hanging with just one artist safe until the very end, when Luke Wade gobbled up the final fan vote of the night.
Meaning, correctly, America voted the three worst performers of the night (Ryan Sill, Sugar Joans and Jessie Pitts) into the bottom three. This should be no real surprise, since they all moved into the top 10 thanks to their coaches and not thanks to the public's vote. The plus side was: two of these singers will go home. The negative was: we had to hear them sing again for the save.
Pitts was the first to go, taking on Sara Bareilles's "Gravity." Her song went much more smoothly than her take on "Don't You Worry Child." She was soft and controlled and wholly gripping. With a heartfelt and genuine amount of praise from her coach Blake Shelton, Pitts' prospects actually looked pretty good.
Joans was next to sing for the save, giving a very out-of-control take on Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." This was not the right choice. Everything that is wrong about Joans was here - she sang a dated song, she was loud, warbling and wild. Sill was last to go, performing Extreme's "More Than Words." It was the most in his wheelhouse Sill has been in some time, which is to say there was not a lot of range variation or vocal power required. A.k.a., Sill took the easy way out.
And it got him the save.
Womp womp.
