The Voice season seven continued tonight, narrowing down the top eight to the five semi-finalists in a slaughter, bloodbath, shocking elimination. Either that or four singers had to perform for a Twitter save after the top half were sorted out on the merits of their votes and iTunes sales... one or the other.
For the non-contestant performances, The Voice tapped two recent alumnae to show just what can happen to you when you graduate from the show. Christina Grimmie performed "With Love" and RaeLynn returned to The Voice stage with her country hit "God Made Girls."
As should have been expected, Matt McAndrew was the first singer secured into the top five. Not only has he been a consistent performer on The Voice, but he also topped the charts on iTunes last night with his heartfelt performance of Damien Rice's "The Blower's Daughter."
His results followed with the announcements that Damien, Taylor John Williams and Craig Wayne Boyd were all safe and secure.
The announcement should be no surprise for Matt or Damien; both the Team Adam singers gave highly emotional performances that showed off their vocals and performance capabilities and did so very well.
Damien's "Someone Like You" and Taylor's weirdo take on Lorde's "Royals" also topped the iTunes charts. Despite the bizarre arrangement, Taylor did pull off a solid performance and made "Royals," a relatively overplayed hit, all brand new again - which is no small feat.
Craig is the real wildcard. His performance of the Eagles' "Take It Easy" was fine, but safe. And though his tone was golden, his enunciation was marbled at best. But, country has been good for The Voice and vice versa, and in the end, Craig does deserve to be on the show.
That means the bottom for was narrowed down to DaNica Shirey, Ryan Sill, Luke Wade and Chris Jamison.
DaNica Shirey sold her take on Etta James' "I'd Rather Be Blind" as much as she could. She has so much gusto behind her voice that it's impossible not to hear, even when she did venture into the mid-tempo for the first time. This performance wasn't nearly as stunning as her take on Heart's "These Dreams" from last night, and it does feel like Shirey deserved to be on the show after that track. But, alas...
The second showing of Team Pharrell in the bottom four was Luke Wade, who kind of flubbed his performance of "Holding Back the Years" last night when he really needed to be as strong as possible. Sending this song out to "all his fans," it's almost as if Luke knew it was his time to go home - the odds were heavily stacked against him, after all. He only sang for about half of his allotted 90 seconds, wandering around the stage to take it all in. This was the performance of a man defeated.
Ryan Sill is basically the king of the instant save performances at this point. Fun fact: he's been in one EVERY WEEK since the live shows began. He performed Bryan Adams' "Heaven" and was fine at it. But, in typical Ryan style, it was very one note. One volume, one emotion, one very small range in notes. Just very basic.
And, then, the money shot with Chris Jamison. After being consistently strong after his first week on the chopping block, he stunned last week with his take on Nick Jonas' "Jealous," and this week he did OK on "Sexual Healing." It was pretty saucy, but just looking at Chris felt awkward. That was all but erased this night, when he redeemed himself with a strong performance of the Ray Charles classic "Georgia On My Mind."
Chris' strong suit was a clear case when it came to the Twitter saves. The tweens who show up for Ryan must be studying for finals or something, because Chris slayed everyone, chalking up roughly 50 percent of the vote before the graphic was taken down.
And there is your top five, America. Team Adam, once a weak looking batch of chumps is keeping it incredibly strong with Matt McAndrew, Damien and Chris Jamison. Teams Gwen and Blake have one singer apiece, with Taylor John Williams and Craig Wayne Boyd holding the fort down on their respective teams. And poor Team Pharrell, once a seeming shoo-in for the win, is now out of the competition.
The Voice will continue on Monday, Dec. 8, with the semi-finals.
