The Week One Live Massacree!!

“Everybody’s singing with their hand on their heart

About deeds done in the darkest hours

It’s just the sort of catchy little melody

To get you singing in the showers”

                --Elvis Costello

My God friends, it was a BLOODBATH!  Start with twenty singers, stir in four more and then BAM cut the group in half.  There were shakeups and shakeouts in the standings and rosters and it was proven once again just how hard TSAVFL Bonus Picks are to get right. 

This week was week one of a two week Pat & Deb Voice road show!  We were the grateful guests of Ed and Gina M. this week and next week will be watching with my fellow eliminated team captain Tim.  Ed and Gina now know and Tim will soon just how anticlimactic it is to have me as an audience member.  We felt bad because Ed & Gina had watched both Monday and Tuesday’s show where Deb & I had not so they had to sit through it again.  A Clockwork Orange has got nothin’ on THAT.  My old laptop also ran out of juice before we got to Barrett and Mark at the end of Tuesday’s show and all of the results but I’m going a different way with this week’s recap anyway so it’s all cool.

The bringing back people was a stupid idea, especially when you see how many people were getting cut after the first live rounds – you know the coaches cut those folks for a reason last time and America was not voting them over the top three of five that had already made it.  But cruelty is part of The Voice fun plus Nadjah got recognized for being JOBBED so that part of it was funnish.  I agreed for the most part with the returnees and even would have ranked some of them above the existing team members but I would not have had any of them going forward, not even Nadjah unfortunately because all I could hear in my head as she was singing was Trump saying “very low energy, not very energetic at all” and then I felt a little sad.

Sometimes logic just comes easily while watching.  Viktor gets assigned All Around the World by Lisa Stanfield so it is easily proven that GWEN CANNOT PICK A FUCKING SONG!  My God.   However, Blake looked quite satisfied all night so that is an endorsement for Gwen.  Fortuna’s wheel spins on.

That reminds me.  A game for you!  Who said what:   Viktor should be -

a)      On a cruise ship

b)      At a charity event

c)       In Europe

Who will you miss the most?  I’ll miss Ellie and her creepy Gwen stalker vibe (and the triceratops tattoo on her arm, so odd); I will of course miss darling Ivonne but at least she got Homecoming Queen.  I’ll miss Darius as well, him getting cut while Mark goes through is a mystery to me and then, as always, Nadjah.

Why don’t we rank some things?  That’s always fun!  As ever my rankings are calculated by a super secret procedure that would take far too long to explain but all you need to know is that they are always correct.

Coaches’ teams ranked:

1)      Blake – Barrett Baber, Emily Ann Roberts and Zach Seabaugh. 

2)      Adam – Amy Vachal, Jordan Smith and Shelby Brown.  I might have made him number one but am confident as ever that Adam will find a way to fuck this up.

3)      Gwen – Jeffery Austin, Braiden F’ing Sunshine and Korin Bukowski. 

4)      Pharrell – Mark Hall, Evan McKeel and Madi Davis.  I think Braiden goes further than all of them.

Bonus picks ranked:

1)      Fluffy Bookworms (Gina T):  Barrett Baber, Braiden F’ing Sunshine and Blaine Mitchell.  Two strong candidates.

2)      Brother Pat (yay!):  Zach Seabaugh, Shelby Brown and Darius Scott.  I was surprised nobody else picked either Zach or Shelby.  

3)      (tie) I Wanna Win Like Jim (Deb):  Amy Vachal, Jordan Smith and Morgan Frazier.

(tie) Hummingbird Lightfoot and the Sorry not Sorry (Jim):  Amy Vachal, Madi Davis and Viktor Kiraly.  I can’t decide yet whether Madi or Jordan goes further.

4)      Supernatural Prep School Girls (Erin):  Amy Vachal, Korin Bukowski and Morgan Frazier.

5)      Cupcake Bounty Hunters (Gina M):  Amy Vachal, Ivonne Acero and Darius Scott.

6)      Doomsday Wedding Planners (Ed):  Mark Hall, Ivonne Acero and Riley Biederer.

7)      Frat Bro Hermits (Tim):  Viktor Kiraly, Riley Biederer and Regina Love.  Ouch.

And best of all, remaining singers ranked:

1)      Zach Seabaugh.  Man, dude was gyrating like Elvis.  Blake thinks he is a heartthrob and so do I.

2)      Amy Vachal.  Deb:  “I wish you were still on Pharrell’s team!”  The Way You Look Tonight is both Deb’s and Gina M’s favorite Sinatra song.  Mine is Fly Me to the Moon.  Ed’s is unknown.  I can’t shake a nagging feeling that she is an early “SHOCKING EXIT!” but rated her here despite that concern.

 

3)      Braiden Fucking Sunshine.  I hate myself.  By the way, I don’t believe Braiden was impressed for one second about HANGING AROUND WITH BLUES TRAVELER.

4)      Shelby Brown.  The 17 Year Old Alabama Spitfire!!  I didn’t need to hear You’re No Good again but she did it well, I thought her outfit was sort of horrible though and made her look a hard lived 30.

5)      Barrett Baber.  I think there has to be an eventual showdown between Barrett and Zach because they both aren’t going to the final, just not sure when it will happen.

6)      Madi Davis.  You could probably arrange 2-6 in any order; I kind of see them as all in the same group at this point.  I really want her to do well but I wasn’t that impressed with her performance of that Fleetwood Mac song, though to be fair judging by the comments around me I was the outlier there.  When I closed my eyes and listened I liked it better.  Have we seen her without the hat?

7)      Evan McKeel.  He may not be the tapioca you deserve, but he is the tapioca that is here.  They’ve been promoting him singing Overjoyed for five weeks now so I was sort of tired of the song before he even started.

8)      Jordan Smith.  The Inspiring Artist From Kentucky Who Is Singing Beyonce!!  Ed and I agreed that he did not warrant the four coach standing ovation.  I feel horrible for saying it but he creeps me out.  Someone told Ed that Jordan reminded them of Roger Ebert, which I loved.

9)      Jeffrey Austin.  He sang and we were all talking and frankly I don’t even remember the performance but gathered that it was Sam Smith.  Adam says he could win the whole thing, but the fact it is super easy to tune him out while he sings makes me think no, he cannot.  Not at all.

10)   Emily Ann Roberts.  Blake says she is creating her own genre.  I think Blake has taken some shots to the head because I’ve actually heard gospel ballads before.  Ed noticed that she is the only 17 year old on the show who actually seems 17, and I think that is a solid observation.

11)   Korin Bukowski.  Please NBC, let’s you and I make a deal that you will never have a contestant sing Sarah McLaughlin ever again because all I think of then is tortured and starving puppies and THAT ISN’T GREAT.  Partway through the song Deb and Gina in unison said:  “Give her a No Doubt song!”  That would be fun.

12)   Mark Hall.  I got nothin’.

As for TSAVFL, stop me if you’ve heard this before but Deb and Jim are gonna be duking it out.  Deb has FOUR people still left while Jim has three!  Gina M has two and Ed, Erin and Gina Turner each are down to one.  Tim is joining me on the sidelines to talk shit about all of you as we mutter vague threats about next year being different.  

So there we are!  I know you probably want to check out THE SCOREBOARD at some point and until next week,

Keep on TSAVFL’in,

Brother Pat