Mama Said Knock You Out

“She's got dried-up flowers, flaky skin

A beaded necklace and a bottle of gin

She's a nightmare Hippy girl”

                --Beck

Well I liked Miley.  I liked “I’m the opposite of shy now” because I envy people like that, I liked that she was engaged with all of the singers and I liked the weird mix of young woman and jaded old-timer that she possesses.  Let’s rank her outfits shall we?

1)      The sort of tie-dye flowing thing she wore when talking to the camera.

2)      The pink fuzzy FAKE bathrobe with the pajama dress underneath.

3)      The flag suit.

4)      The rain top and rainbow bottom that was, well, weird.

We are only half way through the knockouts but that’s not too early to take a closer look at how our teams stand!  REMEMBER – after the knockouts end it is time to pick your three finalists for BONUS POINTS.

Starting at the top, and with all of her singers having already gone through their knockout round we have Gina T’s Spring Breakers with FOUR people heading to the lives:  Ryan Quinn, Hannah Huston, Katie Basden and Lacy Mandigo, who has jumped from team to team like Jeremy Piven at a sushi bar.  I suspected that the loser of the Ryan/Owen Danoff matchup would be stolen and watching it was amazed as I am every year at some of the song choices in this stage.  The coaches say over and over how this round shows the audience exactly who the singers want to be……and if you then choose Drops of Jupiter all I can do is think “Train?  You want to be TRAIN?  Low bar, dude.”  He’s got a voice though doesn’t he and should do well, though maybe not as well as Hannah Huston who is probably the remaining person I’d most love to have on my team.  We’ve heard Rising Sun a bunch over the seasons but that was the best I’ve seen – she killed it.  I love the ASL conversation she has with her hands as she sings, it seems completely involuntary and for some reason that is just a kick.  I don’t know how much staying power Katie Basden (but boy did she make a great song choice with Gypsy) and Lacy have but all in all this team is the one to beat right now.

Next we have my The Big Short tied for second, though I’ve still three singers to go next week so anything can happen.  Lost Angie Kielhaver to a bad song choice but my girl Tamar delivered once again!  I hope at least Caroline Burns and one of either Kata Hay or Nate Butler can get past the knockouts but it’s hard to see this team being able to compete with Spring Breakers in the long run.

Also tied for second is Gina M’s Can’t Truss It! Which looks like the team most likely to challenge Gina T.  Emily Keener is really good though she did not win that particular battle but won out of potential.  I’m not sure why Pharrell decided to match Emily and Shalyah together.  Gina also had Paxton go through, I think I was biased because I didn’t love the Adele song which is hard enough for a woman to sing but y’know, it was against my team.    She still have Brian Bautista and Abby Celso to sing next week, I’d expect both of them to go through and that would give her four strong singers.

Next is Jim and Hummingbird Lightfoot and the Spiders From Mars.  He lost Malik Heard to Hannah (Malik was toast before he ever started his song), but got Shalyah through another round and even though she goes to Adam’s team that girl is getting better by the week and IS A CONTENDAH.  Adam Wakefield also went through but I was a bit bored by that matchup and actually thought he had lost it.  I’m interested to see how Brian Nhira does next week, that would give Jim three – I cannot see Laith getting through the knockout.

It was a rough week for Ed and Johnny 5 is Alive (but not feeling well) as he lost both Nick Hagelin and Payton Parker in back to back battles.  I thought they both had won their respective knockouts but not by much and I can’t say I was shocked either way, which always sucks when it is your people and you realize they aren’t as good as you had hoped for.  Deb will miss Nick’s little boy more than I and she told me that if we ever have a grandchild with special needs it will be because I made fun of Tiny Tim.  So Ed is hoping for big things from Joe Maye and Brittany Kennell next week and we’ll be rooting for them as long as they aren’t going against my guys.  Well I think so anyway, I don’t much remember Brittany.

Carson’s Way led by Erin is tied with Ed at 8 points and had one singer this week when Moushumi knocked out Nick (by the way speaking again of song choice Nick, you want to be Robin Thicke?)  The only good thing about that song Moushumi sang was the rhyming trio of Americana, marijuana and Nirvana.  I like her voice though so if she can get some better songs who knows, and her parents are cute as can be.  Erin also has Mary Sarah who should go a ways and Caity Peters (who again I don’t remember all that well) coming up next week and we’ll have a much better idea about this team’s potential after that.

We have a pretty good idea of the potential of Deb’s Under Pressure and that is “not much”.  She lost Daniel Passino last week (who frankly would have been a much better steal than Lacy) and is down to just Owen Danoff and Katherine Ho, who Deb does not remember at all.  One of my biggest current The Voice wishes is for Owen to sing Afternoon Delight.  At this point and figuring Katherine won’t make it through the knockouts Under Pressure is indeed a bit underwater.

Currently last but certainly not least is Tim’s Train a Comin’.  With Curly Sue Gone Wrong Alisan Porter he’s going to be getting points for awhile, and with Trey O’Dell and Jessica Crosbie to come he can hope for at least one more to get to the live rounds.  There is such a difference between Alisan’s nasally and kind of annoying speaking voice and her beautiful singing voice.  The other thing I love about her is the ease with which she puts emotion into her singing, something that is missing at times with The Voice I think mainly because there are so many young singers.

So from what we’ve seen so far my top five contenders currently are:

1)      Hannah

2)      Alisan

3)      Owen

4)      Ryan

5)      Shalyah

You want to see the standings?  HERE THEY ARE!!

Yours in TSAVFL dreams,

Brother Pat