Bouli

Ah, Hunter Plake, 20-year-old teenager (In all seriousness, I had no idea he was that young when he was on the show. Could've sworn he was in his mid-20s when he went on.) Only counting the teenagers, I voted for Ellie Lawr—I mean, Brennley Brown.

Not to turn this into the savi*n hate thread lol, but “Fly Away.” I already didn’t think you could do much with that song in a singing competition, but he managed to scream it out of tune too. It has, like, 5 unique notes. And he missed all 5 of them. Also, pretty much anything by Kirk Jay. I absolutely adored him in the pre-live rounds, but every time he performed (except for his original song “Defenseless,” which I actually thought he performed very well), it was like his voice was thin and warbly instead of being full and emotional.

I think one thing that makes those songs work every time is that the right singers always choose them. No one is going to pick one of those two songs if they don't have any business trying it. Like, an indie pop singer is never going to try it; you're only going to have the strongest and most tuneful, passionate soul singers going for those options, and they're going to give it 100 every time. For similar reasons, my vote is going to be for "Somebody to Love" by Queen.

I don't think a panel with CeeLo, Adam, and Shakira would be tragically boring. I think it would be something worse: chaotic and infuriating. Think of all the bad decisions Adam would make. Think of all the times Adam would stand on his chair to win over a contestant, just to eliminate them in the next round. Think of the potential for another RobeGate. Think of how uninvested Shakira would be. Think of all the opinion pieces her former contestants would write about how much she didn't care about the show. Oh, God - think of all the female contestants CeeLo would hit on. And just to compound the chaos, let's add Gwen to round things out. That way, she can make her decisions based on which contestant she'd want to play dress-up with the most. In all seriousness, I think I'd watch this season. I love mess.

I'm one of those unfortunate people who was born with perfect pitch, but can't sing. Grew up taking saxophone lessons, but I never got voice training or anything. But I can tell you exactly what note I SHOULD be singing! In all seriousness, I mostly use it to write music, since I can do that just fine; I love composing, and knowing exactly what notes are which makes that process very easy. I just can't sing. BUUUUT if you need someone to tune your guitar, tell you the key of your favorite song, or tell you if someone on The Voice is singing off-key, I can do all of that without a guide... that's helpful, right?

Maybe he looked at his 46,000 followers and decided "a change is gonna come."

LOL but for real, I think the problem is that no one else is delivering any gossip. So all we can do is hyperfocus on NOIVAS and his shenanigans, until someone else swoops in and saves the day with some different (and juicier) behind-the-scenes tidbits.

Thanks for the explanation on the Lizzo/Beyonce thing. I had no idea about that. As a black woman in the LGBT community, and as someone who absolutely adores a lot of people (family and otherwise) who are overweight, I can't say I disagree with any of what you said up there; I've seen it with my own eyes. I've never been a Swiftie - I only like one of her songs, "The Story of Us" - but I have defended her in the past when I saw her getting unfairly attacked. Not anymore. In any case, NOIVAS is so interesting to me. His timeline is a genuine enigma, a combination of musical performances, family moments, and uplifting posts about musician friends (all of which make him look sweet), and theeeeen political posts. Even speaking as someone who agrees with quite a few of his likes and retweets (since I'm a leftist too), he's extremely rude to people who disagree with him, even when it comes to benign matters. It's off-putting even to people who are on the same side of the aisle as him. I'm truly astonished that someone who claims to hold leftist convictions would say something like, "Learn to get on any level near me before you try to step up to the mountain I'm on. You're just looking up, while I'm looking down on you." Like WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?! I think he's a part of what's called the "dirtbag left" (which I personally do not support), but he goes somewhere else with it, somewhere way farther than even they do. It's not crude in any effective way; it's just arrogance and aimless lashing out on his end. It's also bizarre to look at his page because that's just not what you do when you're an up-and-coming artist who clearly wants to be big, trying to reach the largest possible audience... ESPECIALLY when your largest platform to date is The Voice, where the viewers largely don't feel the same way. And I'm genuinely starting to wonder if he cares that the entire public can see his replies and retweets - because if he cares, then I don't get it. But if he doesn't, then I guess I do.

The way she responded to practically ALL of Kyla Jade's performances - especially "You Don't Own Me" and "One Night Only." Tons of golden facial expressions, like this:

Yeah, I think he's like a broken clock that's right twice a day. I'm not going to go into detail, but what he's saying is related to Taylor Swift's relationship with Matty Healy, and the godawful, cruel, and insensitive way a lot of her diehard fans (Swifties) responded to the concerns of black folks (especially black women). At the same time, though, I don't see why he said that as a response to that particular tweet. The tweet is only discussing Lizzo and Beyonce, so I'm not sure where Taylor or her Swifties come into play there. His response seems unwarranted and needlessly argumentative, like he's only intending to stoke flames for no good reason. Also, nothing about the way he's interacting with people in these tweets is unfamiliar. Seen it all before. And I'll leave it there.

Dang, hardly any D. Smooth love here D. Smooth Kala Banham Gina Miles Ryley Tate Wilson Honestly don't know, probably Grace West? I didn't feel super attached to a lot of singers this season; I just really enjoyed a very small selection.

Just learned today that he did a studio version of "Powerful." And it's phenomenal. That was one of my favorite performances of Season 17, and it's so cool that he has an official version of it!

I honestly feel like she's winning mostly due to recency bias. She's definitely one of my favorite winners out of the teen ones listed, but I personally don't think she's going to "stick" with me like Cam Anthony (or even Chevel Shepherd) have stuck with me for a while after their seasons. For the record, I voted for Cam. He's one of my favorite winners period, not just among teenagers.

My two top picks would've definitely been Kyla Jade's "You Don't Own Me" and Kimberly Nichole's "House of the Rising Sun." But for a third pick... Chris Blue's "Superstition." Still one of the most electrifying performances I have ever seen on this show, and vocally one of the best of all time. (I can also see someone picking "Rhythm Nation." That one didn't even feel like The Voice; it felt like a professional awards show.)

Oh, God, I'm gonna get eviscerated for this one... but Girl Named Tom It's not really that I enjoy them less; I still think they're incredibly talented and have a beautiful sound. But it's more that... the more I listen to Wendy Moten, the more I feel invested in her, that she's one of the best vocalists in the show's history, and that she should've won. To be clear, I always preferred her, but I was totally cool with GNT winning at the time that they did. And now I'm a little more lukewarm about their victory.

That's so weird! I can search his account. And I can see everything on it. All his posts and stories and everything are still up. Maybe Instagram is just having issues for some users right now. This is what it looked like 15 seconds ago, when I searched it:

Yeah, I do too; I have an Instagram account, but I have never engaged with his account. I can still see his whole page; I definitely haven't been blocked. But I don't think that "page not loading" screen looks like the page that comes up when someone is blocked. That just looks like the page that comes up when you follow a broken/defunct link, or search for someone else's username or post that either doesn't exist, or has been banned. I thought this is what it looks like when you're blocked (this isn't my screenshot, I found this on Google - notice it shows the person has 154 posts, but "No Posts Yet" below that). And a lot of the time, it'll also say "User Not Found" despite the fact that there's clearly still a profile picture, a # of posts, etc. Last time I checked, he had 53.8k followers. Maybe he sold a few lol

I also feel that I should include this. After learning that he turned his name backwards, I can attest that I recognize him. I have interacted with his account before in the past. Like, years ago (mostly 2020). I know him because of leftist activism I've done in my area, which wasn't in his state—but a lot of us used Twitter for visibility and engaged with a sort of "network" of online Twitter leftists all over the country. (For the record, I no longer communicate with any of those people.) I participated in a group chat with him for months and had at least 1 Zoom call where he was present. I can now confirm that, as someone who knows him, he is, indeed, absolutely insufferable, incredibly rude, and loves copying other people's work in numerous areas. Not sure how much I can say here, so I'll leave it at that. I can also confirm that if I had known that was the same dude, I never would've said a single kind word about him on this season. I'm pretty sure all I did was compliment "I Put a Spell on You," and I hope I didn't say anything else remotely positive about him lol. I don't know how much I'm allowed to say here, especially since it would basically be hearsay, but I can't stress it enough: dude's insufferable. Now I 100% believe he was aggressively posting messages on social media to make the voting public believe he was just the kindest and most supportive dude ever. It's the kind of thing that deflects from those pictures and the rude replies to people who politically disagree with him. He and his supporters can point to them and say, "How can he be as mean/gross as you're saying if he's soooo nice to his fellow contestants?" There are certain people who don't care for that etiquette—certain people who don't particularly care if they have permission. There are also certain people who like not getting permission. I'm not making any definitive statements or accusations on that; I'm just gonna leave it there.

Well, after reading through this thread and searching Twitter, I know way more about him - including the intimate parts - than I ever wanted to.

Prefacing this to say that most of my snowflakes are powerhouses, soul, R&B, blues (i.e. Kyla Jade, Rose Short, Desz, Chris Blue, D. Smooth) - and I also tend to love rockers (i.e. Ricky Duran, Terry McDermott, Moriah Formica, Omar Jose Cardona). I don't typically love country artists, but Dexter Roberts from S16 was my 3rd favorite artist on the show (after Shawn Sounds and Maelyn Jarmon). I'm not sure if I'd call him a snowflake, but I was very passionate about how underrated I thought he was. You could also argue that Craig Wayne Boyd from S7 was kind-of a snowflake for me. I don't usually feel like that towards country singers, but he really had me. And Kala Banham and Gina Miles from S23. I don't usually support any of those girls who are even remotely adjacent to indie, or sing with that "indie" tone and accent on these shows, and they tend to be some of my least favorite singers per season. But those two were exceptions, especially Kala.

Do you remember any of the rude things he said on TikTok? I never heard about that; the only thing I've seen related to comments was Tasha saying "No" on one of The Voice Instagram page's posts about him. Also, regarding his constant YouTube comments, I feel like it's worth mentioning - in no way am I accusing him of fitting this description because I know nothing about him. But I've met people who are effusively kind on social media to as many people as possible, which hides that they're kinda insufferable behind the scenes.

Good grief. Picking Runner-Up was WAY harder than I expected it to be. 1. Winner: Cam Anthony. Briefly considered picking Craig Wayne Boyd or Cassadee Pope, but in the end, Cam's the only one that has brought me to tears (with "Stand Up"), and I also have a preference for soul, R&B, and blues singers, so he has the edge. 2. Runner-Up: Ricky Duran. Toughest pick by far. It was extremely close between him, Lauren Duski, Toneisha Harris, and Wendy Moten. I like Terry McDermott too, though. Ricky was so spectacular, though. Not a single "good" performance - they were all either great, fantastic, or legendary IMO. Honestly wish he was talked about more. 3. Finalist: Kyla Jade. The only no brainer; she's one of my favorite contestants of all time, and I'm honestly not that crazy about any of his other finalists (although I will always contend that Dexter Roberts is one of the best country singers the show has ever had, severely underrated).

I feel the same way about Niall. Didn't think I'd like him much, but he turned out to be my favorite coach last season. I felt the opposite about Chance, though. I expected to think he was fantastic, and... that's not what happened lol. I think it would be interesting to see one of these for all finalists, though - like, how often has each coach gotten a singer into their season's finals? (Omitting those seasons like 1, 2, 18, etc. where each coach is guaranteed to get a singer in the finals.)

OK, considering that I started participating in IDF in 2015 (have been watching since Season 2, but only joined this site years later), I'm probably not the best person to make a poll like this. I only tried to pick the people who, from my person observations, seemed to have significant amounts of support during and after their seasons. I'm sorry y'all, I tried

I'd also like to see how you would rank those 8 in order (and, if I'm missing any names, please feel free to add them to your rankings)