peachfuz

hi folks, been a little crazy on my end – entering tech for a show at my college and generally getting crushed beneath senior year, but i'll try and get the next writeup done soonish!

ok, first impressions of each performance having not really watched a good chunk of the season beforehand, here we go Hailey Mia: Brought about maybe 50% of the flair an upbeat song like this kinda desperately needs – maybe that's why the venue kinda swallowed her whole. She chose the wrong song to make a first impression with the voters, though this performance did remind me of how much I enjoy the little changes to chord progressions the Idol band likes to sprinkle in. Otherwise, by no means incompetent, but a little limp. Grade: B- Jordan Anthony: Somehow felt both overbaked and undercooked at the same time. He put a lot into some of those crazy runs at the end of some of his verses and... not really much else. When performing Sia's music, people either need to match the momentum behind her voice's power or take on a radically different approach to song altogether, and guess what Jordan didn't do? Right off the bat, he's lost me. Grade: C+ Jayna Brown: If this is what she sounds like when she's performing under the weather, then I'm really excited for when she can really kick things into full gear. Everything I was missing with Hailey's performance was here in full swing, and while I still think the vocal ultimately suffered from song choice alone, she really made the most of her time on the stage. One of the few cases where someone has done something modern and uptempo during this round without getting eaten alive; that alone should put her through to the next round. Grade: B+ Julia Gagnon: Man, I really wanted to like this effort from her. If Hailey brought 50% to a powerful uptempo number with a healthy dose of diva behind it, Julia maybe put 20%. Sure, she nailed a couple of high notes here and there, but it's hard to be impressed when the performance was packed with dead air. When you look and sound completely out of your element on a song like this, you're putting yourself in a dangerous position, regardless of how great your voice actually is. She needs to do so much better if she wants to carry the Platinum Ticket frontrunner torch. Grade: C Kayko: One of the better original songs anyone has performed for the voting rounds in the last few seasons underscored with a myriad of vocal problems. We can chalk it up to emotion all we'd like, but he can only whiff so many notes before people start raising eyebrows. But the guy's still got serious pipes, and he's a hell of a songwriter – if he can sort the emotion/vocal dichotomy out by the next round, we could be looking at a dark horse. Grade: B- (A- for the songwriting/artistry, C- for the vocal) Nya: The easy highlight of the first half of the night, and thank God for that – I couldn't help but be a little nervous for her coming into this round, but her performance had a beautiful arc. Somehow, she helped me learn to love a song I can't stand hearing on singing competitions like Idol through sheer artifice and firepower. Kudos for not only cooking up such a strong arrangement, but for nailing nearly every beat of it effortlessly. I'm a big fan of theirs. Grade: A- Blake Proehl: ... Oh, dear. Grade: D Abi Carter: Effortlessly gorgeous. No one else felt so attuned to the very heart of their song quite like she did. Her tone is to die for, and she was able to bring some power without sacrificing the softer, more intimate moments of the song. I really can't be mad that she's a frontrunner at this point, not when she's performing like this. My personal favorite of the night. Grade: A Quintavious: Something something don't sing Carrie Underwood something something bad edit something something okay genuinely I don't know why people aren't giving him any credit for bringing out the passion in this song? Like, yes, it's Carrie Underwood, but Lady K this guy isn't; he not only chose (in my opinion) one of Carrie's strongest pieces from her discography, but delivered it with fervor and firepower, all while turning in one of the impressive vocals of the night (save for the one glory note he whiffed, but hey, they can't all be winners). His performance was the first this season to genuinely get me a little teary-eyed, so, hey, the guy's gotta be doing something right. Let's give credit where credit's due. Grade: A- (downgraded from an A only for the glory note he beefed it on) KB Richins: One of the most consistent vocals of the night to be sure, but, unfortunately, said vocal was delivered on maybe my least favorite song choice of the night. At this point, we all know she's got a little more in her than that; she'd benefit greatly from re-evaluating her approach to performance and consider choosing songs that aren't gonna take the audience to Sleepytime Junction. She's got a pristine tone with a little growl on its underbelly – the kind of voice that'd be great on some Grace Potter, or maybe some of Fleetwood Mac's grittier numbers. Grade: B Will Moseley: Much as we nowadays collectively fear the reckoning of the male country singer every season since Chayce Beckham won, I have to thank folks like him and Noah Thompson for ushering in the kind of creativity we don't see from cowboys like him on, say, The Voice. He took an unexpected song choice and put a really interesting spin on it, and without butchering the melody at that! He didn't really burst out onto the scene, but, really, he didn't need to; it's clear he wanted to deviate from expectations a little, and, in that regard, the guy got what he wanted and more. Hope we just get a little more oomph from him in later rounds, though. Grade: B+ McKenna Faith Breinholt: Even though she got the pimp spot, I might have the least to say about her out of anyone I liked this episode. It was a solid vocal on a song I admittedly wished was a little more explosive (especially with someone like her who has such an incredible tone), and she felt really grounded in an episode where a lot of people either hit the ground running or completely bit it as soon as the band kicked in. She did a great job, but I'm hoping to be a little more excited about some of her later efforts in the season, because I'm only about 60% sold on her at this point. Still, she should be a shoe-in for the Top 10 at least. Grade: B+

Abi Carter: A Nya: A- Quintavious: A- (can we all get past the fact that he sang carrie underwood and agree he killed it?) McKenna Faith Breinholt: B+ Jayna Elise: B+ Will Moseley: B+ Kaibrienne: B Kayko: B- Hailey Mia: C+ Jordan Anthony: C+ Julia Gagnon: C Blake Proehl: That was brutal.

"horse emoji" is CRAZY

asher CRUSHED it, but let’s not pretend tae didn’t totally kill his performance too y’all! we all knew he has ridiculous range, but he brought some real grit to the last chorus without losing any precision. i think asher definitely transcended what tae delivered but tae’s performance was so strong that as long as asher gets stolen that i can’t at all fail reba for deferring to her heart and choosing country

call me a contrarian but i think people are putting a little tooooo much faith into quintavious bombing

ok lowkey im kinda obsessed with kblocks. like i know in my heart of hearts what she did was objectively all over the place but the sheer audacity it takes to get out there and do that AND advance anyway? iconic

im not gonna make myself popular with this one but my spider senses are telling me that for group one its gonna be hailey mia and jordan anthony. quintavious feels like an easy target because he hasn't gotten a lot of screentime, but hailey's been similarly snubbed of screentime, and i can absolutely tell you the idol audience won't let two guys go home from group one. i think jayna and nya also haven't gotten the most comprehensive edits but the show seems to be a fan enough of these two to keep them at least til top 20. it feels like every season a pop-adjacent girl like hailey ends up getting the rug pulled out from under her – see emma busse, danielle finn, and like all of the girls eliminated in the top 24 of season 19 – and i worry her lack of exposure might end up doing her a little dirty. as for group two... yeah i can't really argue against it being elleigh marie and k-blocks. kennedy might be in the mix there but idol usually likes to keep some of the more audacious folks around, and kennedy at least has gotten a better edit than k-blocks.

is it unpopular to say that rletto deserved to advance in his battle? don’t worry, y’all, i def preferred val, but im kinda glad chance chose rletto because i think he’s gonna have more room to help him grow next to val, who’s already so so good and just needs a coach with her sensibilities in mind

i think i half agree. on one hand rolling in the deep for bryan and nathan was... a troubling song choice, to say the least, but, on the other hand... i mean, bryan kinda slayed to be honest, and this is coming from someone who doesn't absolutely love bryan. i think at the very least his performance eased a little bit of my worries because it showed that he can make the most of a bad song choice – not that we should depend on that, but it's good to know bryan is a little more of a chameleon then he let on at first. as far wiwym... yeah not gonna lie as good as gene and ronnie did that song choice is giving "my favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla!" so john better step it up cus gene deserves better

admittedly, im not quite sold on L just yet. i need a good week or two from her when we hit playoffs before i board the train – she's a hell of a singer, and i thought her battle was great, but there's a certain rawness to her polish that i'm having a hard time not hearing. glad she's in the playoffs, and i hope she kills it, cus i think i'd really like her in theory, but i just havent been blown away just yet

the way yall talk about chance i would've thought he burned your crops, deflowered your wives, and told kala banham, to her face, that she was a bad person. like lord have mercy i know we're still mad about his playoffs outing last year but some of yall need to take a xanax or something /lh

i need everyone on this thread to hold hands in a circle, take a deep breath, and think about the massive pile of evidence pointing to the fact that those spoilers are very likely not entirely true

And that's all of 'em! Well done, y'all! Will get to the writeups ASAP

Gonna give it another day to see if someone can get the last clue. I'll say this – someone got the season right. (;

Troy is correct !!

booooo

i think if elleigh had a drop of r&b blood in her body she could make the most of it but we haven't really seen that side of her yet. we'll see if it's really that disastrous or if she ends up completely reinventing it somehow

And just like that, we've moved out of the Bottom Ten! I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the placements, the analyses, etc. so far, I'm happy to hear feedback since this is my first time doing something like this. In the meantime, clues abound! The scoreboard is tied right now... let's see if we can change that. 176. Has more to do with one of Idol's ex-judges than their own coach. (GUESSED) 175. And the award for "most jarring transition from backstory to audition by virtue of song choice" goes to... (GUESSED) 174. I hope their arm doesn't hurt from how long they had been holding that torch. (GUESSED) 173. Walked so that Kylee Dayne could run. Don't you know this clue's got nothing to do with singing? (GUESSED) 172. I'd call it zero to a hundred if "a hundred" wasn't such a massive exaggeration. (GUESSED)

181. Charlotte Sometimes (Season 2) "Apologize" by OneRepublic Let's kick this batch off with a fun fact! Not counting the female half of The LiNE (something the duo's male half clearly doesn't do, lol), Charlotte was the first woman to ever get all four chairs to turn around in the show's American history! It was – and, truly, still is – something worth celebrating, especially for a show where women are constantly fighting for the slightest semblance of recognition. Having said that, while I'm not going to sit here and say that Charlotte, for the time, was undeserving of this distinction, I am happy to sit here and get into all of the reasons why this performance is simply not my cup of tea. In twenty five seasons, I don't think I've heard someone struggle to beat the cursive singing allegations quite as hard as Charlotte during this audition. What starts as a kind of appealing tone is quickly muddied the moment her diction simultaneously intensifies and falls to pieces, leading to moments where you can hear singing about how she's holding onto her "ro" and how, when it comes to apologizing, it's "too la-yee-yayte". The way the power of the vocal is allocated throughout the number is also kind of strange; it almost feels like she's overdelivering when she needs to reel it in and underdelivering when the song calls for a little more oomph. Charlotte's passion is absolutely palpable throughout the song, no doubt, but without a foundation to stand upon the song ends up falling apart. When a glory note feels unearned, at that point you gotta step back and reconsider either the song choice or the approach – ultimately, neither of these things felt like they availed themselves to Charlotte's otherwise intriguing singing style. The problems aren't nearly egregious enough to warrant a thorough dissertation, but Charlotte's audition wouldn't have been my thing even if it had been perfect, and... it just wasn't. Clue Breakdown 181. 1918 was a big year for them, I guess. A nod towards the novel from which her stagename is derived, a 1969 children's book by Penelope Farmer that takes place in the year 1918. Point: none 180. Laura Williams (Season 24) "Fingers Crossed" by Lauren Spencer-Smith Hey, honestly, how soon did you guys think we'd get an audition from Season 24 on this list? Given how that season makes up a whopping 20 of the 186 auditions on the list – that's one season taking up a little more than 1/10th of the ranking, dear lord – one might've expected it to crop up a little sooner. I feel a little bad for putting Laura this low because, in the name of transparency, there are things that work really well in Laura's favor during this performance. Girl's got a gorgeous lower range, and she's got a natural cry in her delivery that – when used in moderation – amplifies the power of the sweet spot in her voice. If anything, I can definitely see why Laura got all four chairs on the basis of how much potential can be found in these strengths. Unfortunately, Laura's weighed down heavily by the sheer disservice done to her by her choice of song. If you asked me to choose one word to describe Laura's audition in its entirety, the word of the day is "strain". From the moment she hit the verses right before the chorus, my ears were clued into how the range the song's chorus lingers around – the A4–C5 zone, if we're getting technical – is just barely out of reach from where Laura can belt comfortably. The result is a lot of pushing for the higher notes to land, which quickly devolves into the performance going from imperfect yet compelling to a little too much screlting for my liking. And, like Charlotte, Laura emoted the song beautifully, but I think a lot of that ends up getting lost in translation when, at first listen, it sounds like the emotion is compromising the vocal. I think Laura is a great singer who deserved a much better song than what she got, because a song that played more to her strengths could've given us a better first impression. As it stands, though, I can't say I was shocked when her journey got brought to an end in the Battles. At the end of the day, the potential was there, but the final product needed a lot of fine tuning. Clue Breakdown 180. Poor kid's been through so much undeserved pain that I almost felt bad putting them this low. Fun drinking game idea: go to Laura's official bio from The Voice and take a shot for every formative trauma the poor girl experienced leading up to her time on the show. Genuinely kind of feel for her. Wondering if anyone caught the nod to her Battle Rounds song in the clue, too... Point: @Adam Bruce 179. The Morgan Twins (Season 4) "Fallin'" by Alicia Keys Happy two of them Tuesday! Question for the masses: have you ever watched an audition from The Voice and wonder if it could've been AI-generated? Probably not, as I certainly haven't ever genuinely considered it, but the meddling of artificial technology is, quite frankly, the only explanation I can offer as to what exactly is going on with these two. In the name of fairness, I'd say the Morgan Twins wouldn't have made it this low if only the vocals were under the magnifying glass – granted, beyond their congruous harmonies, they did next to nothing to distinguish their rendition of "Fallin'" from the original recording, but you can't fault them for coloring nicely, even if it's strictly within the lines drawn for them. What makes the Morgan Twins' audition one of the most baffling on the list – and, in my opinion, what drops them down to the Bottom 10 – is just how disconcerting their act is. What else should I say when I'm watching two nearly identical women, down to matching red dresses, sing with almost zero movement for most of the number, only breaking free from their stasis to strut across the stage in one direction before returning to their perch? Match the visual up to a version of "Fallin'" that's got absolutely zero sensuality or emotion and you're met with an uncomfortable ensemble standing before you. I've always found this audition a little weird for that reason – somehow, The Voice, for only ninety seconds, began treading towards uncanny valley territory, and only by offering us a competent Alicia Keys cover that's drier and less distinctive than a bowl full of unsalted crackers. Objectively, they probably should be a little higher, but the Morgan Twins' audition is just... really unenjoyable for me for that reason. (Honestly, the way they were so quietly dispatched in a Battle Rounds montaged just a few weeks later makes me wonder exactly why their audition got so much attention when it did – they opened the season, y'all.) Clue Breakdown 179. I wonder what combination tactics were used just for them to get to the Finale all those years later. Blonde Morgan (twin) + Blonde Morgan (twin) = Blonde Morgan (Myles)? Point: @Adam Bruce 178. Anatalia Villaranda (Season 12) "Runaway Baby" by Bruno Mars Controversy abound! Anatalia hitting my Bottom Ten is bound to not sit right with a couple of folks who hold her audition in decently high regard, and... hey, honestly, I can't blame people for liking it. Anatalia chose an upbeat song with a heck of a lot of groove behind it, and she nailed pretty much every word with decisive aplomb, tackling the hectic verbiage of the number with no sweat. It's not my absolute favorite from a vocal standpoint – I think she loses a little too much steam in the last thirty seconds for me to really stay excited the entire way through – but, hey, if we're looking at the performance from an actual performance standpoint only, this probably would be sitting at least fifty slots higher. So, that begs the question: why is Anatalia's audition so low? To best explain myself, I'm going to offer a few select verses from "Runaway Baby", verses recited by Ms. Villaranda herself during her audition. Well, looky here, looky here, ah, what do we have? Another pretty thing ready for me to grab But little does she know that I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing 'Cause at the end of the night, it is her I'll be holding Well, let me think, let me think, ah, what should I do? So many eager young bunnies that I'd like to pursue Now even though they're eating out the palm of my hand There's only one carrot and they all gotta share it If you're scared, you better run (you better run) You better run (you better run) You better run (you better run) You better, you better, you better... ... So you guys know that Anatalia was 16 years old when she auditioned for The Voice, right? It's... really hard for this audition to sit right with me. There's no doubt in my mind that whoever chose the song – whether it was Anatalia herself or one of the show's executives – didn't for a moment consider whether or not a girl in high school should be singing a song about a self-professed womanizer whose claim to fame is chasing after women like a carnivorous animal, and it's really hard to shake the unfortunate implications of her audition in its entirety because of that. "Runaway Baby" was an interesting enough choice that did Anatalia a handful of favors musically, but... I'm sorry, y'all, but knowing what this song is about, I can't get behind this one. This audition has its fans, and I'm perfectly content with those fans disagreeing, but thinking about this audition for more than a few seconds makes it really hard for me to enjoy, as good of a singer as Anatalia is. (That said, I kinda wish Anatalia was dealt a better hand during her run with Alicia afterwards – her song choices were pretty weaksauce save for her Battle.) Clue Breakdown 178. I don't know what was more inappropriate – the song choice or (one of) the coaches' commentary. Pick your poison! Are you more skeeved out by a 16 year-old singing this song, or by Adam trying to lure said 16 year-old into joining his team with cake he apparently has backstage. Adam! Point: @Dai 177. Jesse Campbell (Season 2) "A Song for You" by Leon Russell (Donny Hathaway version) Yeah, for those of you keeping count at home, we're up to three contestants from Season 2 sneaking into the Bottom Ten. Let's just say Season 2 wasn't a great showing across the board with this ranking. Speaking of unpleasant showings, Mr. Jesse Campbell! There's a lot to be said about this guy and his run on the show, but let's give credit where credit is due – he's one hell of a singer. If nothing else, his introductory performance of "A Song for You" is nothing if not impressive, beat for beat. Unfortunately for Jesse, "impressive" is a very different descriptor than, say, "emotional", "compelling", or "digestible". "A Song for You" is one of my favorite songs of all time, so consider my scrutiny of Jesse's rendition to be a matter of slight bias, but it's hard to say much about his audition beyond "that was impressive!" when he blazes through his ninety second cut without offering a single second that isn't perfectly calculated and emotionally unreadable. Jesse didn't miss a single note, but he lost the song's cargo at a certain point of the journey, and, rewatch after rewatch, I had a pretty hard time feeling as though he was truthfully conveying the undying yearning that's intrinsic to the story behind the song. Given the way he presents the number, it's clear from the get-go that Jesse sought to accomplish earning a four-chair turn with all of the tricks in his bag, and, in that sense he succeeded. It's just a shame that he sacrificed every droplet of earnest delivery in the name of melodic purity, delivering a rendition of a classic ballad that, ultimately, suffered from being too clean, both vocally and emotionally. If the absence of passion behind Jesse's audition weren't an omen for what would come later on in his tenure during the competition, than I'm not sure what could've been. Clue Breakdown 177. The Voice: not great for the resume, definitely great for Wikipedia. It seems like the only place where anyone has anything good to say about Jesse is whoever was writing Jesse's Wikipedia page way back when. If you're ever in the mood for a laugh, go through some of the earlier revisions of the page, it's comically self-congratulatory. Point: @thevoiceisthetop

LOL i think you were on the right track but sarah's not from season 1 - 5 :p

FINALLY watching everyone go through every s12 four chair before her was a nightmare

life is pain, etc.

Alright, we've still got two unguessed clues – gonna say y'all have until the end of the day tomorrow my time to guess. If y'all can't get it by then, we move things along. (Just a little hint – people have been getting VERY close with the guesses so far!)

ayo?