This weekend I finally had a little down time, so I put a dent in the amount of singing competition show recordings on my DVR.
First I watched American Idol‘s Top 13 perform.
At first, I was so underwhelmed by the performances. It was so heavy on country guys, and that’s just not my jam. Luckily, it picked up a little.
My overall favorite is Majesty Rose. I enjoy her voice, and adore her personality and stage presence. As far as personal taste goes, she’s going in a direction of artists I love. Her choices of Pharrell (last week, which was just an OK performance but a fun song) and Janelle Monae are right up my alley. This week’s pick, “Tightrope” is a fast-paced song that’s difficult to pull off, and I thought she nailed it.
I also enjoyed Jena Irene singing “The Scientist”, although I wish she’d done it on piano instead, and I liked Jessica Meuse. For the guys, I liked Alex Preston singing “Beautiful Mess”, and I think that Caleb Johnson (the rocker guy who closed out the show with “Pressure and Time”) and Sam Woolf (the good looking young guy who, unfortunately, sang a Matchbox 20 song) are talented though not really my taste.
(I missed the results episode but caught some of the group number on YouTube. OUCH. That was rough, ‘all. And the right person went home.)
So you know, overall an OK episode of American Idol. But then I turned on the first episode of The Voice and the first audition out of the gate freaking blew everyone on American Idol out of the water.
Seriously, watch this performance. Christina Grimmie looks like a star, has a killer voice, made interesting vocal choices during the song, and had a ton of stage presence. Oh, and she’s also been sharing performances on YouTube with loads of followers for years. This girl is one to watch.
The rest of the episode was quite good – another act that stands out in my memory is a duet called Dawn and Hawkes from Austin, Texas. They’re a couple, and their music was very intimate and sweet.
Are you guys watching either show this year?