So So Gay
With The Voice UK‘s semi-final nearly upon us, competition between the contestants and their coaches really began to heat up this week. Teams Jessie and Danny were back to performing solo again to fight for their place to stay next week, but not without a couple of painfully pitch-poor group performances from them, singing ‘We Are Young’ and ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ respectively. But hey, at least we know they were singing live, right?
Handsome Max Milner and his never-moving or changing hat, started things off with a medley of ‘Black Horse And The Cherry Tree’ by KT Tunstall and ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’ by Ed Sheeran and probably gave a better performance with better vocals than the two originals could put together. Then Cassius Henry managed to, surprisingly enough, pull off singing Adele’s ‘Turning Tables’ putting his own old-school soul man spin on it, despite looking like he was he about to swallow the microphone whole.
His love is our love: Public favourite Vince Kidd gets his reggae on to Whitney.
One of the public’s favourite contestants Bo Bruce continued her run of popularity as she took on Rihanna’s ‘Love The Way You Lie (Part II)’, and while she sang it with a heap of emotion, she couldn’t help sounding very similar to the original. Bleating sheep, anyone? Vince Kidd’s reggae twist on ‘My Love Is Your Love’ got the entire studio on their feet and he worked the stage and the crowd like a professional. Having already built up a rather large and loyal fanbase, the coaches were quick to agree with each other about his natural star quality.
One person however, who did get the coaches arguing in probably one of the first disputes of the show so far – they seem to be far less argumentative than their US counterparts – was Aleks Josh and his laid-back rendition of ‘Better Together’ by Jack Johnson, which is actually just as equally laid-back as the original. Danny was obviously proud of his own act, but the others were not so sure, thinking he was ‘too laid-back’ and was ‘taking it easy’. Just another way of saying he was boring and lacked excitement during his performance, but just how far can a cute face and cheeky smile get someone in the end?
Becky Hill, who unlike Aleks is not one for just standing around with a microphone, took it upon herself to once again strut around the stage (with a cordless mic this time) and even go up to the coaches as she performed ‘Seven Nation Army’ like the angsty teenage rock star that she is. Move over, Avril Lavigne! However, this young girl may know how to get the crowd going crazy, but vocally she is probably one of the weakest contestants left. David Julien was up next singing Maroon 5′s ‘She Will Be Loved’, pulling off the vocals better than Adam Levine himself can, even if the performance was rather bland. And last but not least was Toni Warne, who decided to go for something different this week after previous comments of her not singing a more emotional song; she opted for ‘Sorry Seems To Be Hardest Word’, milking every word and note like her life depended on it. But was it enough?
Gutted: Aleks Josh and David Julien did their best to hide their sadness.
On Sunday, the results show, which barely lasted more than 30 minutes (they’re really rushing it aren’t they?) began with a double vocal force to be reckoned with in the shape of Leanne and Ruth from Team Tom as they did their best to ousting each other (whilst at the same pretending not to), on ‘Shake It Off’ by Florence and the Machine. Was anyone else reminded of the battle round scenario? Soon after Team Will’s two semi-finalists Jaz and Tyler also duetted, singing a soulful version of The Police’s ’Roxanne’. The quirky Paloma Faith also performed her new single ‘Picking Up The Pieces’ in her silver tinfoil get-up.
No time was wasted in seeing who was through and whose fate would be left in the hands of their coach. Similar to last week, Bo Bruce and Vince Kidd were (unsurprisingly) automatically saved by the public, leaving Danny and Jessie left with tough decisions. Out of his three remaining guys, Danny chose to take Max through to the semi-finals, leaving a disappointed David and very sad Aleks (cue unhappy puppy dog face) to leave the show, while Jessie shocked a lot of people by choosing the weaker Becky over the far better Cassius and Toni. What did you think of the performances at the weekend and the decisions made?
