On The Voice: Turn Out the Lights

I am officially 0-2 in my finale predictions this year so maybe I’m just really terrible at this. In fairness to me, this season of The Voice was a tough one to call. With the possible influx of American Idol voters, the “a girl coach has never won” game going strong all season and an incredibly talented group of finalists, this was actually an unpredictable finale.

At the cut-off on Tuesday, Laith was the only contestant without two songs on the iTunes top 10 chart. With the remaining three contestants having never been in the bottom three, tonight was really anyone’s game. I had high hopes for Adam Wakefield, who I still believe is extremely marketable but in the end, equally deserving and mega-talented Curly Sue mom Alisan Porter brought home the trophy for the girls finally.

Tonight’s finale was packed with star power and while I’m a firm believer in promoting your own in-house talent before you help out people like Zayn who probably doesn’t have any trouble selling music, I have to say it was a great show.

My highlights:

-Joe Walsh and Laith Al-Saadi on stage together was fire.
-Hannah Huston bringing back Bryan Bautista, Caity Peters and Brian Nhira for Adele’s When We Were Young was a tough order but I was so happy to see all those people on stage I didn’t even care about the one or two notes that didn’t reach.
-Alisan and Jennifer Nettles singing Unlove You together reminded me why I love Nettles and made me realize I was at peace with Alisan winning.
-Laith bringing back my other favorites Katy Basden, Owen Danoff and Shalyah Fearing for Georgia on my Mind.
-Adam W. bringing back Justin Whisnant even though he forgot a few words.
-Sia, with cool dancing, always my fave.
-Some guy named Zayn who was really hot and apparently from a boy band? (I kid, Like I Would is actually a good song and this was a cool performance)
-Xtina taking the stage with Ariana Grande was all the magic things. It wasn’t very long and they waited until we had about 11 minutes left in the show which had me very anxious for time but it was good.

Lowlights (not too many):

-Owen Danoff wasn’t able to make it. His Twitter alluded to some sort of medical situation. Not serious I hope!
-Blake sang his new single She’s Got a Way with Words which is a great song but seems a little bitter and obvious.
-So many clips and bits and interviews that we got absolutely no time to watch the winner sing her coronation song.
-Even though we spent so much time on fillers, Carson didn’t even mention that two judges were checking out and we had two new judges checking in.
-Pharrell reading inappropriate lyrics from songs by Christina, Blake and Adam to elementary school kids. This was weird.
-I’m sorry but Hannah got to (had to) sing with Cee Lo who was wearing some sort of freakish leather mariachi priest robes. The duet was cool but his robes were freaking me out.

All-in-all a great show with a lot of great singing, which is what we are here for. The final order, as announced at breakneck speed by our buddy Carson with one minute to spare was as follows:

4. Laith Al-Saadi
3. Hannah Huston
2. Adam Wakefield
Winner Winner: Alisan Porter

This has been fun but I’m glad we’re done (I made a rhyme). That’s a long season folks! I’m totally fine with Alisan winning but will hammer again on my disdain for the way the producers pushed her on us all season. She’s good but I don’t like the manipulation. That said, I’m anxious to see the new dynamic when Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys join the boy-wonder twins in the fall. I think both of them will bring a new audience and dynamic and unique talent to the show. Until then, help me decide whether or not to watch the premier of So You Think You Can Dance on Monday. The pull to boycott is strong.

Happy Summer!