In this sudden-death semifinals week, the Voice top eight will become a Voice top four in less time than it takes for Blake Shelton to refill his “Starbucks” cup, for Gwen Stefani to find a great new boyfriend, or for NBC to steal superstar panelists away from American Idol’s just-announced reboot. This Tuesday, half of Season 12’s very talented hopefuls will go home, all at once — and judging by how things went on Monday’s top-eight performance show, there may be some unexpected and painful cuts, particularly for the once-unstoppable Team Gwen.
It can be argued that — despite losing one of her contestants, Troy Ramey, very early on — Gwen had the strongest team this season. Hunter Plake ascended the iTunes chart week after week with his brilliant and inventive remakes (Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” deconstructed to sound like a Weeknd witchhouse remix, Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is” reimagined as a fragile, Damien Rice-like lament), and 15-year-old Brennley Brown seemed positioned to be the new Danielle Bradbery and maybe even the first non-Team Blake country singer to win The Voice. But this crucial week, both contestants shed their signature special styles, “switching things up” at the exactly wrong moment. Sheesh. Why didn’t Gwen just give them Korin Bukowski-inspired platinum-blond makeovers while she was at it?
Yes, it’s still likely that Team Gwen will be represented by at least one artist in next week’s finale. But after almost all of the contestants gave stellar performances Monday — and the underdogs had both bark and bite, and the dark horses seemed to be sprinting directly toward the winner’s circle — Hunter and Brennley’s success no longer seems to be a given.
Thankfully, both of Gwen’s contestants sang fantastic duets — Hunter sharing a sweet and lovely moment with Team Blake teen Aliyah Moulden, Brennley holding her own alongside Season 12 frontrunner Lauren Duski — and that might help their chances, since duet downloads and special namesmash-hashtags tweets counted as votes for both singers in each pairing this week. So #AliyahHunterDuet and #BrennleyLaurenDuet, y’all!
Here’s your pre-bloodbath recap.
SOLOS
Hunter Plake (Team Gwen)
Just in time to probably-not-coincidentally celebrate The Joshua Tree’s 30th anniversary tour (and give Gwen a chance to brag about that time when No Doubt toured with U2), Hunter did that album’s most iconic and instantly recognizable track, “With or Without You.” And, oh, it was recognizable, all right. Too recognizable. While Hunter has always stood out thanks to his radical song-flips, this week he took Gwen’s odd advice about adhering to the melody (an obsession of hers all season) and did a faithful, ultimately underwhelming version of the song. This was generic, at least by high Hunter Plake standards.
Honestly, Hunter might have been doomed no matter what he did here. If he had tampered with U2’s beloved classic, it would’ve backfired. But playing it safe wasn’t the way to go, either. Additionally, Gwen said she’d picked this tune so Hunter could really showcase his voice (as opposed to his production and arranging talents), yet his vocals didn’t sound very impressive here. Was the show having audio issues? Hunter’s whispery low notes were barely audible over the cranked-to-11 house band — and that made unfavorable comparisons with Bono’s big, booming voice almost inevitable.
Blake was actually impressed by Hunter’s voice, saying, “Dude, that is by a mile your best vocal performance.” Blake also appreciated that Hunter “honored the original.” But Adam Levine expressed mild disappointment. “When the song started, it was probably the most straightforward production you have done so far. You like to take things and twist them around and make them your own and do the ‘Hunter treatment’ to them, and I love that. I was missing that at first,” admitted Adam, before quickly adding, “But then I was like, ‘It’s so great to hear someone sing that song and do that vocal the way it is really supposed to be done.’ I like the fact that it was kind of a classic take on the song.”
Well, if viewers didn’t like Hunter’s performance, maybe The Voice can just pull a Songs of Innocence move and force it onto everyone’s iTunes, so he gets the iTunes bonus anyway. Whatever it takes, I say. To loosely borrow a phrase from Bono, I can’t live without Hunter in the finale.
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