Last night on The Voice, all of the judges/mentors were forced to duet with their last contestant standing. These have to be seen to be believed. I think Cee Lo Green and Vicci Martinez did the best on theirs. It's Mad Max meets Pat Benatar and it's a direction that works very well for Vicci. I could see her pursuing rock music in the future.
Leave it to Christina Aguilera to be the only judge/mentor to choose a song from her own catalog (again) as her performance. I don't want to say she felt it necessary to compete with her finalist Beverly McClellan, but it sure sounded like they were competing. It would be nice if anyone sang the melody for more than two seconds. It's non-stop melisma and over-singing. Also, how many guitars does it take to cover an inspirational ballad? Too many.
Blake Shelton continues his terrible habit of choosing just the right song for his contestants by having his finalist Dia Frampton duet with him on a Tom Petty song. I'm pretty convinced at this point that Dia is going to win the contest. She's been outselling all the other contestants on iTunes for weeks and has the right combination of looks and talent to get a lot of support from casual fans. But this is another performance that has an absurd amount of guitars on stage.
Oh dear. Adam Levine lets Javier Colon shine on this Michael Jackson duet. I'm not sure it's the best song for Adam's voice. And leave it to a Maroon 5 member to destroy a perfectly good suit by getting the paints tailored to the same proportions of skinny jeans.
So what did we learn last night? Cee Lo cares the most about stagecraft. He's had fire, props, costumes, and dancers on stage since the first audience voting round. That makes for good TV. Christina likes listening to her own music and making everything about her. Blake understands the uniqueness of each contestant's voice and hasn't messed up yet on song selection. That makes for good vocal performances and strong records. And Adam has to be cool under all circumstances, even when he's geeking out over a song performance.
All of this leads me to believe that the winner of The Voice will either be Dia or Vicci. Bev has a chance because she rises above Christina's song choices every week, but her personality might not be enough to win against better visual performances. If I were a betting man (only in Atlantic City on the quarter poker machines), I'd put money on Dia. However, betting on any reality TV show is foolish as the laundry list of fine text at the end of the program indicates that the producers can essentially do whatever they want to the results.
Do you have a favorite performance from this season of The Voice? Do you think any of these singers could actually have a career when the show ends? And can Christina get any more self-centered during the finale? Sound off.