The Voice bid farewell to one of its final 11 last night as the field continues to narrow slowly before the bloodbath of the coming weeks.
Before you know it, over half of the singers who gave us The Voice top 11 performances Monday will be gone, so savor them all now.
Nothing could top last week’s show, in which The Voice results were exponentially more emotional paired with Christina Grimmie tributes.
That said, it’s always difficult to say goodbye.
When another member of the NBC singing competition’s tight-knit family says farewell on these elimination nights, it never feels good.
This week was no exception, especially thanks to the surprising results delivered by the fans at the end that sent this rising star packing.
Not a lot of us saw this one coming.
At the end of then night, it came down to Team Alicia’s Stephanie Rice, 28, against Team Adam’s 19-year-old heart throb Mark Isaiah.
The recipient of the Instant-Save last week, here he was back in the familiar hot seat, and having to sing for his life, the very next week.
Gotta be the end, right?
Among the top 11, Mark’s iTunes ranking was 11th; Stephanie’s (while unspectacular) bested Aliyah Moulden, TSoul, and Vanessa Ferguson.
All of those three were safe, so it was assumed that by virtue of that, and Rice’s overall polish compared to Isaiah’s, that she’d join them.
But she still had to earn the Instant Save.
Considering that this format possibly skews younger than The Voice viewership overall, by virtue of its use of tweets as votes, it’s a wild card.
That didn’t help her cause, nor did her choice of Julia Michaels’ “Issues.” She was terrific, but the song choice was unusual, thus a risk.
Still, Coach Alicia was definitely moved.
“We have all watched you completely become your own woman, choosing to be everything musically,” the Grammy-winner told her.
“You are a producer. You are a musician. You play multiple instruments. You are a writer … you are what an artist is supposed to be.”
“America, I implore you to save Stephanie tonight, to show the world that music lives on. We encourage our young writers to keep shining.”
America was apparently not implored.
Mark picked the Lukas Graham hit “7 Years,” and while the bar was set low in terms of his previous performances, he cleared it with ease.
It was his best performance of the season, and he was rewarded for it by a fan base/demo that prefers what he does to Rice’s abilities.
At the end of the voting, he had 59%.
He will therefore be moving on, a second consecutive Instant Save under his belt, while Stephanie Rice heads home in a bit of a shocker.
While this in no way compares to the Dancing with the Stars results shocker that sent the #1 best dancer home in eighth place, it was bad.
Rice was unlikely to win The Voice, as there is some seriously tough competition out there, but she had a shot at the top six or beyond.
To be ousted by Mark in 11th place doesn’t seem right, but after Monday and Tuesday’s performances, that is what the audience chose.
Do you think America got it right?
