Excuse my lack of blog love over the last few weeks. I try to put a blog together the day after the show as it’s fresh in my mind, but been so nuts on the Monday it has not really been possible.
Last night marked the final show on RTE the Voice before all teams combine and compete together on the same night. For me, this is where it’s time to step up another few notches; where performance and the Voice must be addressed. Granted the show is called The Voice but I feel that the visual aspects of performance must also be evident. I also feel there are a few singers left in the competition slightly out of their league at this point and require a little more time. I feel their personalities should be coming out in their vocals and unfortunately some singers are not grasping this and other singers have well and truly grasped it.
Last night I spoke about Musicality. I know I went on about it but I feel it’s important that the artists are not just singing karaoke and coming out regurgitating note-for-note the original. A singer must be able to interpret songs and make them their own. To be a technically great singer is just not enough at this stage. Delivery, intent and emotion must be illustrated but also the musicality I speak of. Conor Quinn’s performance of MGMT “Kids” is a great example of how a singer can take a song and mould it to suit their personality and ability and hence highlighting the melody and lyric that often ends up drowned among production. I would like to see this a little more. SIngers losing themselves in the song. Nollaig attempted this last night and I felt the start of her rendition of addicted to love was captivating, dark and a mirror to her personality but as the song progressed she lost my attention by trying to re-create the original and hence diluting her own personality. Up to that point it was the most clever and musical performance of the night to my ears.
We as coaches may seem to appear to be getting slightly harder to please at this stage but this is the nature of the music industry. It’s a sink or swim industry. Kim Hayden had an extremely poor performance of Coldplay’s “Fix You” a few weeks back but has come back so strong. I admire her massively for this as it’s not easy to be put down like she was and come back with two rocking performances. Other singers have actually gone backwards in their performances as being in the bottom two has knocked their confidence and they have struggled to deal with this. It’s showtime. The next three weeks will have a huge bearing on all their futures and they need to bring their a game and forget about what has gone before.
So, what I reckon ye guys at home should be looking for at this stage is something different from these singers. Look for their personalities in their voice. Look for them to bring interpretation to the track for whoever wins this competition will have to make an album, and in order to make an album YOU must be able to put your own stamp on it.
So the word of the day is “MUSICALITY”. I feel like a bollix repeating myself but it’s a fantastically important aspect of a top class artists (not repeating yourself….musicality).