Bookies have installed Bo Bruce as the new favourite to win The Voice UK, following last weekend’s departures of frontrunners Ruth Brown and Jaz Ellington.
It’s a pretty tight race though, with even outsider Leanne Mitchell being on a close 5/1 with Ladbrokes. Compared to her 50/1 odds this time last week, she’s not to be ruled out either.
Sandwiched between the two girls are Tyler James on 9/4 and Vince Kidd on 4/1.
The song list points towards a fairly easy Bo Bruce victory, whilst Leanne’s Mary Byrne-like song choice pretty much rules her out :(
Team Jessie:
Vince Kidd – ‘Many Rivers To Cross’ (Jimmy Cliff) Vince & Jessie Duet – ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ (Jessie J)
Team Danny:
Bo Bruce – ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ (Sinead O’Connor) Danny & Bo Duet – ‘Read All About It’ (Professor Green & Emeli Sande)
Team Tom:
Leanne Mitchell – ‘It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World’ (James Brown) Tom & Leanne Duet – ‘Mama Told Me Not To Come’ (Tom Jones & Stereophonics)
Team Will:
Tyler James – ‘I’ll Be There’ (Michael Jackson) Will & Tyler Duet – ‘OMG’ (Usher feat. will.i.am)
The Britain’s Got Talent final became the most-watched show of 2012 last night, as viewers flocked to see Ashleigh and Pudsey pip Jonathan and Charlotte to the title.
The Simon Cowell talent series, which in fairness really has upped its game talent-wise over the course of the semi-finals, had an average of 11.38 million viewers, peaking with 13.8 million in the last five minutes. Although the show has generally wavered compared with the 2011 figures, this year’s finale was a very marginal increase on the 11.35 million who watched last year’s climax with Jai McDowall and Ronan Parke.
And what of The Voice?
OH and what of The Voice…
Moved to an earlier time of 6:10 to avoid a clash with Britain’s Got Talent, the show shed ANOTHER 2.5 million viewers week-on-week (1 million compared to last Sunday’s results show) and had a poor 5.6 million average.
The low figure is easily explained by the earlier start time (a lot of people on Twitter seemed to complain that they missed the memo altogether), but whether or not anyone who missed it will be bothered about tuning in tonight or next week remains to be seen. What a shame.
Teams Will and Tom go head-to-head on The Voice UK tomorrow night at the earlier (i.e. ‘sure-to-damage-the-ratings-even-more’) time of 6:10pm.
The songlist sees Ruth Brown try her hand at Emeli Sande, Matt and Sueleen (Mueleen) do Everything But The Girl and Leanne Mitchell intrugeingly trying a Nina Simone classic.
Team Will:
Frances Wood – ‘Show Me Love’ (Robin S)
Jaz Ellington – ‘The Way You Are’ / ‘Just the Way You Are’ (Billy Joel / Bruno Mars)
Joelle Moses – ‘Stronger’ (Kelly Clarkson)
Tyler James – ‘Sign My Name’ (Terence Trent D’Arby)
Team Tom:
Adam Isaac – ‘High and Dry’ (Radiohead)
Matt & Sueleen – ‘Missing’ (Everyting But The Girl)
Leanne Mitchell – ‘Put a Spell on You’ (Nina Simone)
Ruth Brown – ‘Next to Me’ (Emeli Sandé)
Will and Tom will also perform with their teams. Sunday’s results show will feature a guest performance from the Scissor Sisters.
Sadly, viewers are continuing to switch off in their millions from The Voice UK.
The show dropped to a new low of 6.6 million for yesterday’s results show – around 3 million short of Britain’s Got Talent‘s number and a whole 2 million short of the previous week’s results show.
The BBC’s big-budget series has been losing momentum since the Blind Auditions ended three weeks ago, with the live shows proving an anticlimactic alternative to the big-budget melodrama of The X Factor.
The show has probably just been tripped up by its own hype. The Blind Auditions did so phenomenally well that the show was immediately placed on a high pedestal, and now – although 6.6 million probably isn’t too far off what producers were hoping for before the series began – compared to the 10 million who were tuning in 3 weeks ago, it doesn’t look good at all.
A contestant from Teams Danny, Will, Jessie and Tom has now been given their marching orders, and 16 hopefuls remain in the running to be crowned the first ever winner of The Voice UK.
With two from each team – that’s EIGHT in total – set to be eliminated over the next fortnight, let’s take a look at how they all stand with the bookies now.
Ruth Brown (Team Tom) – 5/2
Jaz Ellington (Team Will) – 11/4
Becky Hill (Team Jessie) – 7/1
Vince Kidd (Team Jessie) – 8/1
David Julian (Team Danny) – 9/1
Bo Bruce (Team Danny) – 10/1
Max Milner (Team Danny) – 12/1
Tyler James (Team Will) – 12/1
Aleks Josh (Team Danny) – 20/1
Leanne Mitchell (Team Tom) – 25/1
Joelle Moses (Team Will) – 40/1
Frances Wood (Team Will) – 40/1
Toni Warne (Team Jessie) – 50/1
Adam Isaac (Team Tom) – 66/1
Cassius Henry (Team Jessie) – 100/1
Matt and Sueleen (Team Tom) – 150/1
Interesting that Danny looks like his team will likely finish 4th, and yet all of his acts are clustered around the top end of the table. Interesting also that, without Ruth, Tom’s best chance is Leanne, who is behind all of Team Danny.
Looking at this, Matt and Sueleen and Adam Isaac will be lost from Team Tom next weekend, alongside Frances Wood and Joelle Moses of Team Will.
Simon Cowell made a nice playful dig at The Voice on tonight’s Britain’s Got Talent. Amanda Holden also had a go but it wasn’t as funny.
“Being a star is more about a voice,” he said, leaving a long, pointed silence afterwards. He’s got a point – nobody’s going to vote for Boringy McBoring on a talent show, are they?
But then, let’s compare the live special guests on tonight’s episodes of both shows.
For The Voice, Emelie Sande. Not what you’d call a charismatic ‘star’, but she’s got a pretty enviable set of pipes on her.
For Britain’s Got Talent, Tulisa. Not what you’d call an enviable set of pipes, but a charismatic star.
Hmmm… no disrespect to Tulisa, but think the ‘winner’ is fairly obvious there.
The Voice UK is still pulling in the mammoth ratings for BBC1, but last night’s second live show was the lowest-rated of the series so far.
The singing competition’s Team Jessie vs Team Danny bonanza appealed to 8.16 million viewers, according to the overnight ratings – a dramatic 1.1 million drop on last Saturday’s show, and around 500k down on last Sunday’s results show.
The show went from strength to strength after its debut in March, and piled on over 2 million viewers across the whole of the Blind Auditions phase. But clearly the public aren’t as enamoured with the BBC style of live show as they are with the big-budget, pyrotechnics-and-all X Factor approach.
Meanwhile Britain’s Got Talent continues to hold steady, and appealed to 10.2 million to comfortably become the most-watched show of the night.
Now, we sit and watch as the media write the show off as a total flop, invent numerous CRISIS MEETINGS and forget that 8 million is still a remarkable number for a series in its first year. But are you sticking with The Voice? Or do you think this downward trend will continue?
Here’s an interesting debacle. It’s all about The Voice – the producers of the BBC show like to pride themselves on favouring vocal talent over personality, image, etc etc etc. But today Misha B-style reports have emerged claiming that Jaz Ellington is becoming quite the diva backstage, to the point where none of the other contestants or members of the production crew particularly like him.
Of course, there is a very strong possibility that it’s all bollocks and Jaz is the world’s nicest man ever. But let’s hypothetically say it’s true. Seeing as Andrew Stone (!!) is his manager, it wouldn’t be the biggest shocker anyway. But should we as viewers care?
It (very tenuously) links me to one of my very few quibbles with The Voice, and one that the coaches and producers seem to be forgetting. The public vote. It’s all very well priding yourselves on the vocal ability, but if these Jaz ‘diva’ reports continue during the next few weeks, as they did (rightly or wrongly) with Misha B on X Factor, his standing with bookies and his chances of winning will inevitably decline because people won’t care enough about him to vote. Of course he’s the best singer on the show. He’s the best singer by a country mile. But if people stop connecting with him, they will stop voting, and they sure as hell won’t pay his records any attention. It won’t matter how good his voice is.
He’ll probably get to the final, and the reports are probably bullshit. But it’s an interesting one to chew on.
And while we’re on the public vote, just a quick shout-out for Ruth-Ann St Luce and Jessie J. Jessie, babes, it’s incredibly well-meaning of you to take through a “Work In Progress” (i.e. “not very good”) singer like Ruth with the aim of developing her over time, but the problem is that if she’s bad, nobody will vote for her. And then her career will be over at the grand old age of 18 because the public will forever know her as That Girl Who Was A Bit Bad On The Voice.
Instead of letting her go at the Blind Auditions, get better in her own time and then come back when she’s ready, they’ve taken her forward to an inevitable lose-lose slaughter. The likelihood is she’ll go tomorrow and her career prospects will be 0. Failing that, she’ll stay in the competition at the expense of someone significantly better.
And all the while that Harriet girl who sang ‘What’s Up?’ in the blind auditions is sitting at home going “FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!!”
41-year-old museum tour guide Lindsey Butler was a surprise eliminee at The Voice‘s Battle Rounds last weekend. After impressing Sir Tom Jones with a gorgeous rendition of ‘I Don’t Wanna Talk About It’ during the Blind Auditions, she was unexpectedly sent home in favour of Matt and Sueleen after their duet of The Boss’ ‘Born To Run’.
But after an overwhelmingly positive reaction from viewers, the West Bromich-based singer-songwriter has come out of the competition with a legion of new fans. I caught up with the talented lady herself to chat about her experience of the show, and her own original material.
Congratulations on making it to the Battle Rounds on The Voice. How was it watching your Blind Audition and Battle performances back so long after they were filmed?
I had already seen the Blind audition so knew what to expect. We had drinks with Sir Tom, his manager and producers and watched the Blinds. It was a bit surreal chatting in a room with him as you can imagine, but he was really lovely and down to earth. The Battles were a different thing entirely, I knew I would watch it through my hands! I wasn’t all together thrilled about the song choice because it was a man’s song and key. I knew it wouldn’t show me off in the best light but I tried to do the best with it as I could.
On YouTube, the overwhelming feeling among viewers is that you should have progressed over Matt and Sueleen. Do you find that encouraging or frustrating?
I was a little frustrated at the time, more because I knew the song choice wouldn’t show off what I can do. The response from the public has been quite overwhelming! You realise that you have put yourself out there for all kinds of criticism which can be scary but I must say the whole thing has been a really positive experience for me which is encouraging but also a huge relief!
A lot of contestants on Twitter this week have been criticising the editing of the Battle Rounds. Were you happy with the way your own battle was shown? What’s your spin on it?
I genuinely think that the show has been kind to me and has given me a lot of air time and has shown me in a positive light. I know that hasn’t been the case for everyone though which is a real shame. My heart goes out to anyone who has found this a bad experience.
Other talent shows come in for a lot of criticism for the way they treat the contestants off-camera. How was your experience behind the scenes of The Voice?
I was treated really well! the backstage team were really lovely people. Obviously there is a lot of waiting around.. which is to be expected but can get frustrating!
What positives have you taken away from the show?
The positives I take from the show are the public response, everyone has been so supportive! Knowing there are people out there who really love to hear me sing and are listening to my own songs again and really enjoying them has given me a whole new lease of musical life.
Your own recordings online are excellent. Where do you take your inspiration from?
The inspirations from my own songs come from a mixture my own life and experiences and that of family, friends and just the world around me. I am very empathic and can imagine what other people are going through, these are all things that I use.
Are there any of your songs that are particularly special to you?
All of my songs are special to me but some completely become your babies. ‘Charlie’ for instance has had a few up and coming singers who have really wanted it but I won’t let it go! It would have to be a singer that made it believable and gave me goose bumps before I could do that.
How is the process of songwriting and recording for you – are you the kind of artist who can write and perform an emotional song on cue, or do you have to be in a particular frame of mind or affected by a particular experience?
My songs tend to be a little bit melanchic and some are tongue in cheek sarcastic… I am a humorous person but have never written a funny song! I write anywhere, I can be thinking of something completely normal or vacuuming and a melody or lyric will pop into my head.. if I remember it a few hours later it’s a keeper and I will work on it, if I can’t remember I think it can’t have been that good.
Finally, what’s next for you?
The thing I want to do the most, and best thing to come out of The Voice, is just to write and record! I also really want to write for other artists so that I can use my empathy to create something personal for them, like a surrogate writer and that song I won’t mind giving away.
Listen to Lindsey’s original song ‘What’s Wrong With That’ below.
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