u/19ghost89

Continuing my weekly day after ranking, since I can't actually watch the show live and vote. (I know this is two days after - sorry, I've had a roller coaster of life these last few days). This will be as I ranked the singers while watching the stream on Hulu. This is a weekly ranking and is heavily weighted towards their performances each particular week rather than a cumulative list of my favorites. The only time cumulative performance comes into play is when it is close or I feel someone has a major outlier of a performance. Last week's rankings are in parenthesis.

I know they sang two songs again, but unlike last week, I won't be doing rankings for each set. This is because I came up with the same ranking order for each set.

Anyway, this is how I ranked them:

1. Jordan
2. Keyla
3. Braden
4. Hannah
5. Chris

This is also the order I would have probably ranked all of them for their overall performance throughout the entire live show so far, so it feels like I have a pretty clear pecking order now.

- Too bad Braden got voted off, but it's not like I was rooting for him to win anyway, so I guess the penultimate episode isn't bad.

- Hannah continues to outlast her welcome. Kellie Pickler was actually a really fitting partner for her because she did the same when she was on the show. Both are good singers who made it further than they deserved to. But as long as the right one wins, it'll be okay with me.

- And the right one is definitely Jordan, at this point. I've been saying that for weeks, but he's pretty clearly in a class of his own. If you disagree, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Anyway, what does everyone think? Tell me in the comments.

There's a concert happening tonight at the South Side Ballroom in Gilley's. Alter Bridge with Filter and Tim Montana.

I'm going, but I have two tickets, and the person who was going to come with me can't. So I am trying to sell one to somebody else.

Continuing my weekly day after ranking, since I can't actually watch the show live and vote This will be as I ranked the singers while watching the stream on Hulu (probably the next day most of the time). This is a weekly ranking and is heavily weighted towards their performances each particular week rather than a cumulative list of my favorites. The only time cumulative performance comes into play is when it is close or I feel someone has a major outlier of a performance. Last week's rankings are in parenthesis.

This time, since they sang two songs, I did two separate rankings. I'll put those first, followed by a combined ranking at the bottom.

Taylor Swift:

1. Keyla
2. Braden
3. Chris
4. Daniel
5. Jordan
6. Hannah
7. Brooks

California:

1. Jordan
2. Keyla
3. Chris
4. Daniel
5. Braden
6. Brooks
7. Hannah

Cumulative:

1. Keyla
2. Chris
3. Jordan
4. Braden
5. Daniel
6. Hannah
7. Brooks

- Tonight, song choice played a big role for me. I'm not a "Swiftie," but she does have a large catalog with a lot of good songs, and so many of her best were missed out on tonight. Some choices were head-scratchers, too. "Tim McGraw" is what Jordan went with? He can sing so well that of course it wasn't bad, but it really didn't do him any favors in terms of continuing to show why he's probably the best in the competition. And "Love Story" for Brooks? Look, I'm not a super traditional gender roles guy at all, but it's hard to take him seriously when he's up there singing "you'll be the prince and I'll be the princess." I actually like that song, but if I decided to perform it (which I doubt I would), I'd be changing some lyrics around.

- In addition to feeling like a silly fit, Brooks' first performance was, sonically, the only bad one of the night. There were a few other mediocre ones, but Brooks stood out with the only one where the singer was both behind the rhythm and struggling to give proper breath support at times. So in light of that, I think it's a lot less shocking that he went home than some of the posts here have made it out to be.

- Chris. What to say about Chris? I've been going on about how it's time for him to go home, and I don't quite take that back - judging by his surprise at the end of the episode, even he might agree - but damn if this wasn't Chris' best night of the entire live show so far. BOTH of his performances were really good. An it's not hard to identify why. He stopped trying to come up with a unique arrangement (something he's not good at) and just picked good songs that fit his voice.

- Hannah continues to get by. Like I said, she wasn't bad, because nobody was except Brooks on the first song. But I don't see what other people see in her. She doesn't have the voice of the other remaining contestants, her song choices weren't more enjoyable, and she isn't that much of a performer. I like her as a person and even as a singer, generally speaking, but what are we still hanging onto at this point?

- Kinda sad to see Daniel go, but not mad. In terms of vocal ability, Daniel and Jordan are the best. And both are also the best at taking a song and just turning it into a version that truly suits them. But Jordan has some level of mainstream appeal. Daniel's pure gospel approach, while very impressive, was never going to win the whole show. The genre isn't popular enough. Everybody loves a little gospel, but not everybody loves gospel the most. It's just what it is, and I knew that long before now.

- Last week, someone posted here about Braden sounding off key. I responded that I didn't really think he was off key so much as the entire band was slightly off key, and he was in key with them. It sounded like that happened again this week. Am I crazy or is he purposely modulating these songs into keys that sound odd but fit his range and voice?

- Finally, I don't have much to say about Keyla other than that she had a great show. Her overall #1 from me should speak to that.