Spare a thought for Kylie Minogue. The singer recently parted ways with her long-time UK label after her last (admittedly pretty terrible) album flopped hard, and it’s been strongly suggested that she only signed on to The Voice under extreme sufferance, in order to promote said album. The poor thing has spent countless hours sitting in a big red chair, jostling for elbow room beside will.i.am‘s gargantuan ego and inhaling Joel‘s Big Mac Meal-scented burps, and it’s all been for very little reward.
True, there are smooth chests to sign and firm butts to squeeze, and and there’s no shortage of confused and frightened contestants to leer at backstage, but even so, her grasp on reality seems to be slipping. She may well come out of this season a demented, Norma Desmond-like figure, drowning musical theatre Mat in her pool and cackling about the days when Fever was number one while her wise old butler Ricky Martin looks on sadly.
Will tonight be the night she snaps? Follow along with our Voice Australia live blog from 6.30pm on Channel 9.
6:35: For those who recently suffered debilitating short term memory loss, tonight’s episode opens, as always, with a clip package of the coaches explaining who they are and why they’re here. Clue: they’re all pop stars whose careers are in various stages of disrepair, and they’re here to judge people with entirely too much self-confidence. Tonight is a special night for The Voice. It’s the first night of showdowns, and a variety of celebrity mentors are on board to push their own brands and, um, mentor the performers. Megan Washington is on board. What could possibly go wrong?
6:40: Team Ricky is up first, and his mentor is “Australia’s number one DJ”, Havana Brown. Tattooed urchin Matthew is up first in the recording studio, and looks wildly confused when Ricky instructs him to tell Havana his story through song. He just wants to belt show tunes and emote and stare at people until they freak out and look away first – he didn’t sign up for all this extra crap. Thando is up next in the studio, singing ‘Sex On Fire’ and cheekily explaining that her dad wouldn’t approve. C Major is singing ‘Blurred Lines’ because of course he is. Ricky’s scarf appears to be seven feet long, but nobody comments on it, not even “Australia’s number one DJ Havana Brown”.
6:45: Whoah. Matthew just showed off his new Ricky Martin tattoo. Ricky had best change his number and invest in a false ‘stache.
Check out that tatt in more detail! #LivinLaVidaLoca #thevoiceau pic.twitter.com/tL2BOLNz7f
— The Voice Australia (@TheVoiceAU) June 8, 2014
6:47: C Major is up first, performing ‘Blurred Lines’. Kylie’s eyes literally roll back in her head when he sings the line about “you the hottest bitch in this place”, and everyone else is visibly uncomfortable. C Major scores a standing ovation, but I guess that’s because people love ‘Blurred Lines’ and not because of his performance, which was weirdly affectless. He sang the song with the dead-eyed determination that Patrick Bateman would use in a karaoke performance, before carving up a hardbody he met at Tunnel.
6:53: Without wasting any time, Thando is rushed to the stage to perform ‘Sex On Fire’,and it’s … weird. It’s either that her voice is too big for the song, or she’s too dignified for Kings Of Leon. I just caught the line “best ever bowel movement absorption” in a Huggies commercial, and perhaps not coincidentally, Matthew is up next, singing some wet blanket of an Il Divo song that I can’t even face the idea of Googling. He makes sustained, intense eye contact with the camera and channels his inner Philip Quast (that’s intense Les Mis Quast, not fun Playschool Quast) as the audience lose their shit. C Major and Thando know the fix is in. Only one of the three can make it to the finals, and scenery-chewing Matthew makes excellent damn TV.
6:59: Shockingly, C Major is through to the finals, and Thando is going through to the sing-offs, meaning she still has a chance to compete. I guess that tattoo was enough to sour Ricky on Matthew. Well, it was really damn creepy. Miracles can happen.
7:05: “Do you want to just go straight to the hard part?” will.i.am asks his team, and they’re all to petrified to utter so much as a “that’s what she said.” His guest mentor tonight is apl.de.ap, who I guess wasn’t doing anything else that important. First up in the studio, we have Gabe and Cecelia, who have chosen to perform a super chill acoustic version of ‘Titanium’. apl’s role is notionally to offer mentoring, but he seems confused about the fact that Gabe and Cecelia are actually two distinct humans, so his contribution tonight will be minimal.
7:09: Carly has chosen Toni Braxton‘s ‘Unbreak My Heart’, an odd decision since she immediately explains after her first run-through that it doesn’t really suit her voice and is in way too high a key. Justin Timberlake wannabe Julian is up next, quipping awkwardly with will.i.am about married life. apl contributes nothing. Just like that, we’re in rehearsals, and will is still gently suggesting to Carly that she might want to sing her song in a different key. “You know what you never see in the jungle? A lion chasing a lion to eat a lion,” he says, by way of explanation. Either I’m hammered or will.i.am is really wise. It’s one or the other but it’s not both.
7:14: Gabe and Cecelia really earn those lazy Angus and Julia Stone comparisons with their live performance of ‘Titanium’, harmonising around piano and acoustic guitar. They sound just lovely. I don’t know if Chillout Sessions CDs are still a thing, but they could totally slot right in on one of those. Julian, whose gravestone will probably say “newlywed from Melbourne” takes the stage, and will.i.am shouts “WHERE’S YOUR WIFE?” WE GET IT, THE VOICE, JULIAN IS MARRIED. Julian croons his way through MKTO‘s ‘Classic’ and is fine, but like C Major before him, puts absolutely zero passion into the performance. Up next, Carly sings ‘Unbreak My Heart’, and as predicted, it’s in the wrong key and she’s shaky as hell. I’m so distracted by the giant safety pin will.i.am is wearing as a necktie that I barely even notice him send Gabe and Cecelia through to the finals. Julian will be singing for his wife. I mean, life. Dammit, The Voice. I forgot, is Julian married?
7:32: Kylie once dated Michael Hutchence from INXS, and there’s no way The Voice will exploit that by pairing her with one of his former band mates as a mentor. Oh, wait. That would be classic Voice. Karaoke champion Candice picks Katy Perry‘s boring ballad ‘Unconditionally’ for her song, and when their studio session is done, Kirk Pengilly stares at her blankly and tells her to be true to herself. Her live performance is super solid, and technically, she’s probably the best singer who has appeared so far tonight, but emotionally, she’s a bit blank. Handsome John has chosen Death Cab‘s ‘I Will Follow You Into The Dark’. Full disclosure, that was a pretty big breakup song for me back in the day, so he’d better bring the drama, or I’ll be fucking pissed. For the record, Kirk says he’s “a face to watch.” The platitudes are coming thick and fast tonight.
7:46: Lionel, his legs breathing easy in one of his signature kilts, takes the stage and hams his way through ‘Georgia On My Mind’. He knows which which way the wind is blowing – across his nads, obviously – and directs his performance to Kylie, who thrusts and gyrates in a gratified way. Acoustic guitar-toting John is up next, emoting the hell out of his Death Cab song. Where a lot of the others tonight have displayed too little emotion, John, if possible, displays too much. He practically yodels his way through the song, he’s feeling it so much, and Kylie groans “yes you will” at his final chorus of “I will follow you into the dark.” In spite of Lionel’s best efforts to get on her good side, Kylie picks John to go through to the finals. Kylie praises Candice for taking a “big step” in moving away from karaoke towards whatever this is, and Candice response with the death stare to end all death stares. She knows she’s going home, even before Kylie picks Lionel to sing for his damn life.
7:58: Finally tonight, it’s Team Joel. He chooses bland rock dude Frank, perpetually-startled Blake and lovely, lovely Soli, but nobody is paying any attention to his contestants, because the anti-chemistry between Joel and mentor Megan Washington in the rehearsal studio is palpable. “I’m really excited to be here,” she says, as she scowls at him, then busies herself by pushing her huge fringe from side to side. Washintgon makes a point of caling Soli’s voice her “instrument”, to remind everyone of the fact that she’s a real musician in the presence of a Good Charlotte. Washington is just the dark storm cloud that tonight’s endless parade of positivity needed. I want her to be on every night.
8:05: Blake is wearing a deathly hallows pendant around his neck, so on that basis alone, I’m giving this one to him. However, Soli is up first, and on a scale of one wild Kylie arm gyration to ten, it’s about a seven.
8:10: The Voice‘s stylists have done a great job of turning Blake into some kind of metrosexual-throwback G.I. Joe, and he looks awkward as hell, but perseveres, singing Bastille‘s ‘Pompeii’ in his signature, heavily Aussie-accented stye. The show spent so much time on montages tonight that there’s no time to fuck about, so Blake has barely wiped the sweat from his beautiful brow before Frank is performing a competent but kinda joyless version of Bon Jovi‘s rawk classic ‘Keep The Faith’. The beauty of having the other contestants watch from the side of the stage is that you get their unfiltered reactions to what’s happening, and Soli can not hide her “bitch, please” sneer. I would honestly watch a show that was just Voice hopefuls giving each-other shark eye.
8:16: Joel chooses Frank to go through to the finals, because Joel is awful. He’s having some trouble choosing who to send through to the sing offs, so will seizes the opportunity to chime in with a nonsense analogy about a duck or something. Joel is sufficiently inspired to choose Soli, so G.I. Blake is going home. Aww.
Picture: Vittorio Zunino Celotto via Getty Images
