The Voice S Season 8 Winner
Chloe Kohanski was crowned season 13 champion of The Voice on Tuesday night giving her coach Blake Shelton his sixth win on the NBC singing competition show.
The 23-year-old singer from Tennessee battled to the final four after being stolen by Blake and took the top spot after a public vote.
The Voice season 8 has come to an end, and Sawyer Fredericks has been crowned the winner. With performances by Ed Sheeran, Maroon 5 and Luke Bryan, the singing competition once again provided a star-studded finale. But despite the night’s star power, the attention was on the final four contestants Tuesday night. In the first part of the live finale, Sawyer Fredericks, Meghan Linsey, Joshua Davis and Koryn Hawthorne perform originals and with their coaches as America votes for a new Voice champion.
'Blake's never asked me to be anyone but myself,' said Chloe, a Mount Juliet native, who was close to tears as the ticker tape fell.
The champ: Chloe Kohanski was named the winner of season 13 of The Voice on Tuesday during a two-hour, star-studded finale
Chloe won the grand prize of $100,000 and a record deal with Universal Music Group.
In second place was Adam Levine's 16-year-old powerhouse Addison Agen from Fort Wayne, Indiana.
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'Thank you Adam for believing in me from the very start, you mean so much to me…it means more than you will ever know,' said Addison tearfully.
'Addison you are an astonishing human being,' Adam told her, while promising that they would work together in the future.
The winners: Blake Shelton hugged his contestant Chloe after her big win
The moment: Chloe and runner-up Addison Agen waited for host Carson Daly to name the winner
Tense time: The two finalists huddled together as they awaited their fate
Country star: Blake looked on as the tension mounted at the end of the show
In third place was Brooke Simpson, 26, a Native American vocal powerhouse from Hollister, North Carolina who was coached by Miley Cyrus.
'I can't really say much because I am so emotional but I am so appreciative of the artist I've become and everything you have done for me. You are my sister, my friend and one heck of a leader, I love you,' Brooke told Miley.
In fourth place was 40-year-old Red Marlow, from Dickson, Tennessee, who was also on Team Blake.
Final four: Chloe, Red Marlow, Brooke Simpson and Addison took the stage with Carson
Celebration time: Confetti fell onto the stage as Chloe was named the winner
Season champion: Chloe was stolen by Blake on her way to winning The Voice
Sixth win: Blake was congratulated after winning the show for the sixth time
'We're like brothers, I feel like like I'm hanging out with my dumb brother the whole time,' said Red, calling his relationship with Blake 'a match made in heaven'.
Jennifer Hudson did not have a contestant left in the final four after winning the last season of The Voice UK.
Chloe's victory was announced after two hours of celebrity performances and collaborations with former contestants of The Voice.
Victory moment: The country star rushed to the stage to celebrate the win with Chloe
Popular singer: Chloe won The Voice with Blake as her coach after racking sales on iTunes
The night opened with 28-year-old singer Bebe Rexha, performing Meant To Be with Adam Cunningham and Keisha Renee.
Next up was 26-year-old You Tube star Charlie Puth singing How Long with Adam Levine on guitar.
The next star to hit the stage was Norah Jones, who sang Don't Know Why with Addison.
Opening number: Bebe Rexha opened the show performing Meant To Be with Adam Cunningham and Keisha Renee
Guitar player: Charlie Puth also performed with Adam Levine helping out on guitar
Strong song: Norah Jones and Addison teamed up for Don't Know Why
Bastille did an acoustic version of World Gone Mad with 17-year-old California singer Noah Mac.
Next season's coach, 35-year-old Kelly Clarkson, belted out her new single Medicine.
Alicia Keys then dropped by to introduce her protégé Chris Blue, who debuted his new single Blue Blood Blues after winning season 12.
Killed it: Dan Smith of Bastille and Noah Mac are shown performing World Gone Mad
New song: Kelly Clarkson who will be a coach next season on The Voice debuted her new single Medicine
Fan favorite: Alicia Keys returned to introduce last season's champion Chris Blue who she mentored
He's back: Chris performed his new single Blue Blood Blues
Australian singer-songwriter Sia then teamed up with Team Miley's Brooke for Titanium.
Former Team JHud member Chris Weaver dressed in drag for a flamboyant medley with Jessie J and three of his drag queen friends.
'Life's a drag!' announced the 29-year-old New Yorker.
Team up: Sia teamed up with Brooke for a rousing rendition of Titanium
Drag show: Chris Weaver performed in drag as Nedra Belle
Medley routine: Jessie J joined Chris and other drag queens for a medley
High praise: The medley by Jessie J and Chris drew high praise from Miley Cyrus and Jennifer Hudson who threw their shoes at the stage in appreciation
Miley and JHud were so impressed they threw their shoes at the stage.
Rock star Billy Idol, 62, then teamed with Chloe for his 1982 hit White Wedding.
Former Disney star Demi Lovato wore pinstripes to perform the title track of her new album Tell Me You Love Me.
Rocking out: Billy Idol and Chloe rocked out to White Wedding
Title track: Demi Lovato sang the title track Tell Me You Love Me off her new album
The next duet was Jessie J and 25-year-old Davon Fleming who performed her new single Not My Ex.
Country icon Vince Gill crooned through his 1989 track When I Call Your Name with Red on acoustic guitar.
As the night drew to a close Pharrell Williams and his band N.E.R.D performed Lemon off their new album No One Ever Really Dies.
New single: Jessie J and Davon Fleming also performed her new single Not My Ex
Country star: Vince Gill crooned through his 1989 track When I Call Your Name with Red on acoustic guitar
Fun tune: Pharrell Williams and his band N.E.R.D performed Lemon off their new album No One Ever Really Dies
Sia then finished the night in a red and green wig to spread some festive cheer with her new holiday song Snowman.
The four finalists also were given presents during the show and opened them up to learn each had been gifted a 2018 Toyota Camry.
The Voice will return in February on NBC with Kelly Clarkson as a new coach and former winner Alicia returning.
Holiday wig: Sia while singing her holiday song Snowman donned a red and green wig
Grand prize: Chloe took home the grand prize of $100,000 plus a recording contract with Universal Music Group
The greatest superhero movie of summer went down on Monday night — in the reality-competition genre, of all places! — and there wasn’t a single exploding car, collapsing building or vortex into another dimension in sight.
Some people might refer to it asThe Voice‘s Season 8 Performance Finale, but to my ears, we might as well dub it Sawyer Vs. Koryn: Wonder-Teen Vocals Activate! (which, come to think of it, would be the kind of Saturday morning fare I’d encourage my children to watch).
Every comic-book-ish tale needs a villain, however, and if I’m being 100 percent honest about how the competition is playing out in my mind, then let us all boo and hiss as the notorious, nefarious Screamzilla enters the scene, crushing cherished soul classics and cheesy ’80s radio jams under the weight of her relentless vocals, spurred on by the deliciously evil Blake Shelton.
Yes, yes, I know Meghan Linsey is probably a very lovely person — and there are things I really appreciate about her muscular-but-weathered instrument. (Every good baddie has some positive attributes, no?) It’s just that as far as I’m concerned, Meghan uses her powers in the service of all that is wrong — crushing vulnerability, dynamics, and cities full of fleeing innocents in her quest for vocal dominance.
I have to tip my hat to Blake, though, a guy whose “aw, shucks, I’m just plainspeakin’ off the top of my head” banter masks a razor-sharp strategic vision. When he told Meghan that at this point in the competition, it’s hard to gather who’s the front-runner (a bald-faced lie!), he was essentially confirming that the front-runner is Sawyer. And then, his tone shifted as he told his sole remaining artist she had perhaps “changed the course of events” by giving “the performance of the night” on Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Dude might just as well have pressed the “detonate death-laser” button on Meghan’s control panel and sent her in the direction of the wide-eyed teenager from upstate New York.
What I haven’t mentioned, though, is that Sawyer’s quiet ability to live inside a song, to make you feel like you’re hearing a well-known lyric for the very first time, could/should serve as his forcefield. Koryn, alas, might be just a touch too raw at this point in her artistic development to survive the Full Blake, but if she winds up in third place, that’d still be a noble end for the southern teen who just a few months ago was performing in nursing homes and working in a local pizza shop.
So while a Sawyer-Koryn-Meghan-Joshua pecking order (oh yeah, there’s a fourth finalist) would be the appropriate screen-tested, studio-approved, Will Smith-Reese Witherspoon-Tom Cruise action-vehicle ending, I’ll happily accept Sawyer-Meghan-Koryn-Joshua.
But enough about my predictions and predilections — let’s get to letter grades for this week’s performances:
Koryn Hawthorne (Team Pharrell) — James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” — Grade: A James Brown’s anthemic ballad may be more overdone on reality singing shows than your local news channel’s “Warning: This benign household item could kill you!” segments. (In fact, you can find respective “…Man’s World” covers on my list of Best Idol Performances and Best Voice Performances Ever.) Koryn made me forget all that, though, with two minutes of raw, emotional power and pitch perfection. When she dipped lowww on “Noah made the arc,” when she put extra stank on “Man makes the money,” even when she whispered “he’s lossst… in the wilderness,” her tone was like a shock-paddle to my “It’s Monday, and I’m already on empty” heart.
Meghan Linsey (Team Blake) — self-penned “Change My Mind” — Grade: B+ Xtina’s line of interrogation — asking when and with whom Meghan wrote her ditty — may have been a subtle effort to underscore the fact that the blond Nashville gal is a seasoned vet with a Rolodex of industry connections, but it doesn’t negate the urgency or cleverness of “Change My Mind.” As Blake noted with a great deal of glee, Megahan’s ode to female empowerment has a killer hook — though I wished he’d warned her how her vocal tone devolves into something like a screechy cackle when she’s pushing it past its boundaries. Then again, maybe it was the 20 tons of dry ice floating over the piano that caused the tightness of tone.
Sawyer Fredericks & Pharrell Williams — Seals & Croft’s “Summer Breeze” — Grade: B- Urgh… why was there a lady sitting on a beanbag (!) playing the tambourine (!!) in the background of Sawyer’s opening number? More importantly, why did Pharrell waste our time with a tune that neither brought out the specialness of Sawyer’s tone, nor did anything to advance the idea of who he is as an artist? Sawyer’s lead over his competitors is so vast, Pharrell could’ve afforded to take a massive risk — maybe let him Sawyer-ize one of the uptempo R&B jams that the megaproducer has brought to radio over the last decade. But maybe my crazy ideas are as wrong-minded as asking American Pharoah’s jockey to throw in a bit of dressage when he’s three strides from winning the Triple Crown? (Don’t all nod your heads at once.)
Joshua Davis (Team Adam) — self-penned “The Workingman’s Hymn” — Grade: B Raise your hand if you heard the title of Joshua’s original anthem and expected some dreary, minor-chord dirge? Surprise! Instead, the guy cooked up a fairly catchy (albeit cliché-riddled) anthem that sounded like a rejected 1986 collaboration between Bruce Springsteen and John Cougar Mellencamp. (Most songwriters should be so lucky, really.) “The sun keeps shinin’ through the drivin’ rain, I know we can turn it around,” Joshua offered cheerfully. Oh, dude, not when you’re up against Sawyer Freakin’ Fredericks!
Sawyer Fredericks (Team Pharrell) — original single “Please” (written by Ray LaMontagne) — Grade: A- As much as I’m dying to hear what a Sawyer Fredericks original sounds like, my brain exploded like a Mentos dropped in a bottle of Diet Coke after learning Ray LaMontagne had bequeathed one of his originals onto the young kid who idolizes him. Not surprisingly, the melody sat directly in Sawyer’s gruff sweet spot — and gave him a chance to convey a romantic yearning well beyond his tender years. “Dude, you win… Game over,” chirped Adam Levine, and while the competing coach was merely discussing the LaMontagne news, not the competition in general, his words couldn’t have been more apt.
Koryn Hawthorne & Pharrell Williams — The Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out” — Grade: C+ No. 2 in a string of four straight head-scratcing duet choices put a funky bass line underneath the Fab Four’s optimistic hit, but left Koryn riffing and hollerating nonsensically over the chorus, as Pharrell almost inaudibly vamped behind her. Why the heck didn’t the philosophical coach let Koryn cover Beyoncé’s “Work It Out” (an underrated Austin Powers soundtrack cut that he co-wrote) rather than “We Can Work It Out” (a 50-year-old tune that in no way presents her as a radio-ready pop-R&B sensation)?
Joshua Davis (Team Adam) — Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” — Grade: C I know I’ve been tough on Joshua this season, and I know Adam’s as much to blame for saddling him with one of the Top 5 Most Played-Out Songs an Artist Could Choose on The Voice, American Idol or The X Factor (not an official title, though it should be). But Joshua and Joshua only must answer for melodic choices that shrank the epic sweep of Cohen’s ubiquitous melody, rendering it both sleepy and inconsequential. Heck, the guy even skipped the critical/final falsetto refrain, causing a malfunction in the the Xtina-Bot 2015: “Josh, I’m really excited to have had the opportunity to watch you grow through this competition. I really have seen a lot of versatility. And sometimes, whenever I see someone that has such a beautiful voice in the style of music that you do, sometimes it’s hard to get, you know, different styles from them. And that was so heartwarming and you were just so right on and there with the melody. And I just was so engaged. So thank you for that.” What I really think she meant to say was a Jebidiah Atkinson-style, “NEXT!”
Meghan Linsey & Blake — Aretha Franklin’s “Freeway of Love” — Grade: D+ This wouldn’t be the first time Blake chose a “fun” duet for himself and one of his finalists, but this time around, both his and Meghan’s facial expressions made it seem as though they knew they were delivering an under-rehearsed, overbaked mess. The final third of the performance — pretty much everything that came after the key change — made it sound like Meghan’s vocal cords were being pushed through a meat grinder. Let us never speak of this catastrophe again, OK?
Joshua Davis & Adam Levine — Paul Simon’s “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” — Grade: C+ Just in case there was an impala’s chance in a lion’s cage of Joshua winning, Mark Burnett & Co. finished him off by putting this faded carbon copy of Paul Simon’s bright, shiny original as his last impression. As his vocals faded inoffensively into the mix, I half expected Carson Daly to present him with a $100 gift card to Outback Steak House and thank him for participating.
Koryn Hawthorne (Team Pharrell) — original track “Bright Fire” — Grade: B+ Mad props to The Voice‘s producers for making sure all four of their finalists got themselves a finale-night single representing their musical points of view. And while the island beat and inspirational lyrics of “Bright Fire” might not rank alongside Pharrell’s masterworks (“Happy,” “She Wants to Move,” “Caught Out There,” etc), he at least penned for Koryn something that let her work the Voice stage and to prove her distinctive vibrato sounds as good wrapped around a groove as it does on a booming ballad. I know I’m bound to be disappointed six months from now — and I won’t be surprised to be disappointed – but isn’t it easy to imagine that with the right material, Koryn and her immediately recognizable voice could easily make some noise on the charts?
Meghan Linsey (Team Blake) — Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman” — Grade: B If I were back in elementary school, Sister Mary Rita would be keeping me in the classroom during recess, writing out 50 times, “I will stop demanding subtlety and softness from Meghan Linsey. I will stop demanding subtlety and softness from Meghan Linsey. I will stop demanding subtlety and softness from Meghan Linsey.” Like me attempting to write a totally neutral recap, it simply isn’t what she does. Still, while I wasn’t crazy about the ’70s variety-show arrangement the house band brought to “When a Man…,” there’s no denying Meghan delivered the melody with ease and passion right up to the final refrain. The last 20 seconds or so, Bad Meghan took over — leaving me grumbling “volume does not equal emotion!” — but overall, this was a solid showing.
Who Won The Voice 2018
Sawyer Fredericks (Team Pharrell) — Neil Young’s “Old Man” — Grade: A “There’s this rich sense of Americana in Sawyer’s voice,” said Pharrell, perfectly encapsulating why a 1972 folk-pop jam was the right choice for a 16-year-old high-school student. I’m not exactly sure how Sawyer’s voice can simultaneously transport me back to cheery days of listening to A.M. radio with the windows rolled down — and yet also manage to sound completely fresh and current, but a good magician never explains his tricks, I suppose. Will Sawyer be the first Voice winner whose weekly iTunes dominance will turn him into a household name? I wouldn’t bet against it.
Should win: Sawyer (Koryn as runner-up)
Will win: Sawyer (Meghan as runner-up)
The Voice Us Season 8 Winner
Your turn. What did you think of The Voice performance finale? Who will win? Who should win? Take our poll below, then sound off in the comments!