Topic: Clash of the Choirs

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This is a 4 night special series that is a competition for a $250,000 donation to a selected charity in the community of the winning team. the teams are:

Team Nick Lachey(Cincinnati)
Team Kelly Rowland(Houston)
Team Michael Bolton(New Haven)
Team Blake Shelton(Oklahoma City)
Team Patti LaBelle(Philadelphia)

Each team leader had 3 weeks to audition and rehearse their choir of 20 to come to New York City to compete last night, tonight and tomorrow night for the grand prize to be announced on Thursday. The auditions comprised most of last night's show, with the five actual 3 minute live performances the balance. It appears to me that the underlying premise of this produciton has little to do with the true notion of choirs and a lot to do with Hollywood and that old Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let's put on a show" concept. Pure music is secondary to choreography and show-off soloists, which is not what true choirs are supposed to be about(I should know; I'm in 4 of them). It is not clear how the music for each team was selected, but what is clear is that a choreographer was sent out to each team and that all teams spent as much time practicing their moves as they did their music. Also, the other 4 team leaders are asked to comment on each performance and those comments are total sugar and sweetness, abolutely worthless. Where are Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell when you need them? The other leaders' fluff have no value, as viewer voting for 2 hours after the show will determine which times live and which die. All of the songs for the teams last night were of the "We are Family" variety. I had hoped for some better music, but my hopes were dashed.

The teams that should have an edge from the beginning are those used to singing in group harmony. That would be Nick Lachey, Kelly Rowland, and Patti LaBelle. Michael Bolton knows a lot less and Blake Shelton has to lean on a rejected auditioner for advice on how many basses/tenors/altos for the choir. This shows in the type of songs their teams perform. I heard Team Micahel Bolton and Team Blake Shelton go much heavier for the soloists. As a judge I would punish that, but will the voters of America? I sure hope that can hear the difference and preferred the choir sound over the soloist sound for a choir competition. We'll see tonight, but I predict that the first two teams out tonight and tomorrow will be Team Blake Shelton and Team Michael Bolton. They had a simpler, less harmonic sound than the other 3 teams.

There were some outstanding moments on last night's show. Team Michael Bolton had a 77 year old alto. Team Blake Shelton selected two U.S. Army regulars. The surprise that was promised was actually 2 surprises, first a live hookup from Iraq with an Army unit from Kansas and then General Electric Vice President Frank Taylor(himself a retired Army general) announcing a gift of $250,000 to the disabled American Veterans. That brought down the house, as well it should.

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The second show of this series is over. NBC pulled a fast one by announcing that 3 of the 5 choirs were safe and  would perform, leaving the other two to sweat for 40 minutes to see which one was eliminated. The safe choirs were Team Blake Shelton, Team Patti LaBelle and Team Nick Lachey. They performed so that the Tv audience can decide who to eliminate tomorrow. The performances were quite different in style than last night's. Soloists were used even more, to the detriment of the choral blend sound. The choreography was toned down and quite minimal, which I thought was most appropriate. I did not like any of the music, although I disliked the country music piece used by Team Nick Lachey the most. His soloist Nick was shown in a segment waking up hoarse this morning, going to a voice doctor, getting a maybe if you're lucky judgment on singing, and then coming out and opening the piece as the soloist. If I were to pick one team to predict elimination for overnight, it is Team Nick Lachey based on the style of music they sang. Choirs should not be singing that type of music in this type of competition and I hope the audience punishes them severely. I wasn't very happy with Team Blake Shelton either and Team Patti LaBelle was totally dependent on soloists in their sound.

The decision for the last spot was finally announced. Team Kelly Rowland was eliminated and out. Team Michael Bolton was still alive. They gave a stirring performance and I moved them up from the bottom in my thinking to probably tied for first with Team Patti LaBelle. We'll see what the audience thinks.

Tomorrow's crucial round will feature traditional Christmas music. I expect that I will like this better than anything I've heard, but you never know.

[Texan]

I did not watch this show.  Do you agree that Kelly's team should have gone home.  I forgot about the show but was hoping she would do well since she was from Houston.

[reedthis]

I did not watch this show.  Do you agree that Kelly's team should have gone home.  I forgot about the show but was hoping she would do well since she was from Houston.

I watched the show and thought Michael Bolton's team should have went. I was surprised Kelly's team lost I thought they were good.

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Right on, reedthis. My initial judgment was that the two worst choirs were Team Blake Shelton and Team Michael Bolton. I had Team Kelly Rowland in the top three. I was shocked to see her team beaten by Team Michael Bolton, but Bolton's team did really surprise me last night with the best performance of all 4 remaining choirs. I agree with you that the audience robbed Team Kelly Rowland.

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Well, the audience agreed with my assessment for night 1 in their voting for night 2. they put Team Micahel Bolton and Team Blake Shelton into the bottom 2, with the eliminated team and suriving team to be announced in about a half hour. The two teams moving ahead first are Team Patti LaBelle and Team Nick Lachey. Tonight opened with a rousing round of Christmas carols by Team Kelly Rowland. I will be back much later with the results for the remaining 1 hour 45 minutes of tonight's show.

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The audience does it again. Team Michael Bolton just got zapped and Team Blake Shelton is staying in. Nothing is going to matter, however. Team Patti Labelle gave an average performance in their time. Team Nick Lachey stunned me with a brilliant performance of "Flight of The Bumblebee" a cappella, risky but they pulled it off. The New York City studio audience was equally impressed, but the national audience doesn't seem to know what is better and what is not. I will add a note when tonight is over at 10pm. In the second hour the team leaders are all going to perform their signature pieces, but that is not going to affect the voting for their teams.

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Each of the still-competing choirs sings a Christmas piece. All are forgettable. Teams Labelle, Lachey and Shelton will be judged on their two pieces tonight. The only performance making any serious impression on me was "Flight of the Bumblebee" a cappella by Team Lachey. The rest was all mediocre.

Those three team leaders then performed a "song that made them famous" with their choir as backup singers. Patti Labelle sang "Over the Rainbow" way over the top. Nick Lachey was off in another dimension that I didn't relate to with his. The only performance I really liked was Blake Shelton's, which was country all the way but very authentic. The evening closed with a Christmas song well performed by Team Michael Bolton.

If it were my ballots that determine the outcome, Team Nick Lachey would win easily. We'll see but I get to cast 10 ballots on www.nbc.com before midnight so I am going there to do so.

[MamaTo4boys]

I watched this tonight and of course I want Team Shelton But I think this is a cool show with the whole charity donation so I don't care who wins or whatever!

[tanbuns]

I have really enjoyed this show. After the first two nights, Team LaBelle was head and shoulders above the rest, and I thougth they would run away with it. But last night, Team Lachey was easily the best choir, and I now think they will win it!!!

My only complaint so far, is that they have no choirs from the South!!! 

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tanbuns, since when is Houston not in the South? Team Rowland is from Houston.

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OK, tonight was way too long(I expected one hour but got two) and most of it was boring. The 3 teams competing for the prize all got to perform twice. However, the highlight of the evening for me came from the performances of the eliminated teams. This cut both ways. Team leader Kelly Rowland got to perform the song Survivor with her choir doing backup but the choir's role was so minimal that it was ludicrous. Equally ludicrous was Team Bolton backing up Michael Bolton doing When a Man Loves a Woman. The positive impact was from Team Rowland who had a team member with a deaf father. They took a collection to buy him a ticket and somehow the father got from Houston to New York City and a limo materialized to get him to the final rehearsal where Kelly did some sign language. The song they performed fit that theme and the son had a sign language-only solo at the end that was unbelievably touching.

The competing teams stuck to their themes, with Team LaBelle stressing its excellent soloists and Team Lachey its harmony and blending. None of it had any impact on the voting, which was over last night. The 3rd place team was announced late in the show and Team Shelton was eliminated. However, the host stated that all of the non-first-place teams would get a special gift of $50,000 to take home to their charity from General Electric Company, the parent of NBC. This was well received. Now the remaining teams are Team LaBelle and Team Lachey. Will America's voters be able to see through the soloist nonsense of Team LaBelle and go with the true CHOIR approach of Team Lachey? The last team I worried about this kind of was when ventriloquist Terry Fator was correctly voted as America's Got Talent winner. Once again, America's voters surprise me favorably by getting it right. They vote for Team Lachey and that team goes nuts on the stage. They take home the $250,000 prize for the Children's Hospital.

[Bathfizzy]

Thank you apskip for the recap as I just tuned in tonight and saw the show for the first time.  I am sorry I missed the earlier shows as they looked good.  I was very impressed with Team Lachey as they sounded very nice as a group--they blended.     I am glad to hear they won because for some strange reason my tv cut out and they did not show who won as my tv station must have shown too many commercials because it was 10 p.m. and another show was on.  Very aggravating.

[tanbuns]

You are right, apskip, about Houston being in the South. Maybe I should have said Southeast, which only goes as far west as Louisiana. I just feel like there was a whole, huge, geographic region that was left out. But we had two teams from the Northeast, in Philly and New Haven!!!

Hopefully, the Southeast will be represented in Clash of the Choirs 2!!!   

As for last night, I thought that Team Lachey was again the best. Their harmony in the first song was close to perfect, with all four parts being heard. Most of the songs the choirs have done, have been too solo heavy, or had too much loud music covering up the singing!

I do not know what happened to Team LaBelle, but they choked Wednesday night, and then followed that up with another down performance last night. I hate it for them. But I am glad that they will get to perform on New Years Eve with Ms. LaBelle!!!

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tanbuns, the Southwest as you apparently define it was being represented by a fairly traditional choir from Houston and Team Shelton, a twangy choir from Oklahoma City. Perhaps the reason there was no team from Atlanta or Nashville(I was surprised at this) was that there was no superstar willing to participate on NBC's terms from there. Note that there were no choirs at all from the Midwest west of Cincinnati and nothing west of Oklanhoma City at all. With 5 picks you can only cover so much geography. There was a rich range of different style of music, although I did feel that there was some duplication between Team LaBelle and Team Rowland on style. The big takewaway for me was that teams heavy in soloists were shunted aside and the the team most interested in harmony and blend and willing to take the risk of "Flight of the Bumblebee" a cappella was richly rewarded for doing so successfully.

[Texan]

Thanks for the recap... we had many things going on this week and were not able to watch, but I read the recap each day.

*side note we were caroling last night with my son's boy scout troop and I was amazed at how well the people were excited about it.