‘The Voice’ Top 12 Results: #VoiceSaveSeason10

At the start of Tuesday’s Voice results show, on/off coach Gwen Stefani returned to perform, warbling the chorus of her latest single: “Put me out of my misery!” And by the time Carson Daly finished asking the top 12 contestants vapid filler questions and finally got around to announcing this week’s shocking bottom two, I was thinking the same thing. Season 10 is not shaping up to be this series’ best.

You see, The Voice has a proud tradition of featuring quirky, indie-leaning singers – think Melanie Martinez, Kat Robichaud, and last season’s Jeffery Austin, Korin Bukowski, Amy Vachal, and Madi Davis, just for starters. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve always loved The Voice (and have defended it to my more skeptical music-snob friends). But it seems like this tradition has come to a sad end. On Tuesday, the two indie-est, quirkiest contestants of the season – Team Pharrell’s Emily Keener and Team Adam’s Owen Danoff, both four-chair auditioners – surprisingly landed in the bottom two. (I guess that’ll show ‘em for daring to cover non-”Hallelujah” Jeff Buckley and Lukas Graham, huh?) This hardly bodes well for a season that, frankly, is already a little dull, and has already seen several interesting contestants go home way too early.

I had predicted that Emily would be in danger this week, because the young and green songstress has struggled to connect emotionally with some of her older-skewing material. But she was hardly the worst this week, so I had not expected she would actually go home in 12th place – which, spoiler alert, she did. As for Owen, I’d been thinking (or maybe just hoping?) that the folky troubadour had a shot of becoming this season’s dark horse, ever since he beat out Ryan Quinn in the Knockouts. (“One of the most difficult Knockout Rounds of the season,” Owen’s coach, Adam Levine, pointed out.)

However, in retrospect, I now realize that neither contestant ever really clicked with America. Both were coach saves in last week’s top 24 semifinals, after failing to secure the public vote. I’m not exactly sure why this season’s viewers seem to prefer the bland blue-eyed soul of Coach Comeback contestants Daniel Passino and Nick Hagelin, or the pageant-girl country of Mary Sarah. Maybe the show’s audience demographic has just changed since the days when cool, idiosyncratic artists like Juliet Simms, Nicholas David, Michelle Chamuel, Matt McAndrew, and Sawyer Fredericks could make the finale – or even win.

Side note: The Voice always makes much ado about iTunes sales and chart stats, but this season, it seems other forces are affecting the results. Emily made it to a respectable #27 with “Lilac Wine” (the third-highest chart position among the top 12 finalists this week, behind obvious frontrunners Adam Wakefield and Alisan Porter), and Owen made a decent showing at #47 with “7 Years.” Daniel and Mary, conversely, respectively stalled at #79 and #86. And poor Paxton Ingram (who, for the record, I really like; at least he genuinely entertains) was widely predicted to go home this week after his “Hands to Myself” got no higher than #164. (He was the only contestant not to crack the top 100, and was the lowest charter by a wide margin.) Yet Daniel, Mary, and Paxton were all ultimately safe.

So when it came time for Emily and Owen to sing for the Twitter Instant Save this Tuesday, I was ready to hashtag #VoiceSaveSeason10. (Seriously. Can we get that to trend?) Anyway, Emily went with Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” Owen with Ed Sheeran’s “Lego House” – and while neither choice was the sort of dramatic, chest-beating “save me” fight song we usually see during Voice elimination night sing-offs, both tunes represented the contestants’ artistry well.

Both performances were lovely and classy, but America (well, the East Coast of America, that is) ended up saving Owen. This was the right decision – he’s just more ready for prime time, and seems to have more long-term potential than 17-year-old Emily. But I am concerned that he won’t be on The Voice for the long-term at all, at this rate.

“I’m asking you guys to do me a favor and give this guy the chance that I know that he deserves, and hopefully, if you guys can pay that favor to me, I will promise you that this guy isn’t going anywhere for a long time,” Adam Levine implored before Owen sang for the Save. Well, we shall see. I sincerely hope Adam was right about Owen sticking around. Season 10 would be much less interesting without Owen. It’s already not that interesting as it is.

Follow Lyndsey on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Amazon, Tumblr, Vine, Spotify