'The Voice' fans annoyed, BTS fans enraged by Tuesday's results show
Some regular The Voice viewers were surely vexed by this Tuesday’s results show, as the unstoppably Season 16-dominating Blake Shelton landed three male country contestants in next week’s top four finale, edging out other worthy contenders like Team Kelly’s Rod Stokes and Team Legend’s Shawn Sounds. But it was a new and very vocal audience — which had specifically tuned in Tuesday to catch a glimpse of their favorite world-dominating K-pop group — whose angry #BTSonTheVoice and #BTSxTheVoice hashtags gained a lot more Twitter traction than #VoiceSaveRod and #VoiceSaveShawn.
On Monday, The Voice’s official Twitter page teased a quick clip featuring the Jonas Brothers and BTS, declaring, “Tomorrow, two of the world’s hottest bands have a special announcement.” The Jonases did show up in a brief promotional video to share the news that they’ll be performing on The Voice finale May 21, and then host Carson Daly revealed that Taylor Swift and Brendon Urie will also perform. BTS fans probably expected a similar announcement from BTS, who earlier this month had tweeted a photo of themselves running into Voice coach John Legend on the Universal lot. But there was no appearance by, or even mention of, BTS on Tuesday’s episode. Additionally, The Voice’s original teaser tweet from Monday — the one that had included BTS — mysteriously disappeared.
the voice deleted the tweet about BTS announcement and apparently there's a new video with only the jonas bros and no BTS??
they could have at least had the decency to make an announcement instead of just axing them off, gives me war flashback to their early days #BTSonTheVoice pic.twitter.com/3LarOuJOFa— billy. (@bilzeokjin) May 15, 2019
Hell hath no fury like the BTS Army scorned, so fans understandably spammed the show with outraged (and sometimes quite clever) memes and GIFs, demanding an explanation, an apology, and/or the hour back of their lives that they’d just wasted.
I cant believe I lost 1 hour of my life to this trash tv show #BTSontheVoice pic.twitter.com/gsyWyTCFrf
— It was an honor serving you Johnny Suh ?🏾😔 (@Caribb_Strawhat) May 15, 2019
The army on the way to end the voice #BTSonTheVoice pic.twitter.com/RgeFf0lt4A
— Hoseok trash! (@EmilyLuvs_kpop) May 15, 2019
This is @NBCTheVoice looking at their mentions right now #BTSxTheVoice pic.twitter.com/sapPvsKTUd
— namjoon’s legs (@joonieuhgood) May 15, 2019
WAIT.. YALL TELLING ME I HELD IN MY PEE FOR NO REASON #BTSonTheVoice pic.twitter.com/q5NOUiEFw1
— andrea (@andreaskookie) May 15, 2019
On my way to fight the producers, who’s coming with me :) #BTSxTheVoice #BTSonTheVoice
pic.twitter.com/PGYto8SKyx— BTS are the princes of pop (@Stanninglegend) May 15, 2019
Me right now after watching the voice for nothing #BTSxTheVoice pic.twitter.com/pUR5Rubqdc
— missing bts 😭 (@btsvbtssuga) May 15, 2019
Armys after finding out they stayed up for a whole hour expecting to see #BTSxTheVoice but didn't: pic.twitter.com/bd9tCEdAJw
— Moniii 💜 (@mochi_moniii) May 15, 2019
As of this writing, the show has not clarified what happened, announced if a (presumably pre-taped) BTS performance will air next week, or responded to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment. (The show’s Twitter page has posted the Jonas Brothers’ video announcement, however.) But we at least know the four performers who’ll be competing on next week’s Voice finale: Team Blake’s Dexter Roberts, Gyth Rigdon, and Andrew Sevener, and Team Legend’s Maelyn Jarmon.
Gyth has seemed like a shoo-in all season, and he surely had the finale locked after playing to Blake’s base with “God Bless the USA” this week. So his advancement was hardly a shock. Dexter did seem shocked to make it through, even though he totally deserved his top four spot after taking a risk with Monday’s creative 3 Doors Down cover. Plus, he already had a solid track record when it comes to singing competitions. Dexter has now officially made it farther on The Voice than he did on American Idol, when he placed seventh in 2014, and is the only singer to make it to the top 10 of both series — though casual reality viewers wouldn’t know that, since Carson described Dexter’s career arc as merely going “from driving a rock truck in Alabama to standing here as a semifinalist on The Voice.”
As for Maelyn, she may seem like the outlier here, since she’s not on Team Blake, but she was this week’s most-streamed contestant on Apple Music with “Stay” and is the best vocalist along the final four, so it’s possible that her opponents could split the country vote and she could triumph next Tuesday.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Anyway, Blake couldn’t get all of his contestants into the finale, so after his Kim Cherry and Carter Lloyd Horne came in dead last and were automatically eliminated, that left his Andrew Sevener to compete for the Instant Save against Rod and Shawn for that fourth finale slot. Andrew’s “Simple Man” would have been a good song choice under normal circumstances, but the midtempo slow-burner didn’t seem like the right sort of attention-grabbing fight song to help his case. Shawn normally excels at passionate ballads (his gorgeous “Song for You” was a Monday pimp-spot highlight), but he bafflingly did Bruno Mars’s shticky and lightweight “That’s What I Like” for his save-me song, so he blew it.
This seemed to leave things wide open for Rod, whose rendition of NEEDTOBREATHE’s “Brother” was so gritty and heartfelt, I actually changed my Instant Save vote at the last minute from Shawn to Rod. With this performance, along with a stellar duet he did with his coach Kelly earlier in the evening, Rod earned his spot.
But … if you were paying attention to this article’s opening paragraph, then you already know that Andrew of course won instead (he got about 41 percent of the real-time Twitter vote). Andrew seemed shocked by this outcome. I was too, but maybe I shouldn’t have been.
So, tune in next week for what is basically The Blake Shelton Show, along with performances by the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift … and, hopefully, BTS. Watch this space.
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
K-pop sensations BTS talk Eminem, fandoms, and learning English from ‘Friends’
Fans protest 'The Voice' bias: 'Multiple artists screwed by dumb Americans voting for Blake'
'Worst episode ever'? 'The Voice' fans are cross about the new Cross-Battles
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