Country Singer Craig Wayne Boyd Tears it up on “The Voice”

Folks, I’ve never before written a blog about NBC’s “The Voice,” but tonight, it’s warranted. After watching singer Craig Wayne Boyd sing the Hell out of the song “Some Kind of Wonderful,” I had to come straight here and discuss what I’d just heard.

For those of you new to “The Voice,” it’s a show featuring singers who haven’t yet broken through to a wide audience. Craig Wayne Boyd is a man in his prime with a great big baritone voice, a huge stage presence, and charisma to burn. He’s someone who once you listen to him, you’ll wonder why he isn’t already a huge star — because my goodness, he ought to be.

I’ve seen two good articles explaining what Craig Wayne Boyd did tonight; the first is an overview of the entire show by writer Vicki Hyman for NJ.com, complete with links to the video performance, and the second is by Kenny Green for starlocalmedia.com, which discusses Craig Wayne Boyd in-depth and gives this excellent quote from coach Blake Shelton (who was talking directly to Mr. Boyd) during tonight’s airing of “The Voice:”

“I am going to go ahead and call it. That was the performance of the night, dude. That was so much power and muscle in your voice and just your stage presence. You got passed around, and that was stupid on my part. I can’t believe I got the chance to have you back,” Shelton said. “You are beating the odds every time you got out here and I think America is going ‘holy crap,’ this dude is the real deal.”

I agree with Blake Shelton, though I have thought from the beginning of this year’s season of “The Voice” that Craig Wayne Boyd was a potential power to be reckoned with. I didn’t say anything until now, though, for two reasons:

1) You never know how a musician is going to perform under pressure until he goes out and takes the stage. This is the most pressure-packed gig Mr. Boyd has ever had; to boot, he was placed in the final position, which could’ve sapped his strength.

Instead, he kicked serious butt.

2) While I was extremely impressed with Mr. Boyd throughout the previous rounds, because he has been coached by two different vocalists (Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton), I wasn’t sure what to think of that.

Now, I think Mr. Boyd actually got the better end of that deal, because he has not one but two coaches in his corner. And with both of them, Mr. Boyd impressed them with his professionalism, his attention to detail, and his willingness to take direction. (It was at Ms. Stefani’s urging that Mr. Boyd cut his hair, for example, and got rid of his fringed jacket for a more modern one in black leather instead.)

Remember this name: Craig Wayne Boyd. He’s taken what could’ve been lemons in having two different coaches with two disparate approaches and learned from both. And he’s come out the other side with an even greater and richer musical palette to work with…I just can’t say enough about this man, and I hope he continues on “The Voice” for weeks to come.

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Before I forget, Adam Levine and his group Maroon 5 also performed their controversial song, “Animals” at the top of “The Voice.” (I’ve already weighed in with my take on this song previously; let’s just say I prefer the version they did on Saturday Night Live, but this one was fine, too.)

Thoughts After Hearing Adam Levine, Maroon 5 Sing “Animals” on SNL

Folks, for the past hour or so, I’ve been struggling with how I feel after hearing Adam Levine and his band, Maroon 5, sing their controversial song “Animals” while doing a guest musical performance on Saturday Night Live. As a woman, I suppose I should be appalled, as the video for “Animals” seems to glorify stalking — and excessively violent and bloody stalking at that. (In case you haven’t read anything at all about this controversy, please see this link from the LA Times as it’ll give you a heads-up.)

But when I listened to “Animals” as a song, I heard an entirely different narrative. One that deals with an obsessive love affair that’s run its course, where the couple in question has a tremendous amount of sexual chemistry and not much else, yet the male partner cannot let go quite yet and the female partner, for whatever reason, is allowing him to stick around so they can keep having great sex. Then she apparently kicks him out and pretends it didn’t happen afterward, only to repeat until she finally gets the stomach to tell him, “No more, buster.”

Or until he has the strength to tell himself that he deserves better than a woman who’s keeping him around just for sex.

So all the lyrics about “preying on you tonight” and “(I’ll) eat you alive, just like animals, animals, oh oh” take on an entirely different tone in that context. It actually sounded to me like the guy was trying to justify having kinky animal sex with this woman who otherwise despises him, and as such, that’s just sad. (And hardly objectionable.)

However, the narrative framing shifted once the video for “Animals” was released, and the shift isn’t pretty at all. The video (which I refuse to link to) stars Adam Levine and his wife, model Behati Prinsloo; Levine is a psychotic madman who can’t leave his ex-girlfriend alone. And when his ex lets him inside her apartment, the blood flows along with the sex. Sex is explicitly linked with death, and the obsessive ex-boyfriend of the song becomes a murderous stalker instead.

I’m not entirely sure why Levine and Maroon 5 chose to go in this direction for their video, mind you. But I’m guessing that it’s all about the free publicity. A controversial video gets noticed, so it usually gets downloaded more. That means, obviously, the music’s heard more, too. Maybe the hope was that after seeing this video, some people who’d never heard of Maroon 5 before — or hadn’t heard a Maroon 5 song in years — will go buy the new song (or better yet, their whole CD). Which will make Maroon 5 money in the short run, and possibly prolong their careers in the long run.

But all this controversy has actually worked to obscure Maroon 5’s music, much less Levine’s singing. And that’s a shame, because Maroon 5’s music is worth more than a few listens — and Levine’s live performance on “Saturday Night Live” showcased his impressive range and his pitch-perfect vocal control.

Maybe it’s all about the narrative framing as to whether the song “Animals” is actually offensive or not. Or maybe it’s in the ears of the beholder.

But the video of “Animals” will give most women nightmares, especially if they’ve ever had any run-ins with domestic violence in the past.

It’s a free country, and Maroon 5’s marketing people obviously have earned their money this year. But I’d rather have encountered the song “Animals” another way, so my own view of what the narrative is could more easily take hold over the extremely graphic, violent video.