Not so long ago, Judith Hill and Sarah Simmons were both strong candidates to win season four of “The Voice.” On Tuesday night, both were axed from the hit singing competition.
Their reactions were vastly different.
“I was a little shocked,” admitted Judith after the show, “but I think it was also a good, good lesson.”
Her blind audition was so strong that "The Voice" used it to promote the season premiere back in March. Yet she acknowledged that her version of the will.i.am and Justin Bieber song “#thatPower” failed to connect with the voting public, even as she defended her decision to take the track in a funk direction.
“I don't think anything went wrong musically. I think that it was really one of my more exciting performances,” she said. “I think that if a song is a lot more familiar, has a lot more pop sensibilities, I think that America tends to draw more to that than something they're not used to.”
So what lesson did Judith learn from her “Voice” elimination? “I think that I've learned more about America,” she explained. “I've learned more about just how they receive music, and how to really make sure everything is something they can relate to.”
Teammate Sarah was much less surprised when her name was called. “I just felt surrendered,” she told TODAY.com. “You can't complain at all with this. I have no negative thing to say about it. It was an adrenaline rush and it was a taste of my dream.”
In fact, Sarah found herself calming down their coach, Adam Levine.
“He was really upset,” she explained. “He wanted to talk to us outside (after the show).”
That discussion revolved around selecting Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” for what became Sarah’s final performance on the “Voice” stage. “For the live rounds, I've basically chosen all of my songs (in) collaboration with (Adam), but for this one, he chose it for me,” she continued. “I know he was feeling really bad that I was going home.
“I told him 'Please don't feel bad, because I've never worked so hard in my life on a freaking song.' I told him it challenged me and it stretched me.”
She left the show with high praise for her Grammy-winning coach. “He’s amazing,” she enthused. “I know he wants to stay in contact, which is awesome. He's a really good person. I'm really grateful to know him.”
Even “Voice” host Carson Daly admitted to being stunned by the exits of Judith and Sarah, but he also suggested there was something to be gleaned from the development. “I was surprised. I was surprised at Judith probably more than Sarah, because she's been just such a frontrunner from our eyes,” he admitted.
“But once we go live and we turn the power of the show over to America, there's something liberating about that. If you’re shocked about (Tuesday night's) results, then maybe there's something about America and the way they think and feel that you don't know about.”