'Songland' fans thrilled to see Old Dominion guest judges pick Katelyn Tarver's 'Young' for Jeep commercial: 'It feels like a festival'
Songwriters out there, get ready to be inspired yet again with another musical journey on 'Songland' — this time for a Jeep commercial featuring Old Dominion.
Airing with episode eight on Wednesday night, the guest judges for the show were members of the popular country-rock band Old Dominion. The other panel of judges were regulars on the show — Ester Dean, Ryan Tedder, and Shane McAnally, who help mentor the new songwriters.
This episode also featured four songwriters battling against each other to have their song chosen by Old Dominion. The artistes this episode were Katelyn Tarver, Jacobie, MACI and Jake Scott.
Katelyn presented her original 'Young', Jacobie delivered his song 'Westside' (retitled 'Where The Road Ends'), MACI performed 'Take a ride' and Jake Scott sang 'Is This Love?' (that was retitled 'Journey'). After the panel of judges heard all the originals for the day, they decided to eliminate MACI. The show then goes into bettering the songs with each contestant being paired up with one of the main judges who will mentor them on making the needed transformations to the original song in terms of beats, lyrics, tune, and tempo.
Jacobie's song was mentored by Ryan Tedder — he kept the song's original melody but made changes to the lyrics and also added a post-tag which gives the song a more infectious flow. Jake was mentored by Ester Dean made the original a completely different song adding some beautiful catchphrases giving the song a poetic touch. Katelyn was mentored by Shane McAnally who helped her make the original more special. When she performed her song, Esther Dean said she felt "like I was in a festival". Olivier, the Jeep representative, said he was "blown away" by the song.
At the end of the episode, Katelyn made it to the top. The tune, melody, tempo, and lyrics seemed perfect for the Jeep commercial that will feature 'Old Dominion'.
Fans of 'Old Dominion' and Katelyn took to twitter to celebrate with one fan saying, "Ohhhh my gosh @NBCSongland I absolutely love the new Jeepcm like seriously @OldDominion did an amazing job singing that new song. Thank you Songland for finding new voices"