Awesome Music / The Masked Singer

Ladies and gents, this is the moment you've waited for...

It may be a goofy show where celebrities of all kinds (running the gamut from gamers to politicians to doctors and even Muppets!) dress up as pineapples, lions, butterflies, turtles, bananas, broccoli, whatever Thingamajig is, babies, and even pairs of lips and sing their hearts out, but more often than not there's genuine talent under those masks, even from people you wouldn't expect to be impressed by.

Season 1

• "The Greatest Show", not only the perfect song choice for the Peacock, but as the very first performance it set the tone for the whole series.
• "What's Love Got to Do With It". The only time the Bee has gone with a song matching her own style (as a favor to someone she claims to be a "close friend" to boot), which brought down the house.
• The Monster's "Stay With Me" by Sam Smith, spoilered early on in the teasers, but still became an iconic showstopper.
• The Rabbit's take on "Livin' La Vida Loca" is a bouncy and fun cover that starts off slow before exploding into energy.
• The Lion was one of the strongest contenders of season one, with every single one of her performances being fantastic, but her cover of "California Dreamin'" stands out as the best, with her powerful vocals helping to bring the song home.

Season 2

• Fox's rendition of "Hey Look Ma I Made It", complete with his signature dance moves that would make him a treat to watch anytime he stepped onstage, easily solidified him as a frontrunner.
• Thingamajig's emotional performance of "Rainbow" brought tears to the eyes of nearly everyone listening. Who knew a basketball player had those kinds of pipes?
• The Leopard's rendition of "Big Spender" from Sweet Charity. Holy hell, what an absolutely marvelous and bombastic, Broadway-worthy performance.
• Rottweiler's rendition of "Someone You Loved", a showstopper that easily matches "Stay With Me" for the impact alone.
• The Flamingo's rendition of "Never Enough" may be rather subdued compared to the original, but it's pitch-perfect and no less powerful.
• Butterfly's take of "Livin On a Prayer" is a powerful performance that even gets two of the judges singing along towards the end.

Season 3

• Turtle makes a good first impression with a soulful rendition of "Kiss From a Rose" that gets all the judges cheering for him.
• Taco's rendition of "Fly Me To The Moon" is pitch-perfect.
• Night Angel more than lives up to Jenny's hopes for her, going as far as making Jenny's prediction of her winning the entire season come true by delivering showstopper after showstopper. For the Super Nine performance of "Rise Up", when they cut to another singer backstage watching the whole thing, while they're usually mocking or dismissing the performance, instead we see a dumbstruck Rhino.
• Frog takes his usual Motor Mouth tendencies up a notch with a blistering performance of "Whatever It Takes" which takes a rock song and plays it as a fast-paced rap, and he makes it work!
• While it's also very funny considering what the song is, Astronaut's take on "Never Gonna Give You Up" is completely stunning and has a ton of energy put into it.

Season 4

• The Snow Owls immediately make an impact with their absolutely gorgeous rendition of "Say Something". Both the audience and the judges are understandably moved by the beautiful harmony.
• Popcorn continues the show's tradition of featuring a Living Legend per season with her smash performance of "Falling".
• Mushroom's a veritable source of these, what with having such impressive range, that they never sound the same twice. Special mention goes to their performance of "Unconditionally".
• Seahorse's take on "My Heart Will Go On" was so stunning that even Nick Cannon says it was one of the most beautiful vocals he's ever heard in his life.
• Mr. TV's performance of "Memories", leaving the judges utterly confused as to who he could be. He's Wayne Brady, aka the Fox, and the winner of season 2. No stranger to this show indeed.
• All of Serpent's performances are amazing, with his husky vocals helping to give a smooth feeling to his songs. Special mention to his performance of "The Bones".
• The Sun's performance of "When The Party's Over" in the Super 6 leaves the entire panel speechless from how powerful it was, with Craig Robinson even brought to tears. Even better, it was pure a capella from her, meaning she truly let her voice shine in the moment.
• The Super 6's performance of "Take On Me" is amazing, letting all the singers show off their voices. As Jenny puts it, "Welcome to the Semi Finals!"
• Crocodile's final song, Journey's "Open Arms", is beautiful, and it's clear that the singer is putting his heart and soul into every note.

Season 5

• Russian Dolls get the ball rolling with a very faithful and pitch-perfect rendition of "Man in the Mirror".
• Seashell proves herself right away with a lovely version of "Listen to Your Heart", with emphasis in her crystal-clear vocals.
• Only three weeks in and we already have the token alone-with-the-mic showstopping number, from Robopine of all people. It's "All of Me" by John Legend, which we heard already in season 1, in the form of an upbeat remix by Peacock - here, Robopine plays it safe by performing it in its original style, and still owns it.
• Orca sets a high bar for the newly-introduced wildcard contestants with a rollicking rendition of "We're Not Gonna Take It" that gets everybody on their feet.
• Black Swan astounds everyone present with her beautiful performance of "In My Blood" by Shawn Mendes.
• The second wild card, Crab, easily matches that standard by starting out with his own alone-with-the-mic moment (barring the two dancers behind him), a very faithful rendition of Bill Wither's "Ain't No Sunshine".
• Piglet is apparently (and ironically) feeling the heat from the wild cards, and ramping up his game - his rendition of "7 Years" became his own showstopper moment.
• The flows and rhythm Chameleon pulls out for his performance of "Hip Hop" by Dead Prez is so impressive and smooth, this competitor is one to watch.
• While he had already shown he could pull off emotional songs in a round prior, Yeti steps it up big time in the final 5 with a beautiful take on "Bless The Broken Road".
• Sure, Cluedle-Doo isn't a contestant, but his performance of "Return of the Mack" proves that might have been a good thing for the others, as he steals the show with some impressive vocals.

Season 6

• Only two episodes and we already have our first show stopper from Group A: Bull's emotionally powerful rendition of "What Hurts The Most". Robin wasn't kidding when he said that Bull had the most finale potential out of all the singers in Group A!
• His Group A rival Skunk also knows how to deliver week after week, but special mention should go to her stunning rendition of "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World" by James Brown, which delivered equal measures of sass and soul, even bringing Nick to his knees.
• Much like the past two times Greatest Showman songs were used, Banana Split's take on "A Million Dreams" is fantastic and more than lives up to both the original, as well as P!nk's cover, with the addition of Banana really playing piano rather than just using Background Music.
• Pepper has come out to prove that she's ready to go all the way with her cover of "Jealous" by Labrinth. It's so emotional and heavy and how she hits the high notes and carries her song is so stunning.
• She already had a strong performance in the first week, but Queen Of Hearts proved herself a front runner by doing something no other singer on the show has ever done: sing in another language, with her cover of "La Vie En Rose" being a stunning "alone with the microphone" song. Even better, she doesn't speak French, so she had to learn the song syllable by syllable!
• Hamster sings a very elegant "Sabor A Mi" by Luis Miguel entirely in Spanish, despite not speaking the language, let alone having ever sung in it before.
• Jester comes out ready to go all the way with a rocking rendition of "School's Out". Not only is it the perfect song choice for someone like him, but he also adds his own flavor to the song.
• After a decent but unexceptional performance in his first episode, Caterpillar shows off some impressive singing chops and brings the house down with his cover of "It's Gonna Be Me".
• All of the celeb duets are fantastic, but the best of the bunch is Nicole and Queen of Hearts' performance of "Dream On", with both singers managing to hit the high notes flawlessly while still keeping pace with both each other and the music.

Season 7

• The first performance of the season is always important and Thingamabob more than delivers with an utterly stunning rendition of "Wanted Dead Or Alive". There's a reason he swiftly became the favorite of Group A.
• While she didn't get to perform right away due to her choking fit, Firefly proves that she was worth the wait with the season's first showstopper: "Ain't Nobody".
• Ringmaster had already been a front runner, but she more than earned her way into the finale with her show-stopping performance of "I Will Always Love You", which began a capella, much like Sun, but even when the music kicked in, her voice shone.
• Prince had some big shoes to fill with how impressively Ringmaster and Firefly did, and he more than lived up to them from the word go, as his take on "“La Copa de La Vida” is highly impressive, considering both how fast the song is and the fact he had to sing in Spanish.
• Space Bunny more than sets the tone for the type of contestant he will be with his well sung yet still charmingly goofy cover of "Jump In The Line".

Season 8

• Hedgehog made the most of his only performance, performing The Beatles' "Love Me Do" with a live band.
• While Monster may have already covered the song, Hummingbird's cover of "I Don't Wanna Be" blows it out of the water and led to a very close call between himself and Harp.
• It's never an easy feat to match, let alone sing, Whitney Houston's power and tone, yet Harp found a way with her utterly moving performance of "I Have Nothing", which beings the panel to its feet and guest judge Donny Osmond to his knees in awe.
• While he was never matching Harp's performance, Panther still comes pretty damn close with his rendition of "Feeling Good". There's a reason everyone was convinced that if anyone had the chance to dethrone Harp, it was him.
• While she doesn't advance, Mermaid proves that had this been a normal season, she would have no doubt been a frontrunner with a stunning rendition of "Any Dream Will Do".
• She already had a strong start, but Robo Girl showed just how talented she was by nailing "Bohemian Rhapsody", doing an impressive job jumping between the faster and slower parts of the song.
• Sure, Nicole isn't an actual contestant, but if she was, her performance of "Fame" proved she'd be the one to watch out for, as she completely nails the song, hitting all the notes flawlessly.
• If you thought Harp's first performance was fire, her finale performance of "Gravity" completely brings the house down, complete with full on gospel backing choir. There is a huge reason she became the season's winner.

Season 9

• Mustang gets the season off to a strong start with a fantastic cover of "Here I Go Again", bringing a southern flare to the song while keeping the rock-based pace. There's a reason this performance was used to promote the season's premier.
• In spite of only having 24 hours to prepare her performance, Night Owl showed that she was playing hard with her beautiful take on "Fernando".
• In spite of not moving around much, Wolf completely killed his take of "Break On Through", with his husky voice adding an interesting flare to the song not found in the normal version.
• Once again, Nicole kills an opening performance, this time for DC Superhero Night, with an energetic rendition of, fittingly, "Holding Out for a Hero".
• Gargoyle continues the trend of athletes being able to pull off heartful performances with a touching performance of "One Call Away".
• Jackalope shows off some impressive singing chops during her performance of "Whenever Wherever", even managing to do an extremely convincing Shakira impersonation.
• Scorpio puts a completely different spin on "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", playing it instead as a rock track while still keeping the song's high energy and spirit.
• Dandelion proved that she deserved to become Group C's second champion with a beautiful performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", managing to not only capture the song's original beauty and spirit, but also add in a lot of her own power to it, making it even more beautiful.
• Lamp pulls off a stunning rendition of "Venus", bringing all the energy needed without compromising anything else.
• UFO delivers a soulful performance of "Yellow" that leaves the judges and audience in awe.
• The California Roll had been bringing their A Game to every performance, but their utterly insane performance of "Creep" is widely agreed to be their peak, showcasing both their vocal range and their harmonies.
• Macaw's cover of "All By Myself", while shorter than most of the other performances this season, manages to both show off Macaw's vocal range as well as tug at the heartstrings.
• Medusa had many first rate performances throughout the season on her way to victory, but her final performance of "Welcome to the Black Parade" wraps all of her strong suits into a delightful little package for the ears.

Season 10

• Anonymouse had the goal of hyping up the season in the preview episode and more than delivered with a stunning cover of "What About Love". Demi Lovato is a legend for a reason!
• S'more quickly establishes himself as both a frontrunner and the season's requisite heartthrob with his suave take on "Slow Hands", leaving Nicole a flustered mess.
• Diver quickly made a splash with his first performance of "Any Way You Want It".
• While Cow had several stellar performances on his way to winning the season, "Cry Me A River" stands high above them all due to the passion and energy he puts into the song.
• It may have been where he was unmasked, but Hawk went out with a bang with his rocking performance of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic".
• Donut's heart-tugging tribute to his late wife with "I Do (Cherish You)" leaves the panel and audience in tears at his sincerity and tone.
• Tiki's cover of "I Was Made For Loving You" perfectly shows why he's just as much of a Living Legend as the members of KISS, while also letting him pay tribute to one of his favorite bands.
• Gazelle, much like her group A rival, Cow, brought her A game to every single performance, with her finale perfomance of "Chasing Cars" showcasing both her incredible vocal talent and ability to tug at heartstrings.

Season 11

• In a rare case of a one episode singer managing to pull off a performance worthy for this page, Spaghetti & Meatballs shows that he would have made it way further had competition in his group not been so strong with a stellar performance of "Only the Good Die Young”.
• Evanescence was just about the last music group anyone would have thought would have been covered on this show, yet Lizard sang a more than worthy cover of the band's Signature Song, "Bring Me To Life".
• Lovebird had already shown himself to be a rather soulful bird in his first showing, but his cover of "All That You Are” shows just how heartfelt his voice can be.

Other

• At the meta level, a second Western surprise guest appeared on King of Mask Singer and wowed them with his rendition of the classic "Creep" by Radiohead. Let's just say Ken Jeong just earned that crown.