NBC’s ‘The Voice’ review: Did Christina Grimmie, Josh Kaufman, Kristen Merlin rule top 5?

“The Voice” brought out the top 5 on Monday night, but for most of the first hour, we were not that excited about what the lineup brought to the table. Most of the performances were not only uninspired, but they just didn’t have any energy behind them. This is a competition, people!

Luckily, a certain someone named Christina Grimmie reminded us of that with her first performance of the night … and things finally started to pick up after that. We’re going to rank the performances tonight by round.

Round One

5. Kat Perkins, “Chandelier” – Well, Adam Levine was right about this being a moment. The unfortunate thing is that this is probably not the moment that he was hoping for going into this. Instead, it was a mess. The song was just too big for Kat, and also out of her genre.

4. Jake Worthington, “Good Ol’ Boys” – This was not exactly a good first half of the night for the top 5. Jake’s choice was pretty boring. It was a competent take on the song, but where was that something special? What made this nothing more than a traditional country performance?

3. Kristen Merlin, “Gunpowder and Lead” – A good eprformance from Kristen, but there probably need to be a little bit more energy behind it if the goal was to have it really stand out. EVERY performance of this shall be compared to Skylar Laine’s from “American Idol,” and this was very good karaoke.

2. Josh Kaufman, “All Of Me” – Were there some moments were he drifted in and out of being in tune during this song? Our own ears thought so, but we appreciated still the emotional connection that he brought to the lyrics here from start to finish.

1. Christina Grimmie, “Hide and Seek” – We are totally calling shenanigans on Usher being “constructive” in his criticism, mostly because he was hard on her after he just acted like Jake was the greatest thing to ever appear in country music. This is a song we admittedly love, and the only thing that we wish is that there was more of it, and something that lasted for three minutes rather than two.

Round Two

5. Kat Perkins, “Let It Go” – To be fair, we thought that this was going to be awful. The first half of the song was actually really good! She did an edgier take on the Demi Lovato version, and it wasn’t until in the end with the big notes that she started to really have it go off the rails a little.

4. Jake Worthington, “Heaven” – This was a solid vocal for Jake, and we’ll give him credit for pulling the emotional into it. We don’t think that his voice is the best in the competition, but we understand why so many like him. He is likable, and very good at telling his story.

3. Christina Grimmie, “Some Nights” – This is one of the first time in weeks where it felt like a normal performance from Christina, even if she did hit some huge notes in it. We have to admit, though: We were confused by the balloons, and we also had no idea why the show dressed her in something that she looked like she would trip on at some point.

2. Kristen Merlin, “Foolish Games” – In a way, we feel for Kat given that her vocal in this round was better than 80% of the last round and she’s ranked low. That’s because people like Kristen came out and gave fantastic, emotional performances. The funny thing about this one is that it was better than the song she chose for herself.

1. Josh Kaufman, “Love Runs Out” – This is how you actually perform this sort of song on “The Voice”! This was a fast-paced performance that actually felt like a concert with the right energy behind it. It was not just an exercise of someone using the stage like they would a local bar.

Who is your favorite of the top 5? Share below, and click here if you want to see where the contestants ranked going into this episode. Also, you can sign up now for further TV updates from our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: NBC