NBC’s ‘The Voice’ review: Sylvia Yacoub, De’borah, and Cody Belew rule night 2

When we first heard that “The Voice” was airing directly against “The X Factor” Wednesday night, there was a part that wanted to just throw Cee Lo Green and Carson Daly out the window for Simon Cowell. Then, the show surprised us: not only is “The Voice” a better production at the moment (no Khloe Kardashian, better organization), but the performances were actually stronger on this show.

following the performances of Team Adam Levine and Blake Shelton Monday night, it was Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green’s time to shine this time around. Who was your favorite? Be sure to share your thoughts at the bottom of this article, and you can check out some highlights from the show Monday at this link.

Adriana Louise – Why in the world would you assign anyone Katy Perry’s “Firework” to sing? This is almost an impossible song for anyone to take on save for Katy herself, and in this occasion the judges were a little too hard on her. As a matter of fact, we’re playing a conspiracy card here in that it felt as though Christina let Adriana sing something that may have been even too hard for her.

De’borah – All along, De’borah has been a personal favorite on this show for one primary reason: her voice is insanely cool. It’s like listening to crescendo that never wants to end. When she starts, you think “oh, this person is pretty good.” By the time she is done, you don’t want her to stop. The most incredible thing about her is that She manages to actually keep her tone despite moving around on the stage.

Devyn DeLoera – Christina chose “Bleeding Love” for Devyn, and it was a rather surprising choice given that she has mostly stuck to uptempo flair. Christina knows pop, though, and this was the right choice for her. We saw a softer, completely new side to her, and it may actually be enough to pass Adriana as the best pop singer on the team.

Sylvia Yacoub – What’s with all of the Katy Perry tonight? The only thing that is really more surprising than this is that we have so many people singing Katy Perry well. This was the performance of the night, and it was so haunting, we see ourselves watching it on YouTube for weeks on end moving forward.

Dez Duron – This was a surprise! Dez gave his best vocal performance of the season at the right time, and if he makes it to the live round, he could be a serious threat with all of the young ladies out there.

Teem Cee Lo Green

Cody Belew – Welcome, Cody Belew! This was a performance that never really saw coming from a guy we were at first thinking was just filler here. It take some serious guts to sing anything from George Michael, but this “One More Try” was sensational. There was so much soul here, and even Blake Shelton admitted that he was one of his favorite acts.

Diego Val – What was Cee Lo thinking? Usually, this guy is the best mentor on the entire show when it comes to song choice. However, you could tell from the beginning that Diego never really felt this song, which was completely a departure from the sort of music he usually sings. The vocals were good, but the visuals behind this were fairly empty.

Mackenzie Bourg – Is it wrong that we think about “Star Trek” just about every time that we hear Mackenzie’s name? The guy is an intriguing singer because he is a reasonably good singer who does excel at making songs “his own.” The problem? In making songs “his own,” he really just makes every single one of them sound the same. He’s basically the male version of Melanie Martinez.

Nicholas David – First things first, the guy kept the beard! This surprised us to an extent, mostly because we weren’t sure that would be the best move. The guy covered Barry White of all things here, and it was a highlight for Cee Lo after a couple of uncharacteristically odd choices.

Trevin Hutne – Trevin closed the show here, and did a rather fine job with a Michael Bolton song in the process. Here is really our question here: did he step it up enough? We think so, but this was a night where everyone really managed to up their game.