NBC’s ‘The Voice’ review: Was Tessanne Chin, Will Champlin, or Jacquie Lee the winner?
Overall, “The Voice” season 5 has delivered a lot of fun performances, some great contestants, and moments that remind us that this is the best singing competition on TV. Even some of its silly montages are great, such as Blake Shelton dancing or outtakes with the contestants. (Product placement? Not so much.)
Before we get to the winner, we’re going to cycle through some of the performances tonight with our full impressions. Some were great, and some were just “meh”.
Opening Group Numbers – There’s nothing particularly exciting about this, but with these group numbers there never is. What did you expect from getting a whole horde of people together with different styles and then asking them to perform with you?
Jacquie Lee, Matthew Schuler, Caroline Pennell, James Wolpert, and Cole Vosbury, “Bohemian Rhapsody” – Yes, that was a performance. Let’s just move on, shall we.
Tessanne Chin and Celine Dion, “Love Can Move Mountains” – When we heard that Tessanne would be singing with her idol, we were not thinking that it would be Celine Dion. That video of her freaking out was almost as great as this performance. Personally, this felt like getting hit with a ten-pound bag of vocal fierceness, and then sitting in stunned silence for a couple of seconds afterwards.
Josh Logan, Preston Pohl, Matthew, Nic, and Ray, “Treasure” – It seriously took us a few seconds to remember who all of these people even are, let alone anything else. But, this performance wasn’t nearly as insane as it could have been. The guys were in tune, and most held the notes together.
Will, Jonny Gray, Caroline, Austin Jenckes, and Cole, “Wagon Wheel” – This was all right. That’s probably all that we can say, since we’re already forgetting about it.
Paramore and Jacquie Lee, “Ain’t It Fun” – The funny thing is that we’ve known of Paramore for years and years, but this may be the first time that we’ve ever actually seen them perform live. This really felt so much more like their performance than Jacquie, who just randomly came in after the chorus the first time and tried to keep up.
Kat Robichaud, Stephanie Anne Johnson, Shelbie Z., Gray, Amber Nicole, and Tamara Chauniece, “My Life Would Suck Without You” – This was a good vocal, but it was somewhat weird given how few of them we remembered. Also, it was like Kat was the only one that actually had an interest in working the stage.
Will and Aloe Blacc, “Wake Me Up” – Awesome. This is the sort of performance that we wanted to hear on the finale, and it’s probably the coolest thing that we’ve heard on the show over the past few weeks. Just completely natural and current.
Lady Gaga and Christina Aguilera, “Do What U Want” – This was a surprise, and we really enjoyed it. Who would’ve ever thought that Christina would be the new R. Kelly? This also may be the tamest performance that Gaga has ever given on national TV, and that’s with it being taken into consideration that we thought that this was going to be Madonna – Britney Spears 2.0 through the whole second half of the song.
The result = After going through a lengthy night of performances, we had the results … and the predictable winner. We said that iTunes favored Tessanne, and we were right as Tessanne was crowned the victor. Episode Grade: B+.
Do you think the right person won “The Voice” this season? Be sure to share your thoughts below! If you want to read some more news, including scoop on next season and the winners’ single, be sure to click here.
Photo: NBC