NBC’s ‘The Voice’ review: Christina Grimmie, Josh Kaufman, Kat Perkins take on top 8

Tonight on “The Voice,” we had the great filler show! Seriously. Considering that this was two hours, couldn’t there have been a better way to sort this out? You have around 120 minutes of air time minus commercials, and even if you gave all eight singers two songs of three minutes each, that’s still only 48 minutes. Heck, a pair of two-minute performances would be 32. Either one of these would be preferable to one performance, and the banter about Adam Levine’s hair. Seriously. We get it. It’s strange.

As the night goes on, we’re going to update our list of performances, and at the very end, we’ll have our full rankings from worst to first. Be on the lookout for that! Also, be on the lookout for one performance we would like to pretend never existed.

8. Delvin Choice, “I Believe I Can Fly” (Team Adam) – Oh boy. We’ll give Delvin some credit for trying to make this something other than the hokey ballad from “Space Jam” that R. Kelly forces us to not take serious anymore. But still, Adam is letting that bleach in his hair get into his brain. This was not good. You might as well pen a results-show review now talking about Delvin’s exit.

7. Jake Worthington, “Hillbilly Deluxe” (Team Blake) – Wait, how is this showing off a different side of Jake? It’s another country song! Jake sang it pretty well, but we just didn’t buy this “outlaw” persona. Jake’s too sweet! He needed more energy, and for some reason he seemed more interested in wandering around the stage and giving high-fives than actually looking into the camera.

6. Kristen Merlin, “I Drive Your Truck” (Team Shakira) – Kristen was the fourth performer on the night, and compared to the three who were before her, this felt a little low-energy and lacking a little something. It was her most detached performance that we’ve seen from her, and sadly, this could put Shakira in danger of being the first coach without a team member this season.

5. Audra McLaughlin, “Forgive” (Team Blake) – It’s a big country ballad! Okay, it is immediately very easy to be cynical hearing something like this, but it was pretty good. Actually, it was Audra’s best vocal yet. Does anyone find it funny that tonight has been almost all about pimping out former contestant Gwen Sebastian, though, than any of the contestants?

4. Sisaundra Lewis, “River Deep, Mountain High” (Team Blake) – Was there any doubt that she would come out and vocally slay this? We like the presentation tonight, the styling, and pretty much everything else. The only flaw that she has is that someone could make an effort to try to make Sisaundra current.

3. Kat Perkins, “Get Lucky” (Team Adam) – There was potential for this to be really amazing, but there was also potential for it to be an absolute wreck. Going into the performance, we really had no idea which way it would fall. After hearing it, though, it was absolutely amazing. It wasn’t just about the arrangement; it was also the vocals mixed with the stage presence that lifted this to a high level. The only drawback? We wouldn’t have dragged the chorus on as much.

2.Christina Grimmie, “How To Love” (Team Adam) – Christina had the final spot tonight, and was very good doing a pop version of a hip-hop song for the second week in a row. Still, it didn’t suit her as well as the Drake cover did last week. She clearly did well enough to be near the top of our list, but there is room for improvement this time around.

1.Josh Kaufman, “I Can’t Make You Love Me” (Team Usher) – Josh took this song, spit it out, stomped on it, ripped our collective hearts out, and then smashed those, as well. There’s just something so real and emotional about how he sings, and how he carries every single note in an interesting direction. What a fantastic, near-perfect vocal this was.

Who was your favorite on “The Voice” tonight? Let us know below, and click here to see where we ranked most of the contestants going into the show. Also, you can sign up for some additional TV news worth singing about via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: NBC