The Voice review: How did DeAndre Nico, Kennedy Holmes fare in top 24?
Throughout the night, we’re going to be here offering up our take on all of the artists that come on the show and perform. Be sure to refresh the page as the night goes along! This time around, we are casting the focus on Team Adam and also Team Jennifer.
Steve Memmolo, “I Love You More Today Than Yesterday” – While Steve brought a lot of charisma to this performance, sometimes that does only go so far. This entire performance just felt dated — the notes were there, but there was nothing about this song that we’ll remember longer than an hour or so from now. Grade: C.
DeAndre Nico, “Ordinary People” – Gotta love this John Legend performance. We knew that DeAndre could sing, so our big point of curiosity entering this was whether or not he was going to bring something to it that Legend didn’t. He did that with some unique choices throughout the second half of the performance. The arrangement was similar, but he found a way to make it his. Grade: A-.
RADHA, “From Dusk ’til Dawn” – She’s already extremely popular overseas and in the Philippines — she’s a beast if she makes it far enough. We think she doesn’t need to be a little grittier in her performances — they are almost too polished — you can’t listen to her performances and think that she isn’t anything but super-worthy of moving forward. (We didn’t really like the high note near the end of the performance, though.) Grade: B.
Kameron Marlowe, “I Ain’t Living Long Like This” – We know that Adam really wants a country artist to compete against Blake and we definitely get it. Kameron’s got the vocal chops in order to pull that sort of thing off — but was this more than a slightly-better-than-average midtempo country performance? It’s not going to win The Voice, but it should advance him. Grade: B+.
Tyke James, “Use Somebody” – Tyke is super-raw still — he’s got a little bit of a Sawyer Fredericks to him in that sense, but he also has a little bit more of a rock vibe to him. He doesn’t quite know how to hold out the right notes just yet, but he’s one of the most curious people Adam’s got in terms of potential. Grade: B+.
Reagan Strange, “Worth It” – It’s a Voice contestant doing another Voice contestant’s song! We like the idea behind this and we do think that Reagan did a good job with it by and large. It wasn’t the flashiest vocal, but we do think Reagan made a small case to advance — we just think that there are three better artists overall on her team. Grade: B.
Team Jennifer Hudson
Patrique Forston, “Ain’t Nobody” – Patrique kicked off Team Alicia like a bat out of hell, moving about the stage with his crazy-cool fashion sense and his super-silky voice. This was a guy who brought almost everything that he could to the stage and, to nobody’s surprise, most of it worked. Grade: A-.
MaKenzie Thomas, “I Believe in You and Me” – There were shoes thrown and there was plenty of praise. We think that MaKenzie still does need to come out of her shell a little bit more and get a bit bolder. This was a great performance vocally, but it does still think that MaKenzie has a lot more room to open up and show the sort of artist she really is. Grade: B+.
Franc West, “Apologize” – Franc’s got an ability to pull anyone in with his voice. He’s got a nice falsetto and really can manipulate a song lyrically to suit his voice. We were all in on this before he stood up from the piano. That’s where things only got more original insanity. Franc’s a real artist who can find a way to make a pretty recognizable hit into something fresh and different. Grade: A.
SandyRedd, “No More Drama” – We love the hood that couldn’t really contain her hair, and we have no idea how she even hit the notes that she did throughout most of this. NEXT. LEVEL. Jennifer Hudson’s team is looking really good at the moment. Grade: A-.
Colton Smith, “Scared to Be Lonely” – Jennifer stole him back for a reason. Colton has a good bit of talent, just as he also has some real-unique style with the mustache and the red jacket. He’s got good range, but we have to say that after the two performances that came before him, Colton just didn’t have the same intensity to him. It wasn’t until he did some of the falsetto runs that we started to think “okay, so this guy may have a chance to move forward.” Grade: B-.
Kennedy Holmes, “Halo” – Kennedy is one of the people on The Voice who is going to get a lot of hype this season and understandably so — especially when she performs like she did tonight with “Halo.” There was a lot to like here, especially when she hit all of the notes and still kept herself composed at the very end of what is a really hard song to sing. Grade: A.
What did you think about some of the performances from Team Adam on the show tonight? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments. Be sure to share in the comments! (Photo: NBC.)