NBC’s ‘The Voice’ rankings: Sizing up Melanie Martinez, Team Adam Levine

With “The Voice” now getting closer to the live shows, we are now at a point where we can actually begin an abridged version of something that is a tradition (uses cowboy voice) around these parts: contestant rankings. However, we’ll start things off with an admission: it’s impossible really to rank everyone since there are a couple of contestants on each team who were barely shown on TV, so we really don’t have that great of an idea as to who they are or what they full range of talent is.

With this in mind, we’re going to try something a little bit different leading up to Monday night’s new episode: picking the four top contenders from each time. At the moment, the focus here is primary on what is going on in Adam Levine’s world.

4. Samuel Mouton – Maybe we are just a sucker for reggae music, but this is something that there is a really gap for in the market at the moment. There’s just no one bringing the styles of Bob Marley back, and who would have thought it would be a guy who doesn’t look like Marley in the slightest? We really just want to see what more he can do.

3. Nicole Nelson – Nicole actually made us interested in hearing another version of “Hallelujah” again! She may be one of the best female singers in the entire competition at the moment, and the real challenge for her moving forward is going to be trying to find a way to draw votes from a young audience looking for something current. It’s really unfair, but there have been many singers like Nicole on these sort of shows before.

2. Bryan Keith – Bryan is not particularly flashy, but he is solid and has a genuine air of confidence about him. Adam has a real darkhorse here mostly because you could tell during his audition that there was so much more that he could do with his voice, but he didn’t want to give all of his tricks away in just one audition. He’s going to be a hard guy for people to guess about before he comes on stage, and that can be a rather good thing in a singing competition.

1. Melanie Martinez – Oftentimes, the most interesting contestants here are the ones that we cannot completely label, and this is where Melanie comes in. When it comes to her artistry, energy, and creativity, we actually compare her a little bit to how another famous Melanie approached a reality competition: Melanie Moore on “So You Think You Can Dance.” If you’ll recall, this Melanie won her season, and so long as we see the same sort of art through this Melanie’s music as we did during her “Toxic” audition, she has a very good shot at taking this home.

Who do you think is the best artist from Adam’s team at the moment? Be sure to share your thoughts below!