NBC’s ‘The Voice’ preview: Did Adam Levine make a mistake with Donna Allen, Tessanne Chin?

Even before Monday night’s episode of “The Voice” airs, we can answer that question with a “yes.” Adam Levine made a huge mistake putting Donna Allen and Tessanne Chin together for the Battle Rounds. It’s like taking two gladiators and forcing them to fight each other in hand-to-hand combat, and then asking some street merchants and politicians to do the same thing. While you may be looking for diversity of artists on your team, you also want the best of the best. This exemplifies them, and that’s not some sort of cruel little slam against anyone else.

The video evidence of the epicness that is these two can be seen below, where they perform a song in “Next to Me” that is admittedly getting drilled into the ground despite only being around for a tiny amount of time. For a song that was only a modest hit here in America, you wonder if Emeli Sande’s people are just begging people to use this song or if the songbook is really that tiny.

The easy, and predictable, move for Adam to make here is simple: Tessanne is younger, and has more of a future in the industry considering that Donna already has been in the business and had a big opportunity. Tessanne also got a whopping four chairs to turn around for her, but the good thing about “The Voice” is that there are examples of major upsets that you can go back and look on. Adam may be more than fine with pitting these two against each other since he knows that the coaches are going to probably save the other, and they will both move forward in the competition.

But if Adam wanted to really get some singers deep into the competition, you’d think that he wants to keep both. One potential irony to this season is that thanks to a new twist, where you can steal an artist during the knockout rounds, we imagine it being possible that he could allow someone to get stolen, and then steal them back down the road. If this were to happen, wouldn’t it be incredibly awkward to the contestant?

Right now, we want to hear who your pick in this battle is below! Click here if you want to get a final sense as to who some of the standout contestants are for the season.

Photo: NBC