NBC’s ‘The Voice’ review: Cole Vosbury, Will Champlin, and Jacquie Lee try to rock top 12

The top 12 on “The Voice” have all now performed, and while we know that not all of these people are going to be radio-friendly or big stars a year from now, we have to say that pound for pound, this was the best top 12 of any singing show in a few years. There were no bad performers tonight; the bottom three or four are simply there because they weren’t that exciting, and maybe only made a few mistakes here and there. Then, the top artists all performed like they were completely on another planet. A great night for singing, but also a great night for entertainment to go along with it.

For the rest of the season, we’re doing something to make it a little more clear just who shined the brightest on the show: We’re ranking all of the performances from worst to first! We encourage you to do the same in the comments below, and we also have our poll attached.

12. Jonny Gray, “Another Day in Paradise” (Team Cee Lo) – The end of this was a heck of a lot better than the beginning, which was a little bit of a mess. With this being Veteran’s Day, Jonny will understandably get some support for that, and he also did choose something that could be an introduction to the song for many people. But, he could be in trouble.

11. Josh Logan, “Man in the Mirror” (Team Christina) – Thankfully, someone has told Josh that there is no need to do a million vocal runs in every song that he does. This is not the most innovative song choice for him to do ever, but at least the stripped-down performance at first saved this from being Michael Jackson karaoke, at least at first. So this was good … but not anything special, or something that we’ll rush to tell our friends about.

10. Ray Boudreaux, “All of Me” (Team Blake) – This was a good performance for Ray if the strategy is to court the lady votes. But, we don’t think that it is going to be enough to really get him significantly further in the competition. There are a series of guys this season that all tend to blend together, and despite some highlights here and there, he feels like one of them.

9. Austin Jenckes, “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” (Team Blake) – The thing about Austin is that there are a few hundred country singers out there who can probably do this performance just as well as him vocally. At least we can say that he is thoroughly believable as a singer, and this was the sort of country song that was not so down-south that non-country fans will ignore it. Smart move by Blake.

8. Kat Robichaud, “Sail” (Team Cee Lo) – Clearly, this was a performance that was much more in the wheelhouse from Kat than what she tried to do last week to show off a more emotional side. The style and the stage presence had “Ce Loo team member” written all over it. But is Kat going to really do enough here to court voters? Geeky Husband in the audience was slightly endearing, but we think that if she wants to go really deep, she needs even more of an edge.

7. Tessanne Chin, “My Kind of Love” (Team Adam) – We think that vocally, there is no stopping Tessanne right now. But there are times when we feel like we don’t connect to her fully. That may be one of those times; since she  was singing this for her husband, it almost felt a little bit like a moment for the two of them that we were intruding upon.

6. Caroline Pennell, “Wake Me Up” (Team Cee Lo) – This was at least a little bit of something new for Caroline: An extremely upbeat pop song that is currently dominating the charts. This may be the first performance that really has us a 100% believer in Caroline winning this season. It showed that she can go outside her style somewhat and find ways for songs to work for her. She sounded great! Not only that, but some of her folksy stage presence is starting to show up.

5. James Wolpert, “Mr. Brightside” (Team Adam) – There were parts of this song that were completely manic and wacky, but let it be said that this is a darn near impossible song to cover live. You have to able to take on not just the voice of Brandon Flowers, but also the presence. James didn’t feel like a carbon copy (which is good), but he still captured the majority of the emotion and energy behind the song.

4. Matthew Schuler, “Hallelujah” (Team Christina) – We did not expect to like this that much, since this is on that list of songs that should never be done on a competition show again. But he chose a couple of interesting verses from the song to sing, and there was also such a different sort of vocal delivery to it. Probably, this is probably the most choked-up we’ve been over a rendition of this song since Rufus Wainwright covered it years ago.

3. Will Champlin, “Demons” (Team Adam) – While there were a few moments where we worried about the pitch maybe going out of control, they didn’t, and Will really proved once again that this is an underdog that really deserves to have his day. There were some risks, and we think that he could end up going far in this competition somehow.

2. Jacquie Lee, “Love Is Blindness” (Team Christina) – Where was this girl back during the early rounds of the show? For the second straight week, Jacquie has come out and slayed a song like was nobody’s business. This was a great song choice for her, and it’s almost like Christina put all her thought into this one while saddling her other team members with overdone stuff.

1. Cole Vosbury, “Adorn” (Team Blake) – Where in the world did that come from? The truth is with Cole that we think he’s hiding some sort of vocal treats inside of that massive beard, and occasionally he pulls a couple of them out and allows them to go play in front of the audience. This was a part of his voice that we didn’t even know was there, and it was incredible. Episode Grade: A-.

Click here if you want to see where we ranked all of the contestants going into this, and we will have some more news from the show soon.

Photo: NBC