NBC’s ‘The Voice’ review: Sisaundra Lewis, Christina Grimmie, Kristen Merlin take on top 10
This is “The Voice“! Or, it happens to be “that TV show where Blake Shelton gave out Adam Levine’s phone number.” Seriously, that was milked more than almost anything has been milked on a singing show ever.
Away from coach shenanigans, there were a number of very solid performances on the night. There was one pretty epic fail, but overall this is a good crop of contestants, and a pretty likable one. In case you’re news to our realm of “Voice” reviewing, we’re going to be ranking the contestants from worst to first. Brace yourselves!
10. Bria Kelly, “I’m With You” – Usher employed “tough love” to make sure that Bria could rise about some of her recent supbar performances. At least didn’t cart around the guitar for no reason … right? We had high hopes for her early this season with all the hype, but this was almost comically bad with her delivery. The biggest problem that she has is this. Way. Too. Much. Vibrato. Nearly on a “is the television broken?” level.
9. Tess Boyer, “Ain’t It Fun” – We finally realized what the biggest problem Tess has on the show really is:Making the stage your own. Tess was burdened with a weird stage arrangement, and the dress was a little questionable too. Her voice is great, so why not let loose and have a little more fun?
8. Audra McLaughlin, “You Lie” – A very good, solid country vocal. The only issue with Audra is that she doesn’t pop. She’s one of those performers who could go to Nashville and maybe have a hit song with the right team around her, but it’s equally likely she will disappear. Another problem? She continually messes up lyrics, though the coaches never take off their positive pants enough to notice.
7. Jake Worthington, “Run” – We don’t like the boring male country singer, and we don’t often get enough of a connection from Jake when he sings. However, he seems to be a pretty likable guy, and at least has this sort of playful personality that you don’t get from some of the machismo boys in this genre.
6. Kristen Merlin, “Let Her Go” – What in the world was Shakira thinking with this song choice? You have a country singer who was coming off a great vocal before her mic cut out; our issue wasn’t necessarily that it was the Passenger hit, but that Kristen tried to perform it like it was the original version of the song. It wasn’t until the end of the performance where Kristen really got to shine, and prove to us that this is a woman with the potential to be the last country singer on this season.
5. Kat Perkins, “Landslide” – The first performance of the night. Adam Levine gave her this song, thinking that she would be able to show a new side. This was a competent rendition of the song. The only thing that could have benefited her more would have been if she was a little more willing to be patient with her notes in the early going. It’s such a pretty, heartfelt song that so long as you sing it well, you are at least going to get some praise.
4. Delvin Choice, “Bright Lights” – A great performance by Delvin. For the first time to date, we actually found out about who Delvin really wants to be as an artist. That is a very refreshing thing, and this blues / rock mash-up was different than we have from any other artist. We were rolling our eyes at Adam for keeping Delvin over Josh, and while we still disagree with it, it’s a much less egregious snub than it used to be.
3. Josh Kaufman, “This Is It” – It’s still a little bit of a weird song choice, given that this send Josh on a time machine back to at least 1979 when this song was released. But even with this being said, there was not a single bad note in this entire performance. It was smooth, pitch-perfect, and showed off his crazy range. It may not have been magical like “Stay With Me,” but it was yet another reminder that this was not a one-week wonder.
2. Christina Grimmie, “Hold On, We’re Going Home” – Another awesome performance from Christina. She and Adam have something going right now that could be hard to stop. She’s singing extremely modern, current songs, and in turn using her social-media audience in order to help her out further. Even if Christina had only three followers and YouTube subscribers going into this show, she still deserved every vote she got.
1. Sisaundra Lewis, “Oh Sherrie” – Sisaundra Lewis. Enough said. An incredible performance to end an incredible hour, as her “letting loose” to us really is music to our ears. It’s still not our favorite song choice ever, but we’re okay with that so long as she continues to provide this sort of crazy vocals to back it up.
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Photo: NBC