NBC’s ‘The Voice’ rankings: Alisan Porter, Adam Wakefield, Hannah Huston lead top 11

If there is one thing that we have learned from “The Voice” this past week, it is that sometimes, iTunes sales don’t quite matter as much as many of us previously assumed that they did. Take, for example, Emily Keener going home despite being the third-strongest performer on there this week.

With that, we’re adjusting our rankings criteria somewhat; we’re diminishing iTunes (other than those in the top 10) slightly, and instead emphasizing coach and genre popularity to go along with performance quality and screen time.

11. Owen Danoff (Adam, last week: 8) – Having Owen in the bottom on this past episode was certainly a surprise, given that he sang a popular song in “7 Years” and fared decently on iTunes. We’re chalking this up to too many similar artists, in between Daniel and Nick still being in the competition.

10. Paxton Ingram (Blake, 12) – Paxton being safe last week was a tremendous shock to many people, but consider it to be the Blake Shelton Effect. Having this guy as a mentor really can help you get really far, much more so than you would get otherwise.

9. Daniel Passino (Pharrell, 9) – Daniel was serviceable on this past episode, but we never got the sense that he was going to be a consensus favorite the rest of the season. Also, he’s got the same problem that Owen has in too much competition in his own genre.

8. Nick Hagelin (Christina, 3) – You can copy most of what we just said here. Admittedly, part of the change here is just that we overrated Nick going into last week thanks to iTunes. The one thing going for him? He did perform a Blake song,

7. Bryan Bautista (Christina, 5) – Bryan’s biggest flaw right now is that he is coming off of a “Kiss From a Rose” performance that was a little bit dated for someone who has such a natural swagger and a great voice. He has to work on being a little more current moving into the next episode.

6. Shalyah Fearing (Adam, 10) – She’s coming off of a great performance, and one where she even got to perform last on the show. Her edit has been a little all over the place this season; the biggest thing she still needs is her mentor giving her a few more innovative song choices.

5. Laith Al-Saadi (Adam, 4) – What’s working against Laith at the moment is mostly that his song choices really are not going to be too familiar to the majority of young viewers out there. However, if older fans continue to vote for him, he could be a darkhorse to make it to the end.

4. Mary Sarah (Blake, 7) – Like we mentioned at the start of the article, Team Blake is a monster when it comes to getting votes. It’s even more of the case when you’re talking about a country singer on Team Blake. We don’t even think that her last performance was last great, but she performed first and even still was not in any danger.

3. Hannah Huston (Pharrell, 6) – She’s likely the most underrated person left this season, and if we were to try to read the tea leaves for a moment, we’d say that we almost expect Hannah to go near the end of this upcoming episode and deliver a huge moment.

2. Alisan Porter (Christina, 1) – What’s this? Alisan not at #1, even though she had the best performance of this past week? We do think as of right now she probably should be the winner based on her overall quality of work, but given that Christina has never won this competition before, and she wasn’t the #1 selling iTunes artist in the top 10 last week, we do still have reservations.

1. Adam Wakefield (Blake, 2) – This is why Adam is #1. He’s a country singer the likes of whom are very popular right now. Also, he’s got the most popular coach, he charted super-high on iTunes, and past seasons dictate he’s probably a near-lock for finale.

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