NBC’s ‘The Voice’ review: Did Cole Vosbury, Tessanne Chin, Will Champlin sing way into finale?

Here we are now at the final five of “The Voice,” otherwise known as the most intense part of this entire competition where things gets tough, but is the voting really going to be tough moving into tomorrow night? We feel like one person is a lock to go home, but the other spot is a little up in the air between one or two singers. Based on the performances tonight, we’d wager that two people are pretty close to locks to be singing for the title next week.

There was strangely only one round tonight, and we say that mostly because it was strange to give this show an hour and “The Sing-Off” two. Wait, you’re going to cut down the show with the better ratings?

Anyhow, let’s get to ranking the performances.

5. James Wolpert, “With Or Without You” – Performing in front of what appeared to be the spirit of the black smoke monster from “Lost,” James performed a song that “has never been done” on the show before like it was … well, a song that has been done on the show many times. It wasn’t bad, as he hit the right notes. It’s just not a very exciting song. Unless these lyrics are coming from Bono, it doesn’t quite work. Let’s just go ahead and preemptively stop the mass U2 covers on singing shows, shall we?

4. Jacquie Lee, “Angel” – Massive UGH at the song choice. There is literally nothing exciting that we get out of watching what we otherwise call the song that makes us think of the sad puppy commercials. It’s just depressing and lifeless and completely overdone on reality shows. Jacquie did a brilliant job singing it, but when you feel like a song has been covered too many times, you get bored listening to it. Jacquie should have fought against this song choice.

3. Cole Vosbury, “Shameless” – There’s a part of us that wonders if this song was a little too anthemic for mild-mannered Cole and his mild-mannered beard, but there’s no doubt to us that he’ll sell a ton of singles with it and be in the top 3 next week. It’s a Garth Brooks / Billy Joel song (a perfect choice by Blake Shelton), and he emoted very well during it. There were a few more vocal bumps in the road for Cole than usual, but it’s not going to impact him any more than that trip to the barber’s that he took with Blake.

2. Will Champlin, “Carry On” – A great song choice from Adam Levine, mostly because it wasn’t just the same stuff that we hear on reality TV and time again. We wonder a little if the older viewers will buy it on iTunes, but we don’t care. He deserves to be in the finale based on this. The funny thing is that Will has had the biggest underdog journey we’ve ever seen on the show, and he’s found a way to persevere through all of it.

1. Tessanne Chin, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” – The reason that we don’t often like many of these covers of songs that have been over-done is because most people come out and make them sound like they have a million times already. Tessanne didn’t do that. She made this completely into something soulful, powerful, and and completely her own. There were a few too many ballads tonight, but she at least did the right thing in singing the best one. She even got Adam and his magic cardigan on his feet! Episode grade: B.

Who was your favorite on “The Voice” tonight? Share your pick in the poll below! Also, click here to see where we ranked the contestants before the show.

Photo: NBC