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Monday night’s episode of The Voice was one of the best nights when it came to the battle rounds. We got to see the teams working not only with their coaches, but the advisors to showcase outstanding talent on the stage; so going into Tuesday night’s show, I was expecting the same thing. While we still got to see some great performances in the second night of the battle rounds, I was a tad disappointed to see that Tuesday night’s show was cut down to just one hour.
There were three performances that were shown tonight in its entirety and I loved each one of them. Cee Lo Green’s, Blake Shelton’s and Christina Aguilera’s teams were featured in last night’s show, and those teams were tough when it came to choosing who stood out the most. This year’s talent is just mind-blowing, so with that said, let’s get into what went down on the second night of battles.
Matthew Schuler, the twenty-year of from Yardley, Pennsylvania and thirty year old Jacob Poole from Warner Robins, Georgia worked with both Christina and Ed Sheeran in rehearsals with the selected song “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark” by Fall Out Boy. I thought it was a perfect song for the both of them. Jacob, who only got a one chair turn pretty much proved himself to Christina in rehearsal. They both just dominated together in the song, however, I loved Matthew from the very first note he sang in his blind audition. I agreed with Adam Levine when he said that it was a ‘musical ass-whooping’, because it was. Although it was hard for Christina to choose, she made the wise chose in keeping Matt to possibly shine again for the upcoming knock-out rounds.
The second battle of the night was from Team Cee Lo’s Kat Robichaud, the twenty-nine year old who resides in Raleigh, North Carolina and R. Anthony, the thirty-three year old from Tampa, Florida. Working with Cee Lo and advisor, R&B songwriter, Miguel, they chose the song “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith. I’ve always been partial to R. Anthony because of the soulful sound he has, but Kat is a wild card because of the way she can belt out a note. I’m not big on the constant runs in a song, so I agreed with Miguel that R. Anthony would have to find the right time to use them. The minute both took to the stage to battle it out, it proved to be much harder on Cee Lo to make his decision. I would have loved to have seen R. Anthony stay, but Kat just edged him out a bit more.
The final performance of the evening was that of Blake Shelton’s team. With the help of his advisor, Cher, they partnered up to work with Monika Leigh and Ray Boudreaux on the song “Some Kind of Wonderful” by Grand Funk. Monika’s vocal style tends to change when she sings. During the first rehearsal, she took the song in one direction, but as Cher pointed out, during their second rehearsal, she had a totally different style the next time around. Ray was very consistent in the song, but at times I thought he shied away somewhat when matched with Monika. Even though Blake kept Ray, it was good that Cee Lo hit the “Steal” button (the only one for the night) to keep Monika.
With three great performances being shown, I was very disappointed that we didn’t get to see Ashley DuBose and Justin Blake, from Team Adam perform “Just a Fool” the duet originated by Blake and Christina. I would have loved to have heard the beauty of the song that Ashley would have showcased. Other performances not shown in their entirety was E.G. Daily and Sam Cerniglia, who sang Bonnie Rait’s “Something to Talk About”, and Cole Vosbury and Lupe Carroll, who battled with the song “Africa” by the band Toto.
Let’s see what’s to come next Monday night when more battles take place; and with Christina still holding out to snatch an artist up with a steal, I have a feeling one of those could be someone from Team Adam. Next week’s battles on The Voice begins Monday 8/7 and Tuesday, 9/8.
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