THE VOICE: The Teams are Set! [Video]

The final round of blind auditions produced mixed results for our coaches.  Not all auditioners are created equal-- especially after you've already added nine singers to your group.  Many of you may have been wondering, well...  aren't they good enough to be selected?  Not if you already have six that could go to the live shows.  Some of these folks just had the dumb luck to get called to the auditions in the last group.

• Whitney Myer decides to sing No One by Alicia Keyes.  She sang a decent rendition of the song, but very few female singers can compare to the original version.  She joins Adam's team.

• David Dunn sings The Man Who Can't Be Moved.  Unfortunately, he met four coaches who couldn't be moved.  A decent song sung decently, but not the best voice in America by any stretch of the imagination.

• The Shields Brothers decide to dust off a song fropm the Billy Idol catalogue-- Dancing With Myself.  I can't recall a garage band being in any of these talent competitions, but these guys seemed stuck in the eighties.  Inexplicably, they are chosen by Cee-Lo.

• Chessa sings If I Were A Boy.  (This would require a willing suspension of disbelief, I assure you.)  She actually acquits herself well-- not singing like Beyonce or Reba, but in her own style.  One of the better auditions of the night.  She goes to Cee-Lo's team.

• Preston Shannon is a bit of a poor man's B B King.  He does a decent version of Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour and plays a bit like a guitar master who was never given his due by the recording industry.  No one turns their chairs around for him.

• Lex Land is an interesting name for a girl.  (Surely she has Alexis on her birth certificate, wouldn't you say?  Yeah, I'm talking to you again.)  She sings the Bonnie Raitt classic I Can't Make You Love Me.  She seems to do rather well, until the judges begin turning around to see her.  Suddenly she seems as jumpy as the proverbial cat on the hot tin roof.  She decides to go with Blake.

• Cameron Novack is a piece of work who evidently feels entitled to his talent.  (His interview was edited in such a way that he came across as the man you'll love to hate.)  He sings You Oughtta Know by Alanis Morrisette.  And yes, he should've known he didn't have a snowball's chance in Havana.

• Orlando Napier sang Waiting for the World to Change. I thought this was an excellent version of yet another song that has become rather common in the audition rounds of these talent competitions.  He becomes the last member of Adam's team.

• Lee Koch sings a pleasant version of Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan.  Perhaps the most interesting thing about this audition was the complete lack of Dylan in his delivery.  Even the phrasing seemed rather odd in comparison to the other versions of Dylan songs people tend to cover.  However, Chrisitina turns around as soon as he starts playing his harmonica.

• Wade sings a rather cool version of the Amy Winehouse song Rehab.  I thought it actually sounded like a version Cee-Lo could wrap his arms around.  Evidently, Cee-Lo agreed with me.  Wade became the last added to Cee-Lo's team.

• Adley Stump sings the Carrie Underwood song Last Name.  Although she sounds a bit too much like a mimic instead of a singer, Blake jumps at the chance to add a country girl to his stable.  (No metaphor intended.)  Given that she's from Oklahoma and Blake is from Oklahoma, this could be a plus.  She's new to singing and she's going to have three of the better current singers helping her.

• Sera Hill sings a wonderful version of the song I'm Going Down.  She sings it so well that she becomes the last member of Team Christina.  They even sounded similar when Christina joined her on stage for the chorus of the song.

• Now there are 48 going into the Battle Rounds.  I guess we'll see where this is going in a few weeks.

@February 27, 2012  Stephen W Thompson