The Voice US Rankdown (Winner Reveal pg. 117)

[*Chris]

FELICIA TEMPLE

 

It was the first episode of the Blind Auditions of Season 12 when we were introduced to the powerhouse vocalist known as Felicia Temple - she completely knocked it out of the park when she covered Etta James’s “All I Could Do Was Cry” and chose to be on Team Alicia. 

 

And from this moment, I knew that Felicia Temple was one to take seriously as the competition progressed - I was absolutely gutted when Felicia was eliminated following her battle against Quizz Swaingan (who?), where they sang Titanium & I thought she sounded great on the song, but luckily she was saved by Blake Shelton. And in that moment, I knew we shouldn’t have high hopes considering that she was on Team Blake.

For the knockout round, she was  paired against Casi Joy, whom I liked, during the Knockout round - she absolutely nailed My Heart Will Go One; please take note as this is how the performance should be done when your name is not Céline Dion.  And to no one’s surprises, she was eliminated from the Knockout round & was later brought back as the coaches comeback - unfortunately for her, she was just brought back to be eliminated; She sang Defying Gravity as it was expected as she knew how to pander to me

I also want to take the time to recognize her for returning back to being a Nurse and on the frontline during the pandemic :

 

 

[*Lily]

Ashley De La Rosa

 

This was definitely one of my toughest battles and one I regret putting together because both Ashley and Koryn were really great, I just enjoyed Koryn a tad more. She turned Christina's chair in Season 2 and joined her team with her performance of "Shark in the Water", a song I used to really love and I thought she did a great job with it! Making it to the live shows, she was saved by Christina in the first week before being eliminated in Week 3. Ashley's gone on to have a great career in musical theatre starring in Hamilton, which is really awesome to see.

 

Maya Smith

 

I think out of my wildcards, Maya was one of the more under-the-radar picks, but she is someone who has stuck with me all these seasons later and I really enjoyed. She joined Pharrell's team at the auditions with her performance of "Do Right Woman (Do Right Man)", before losing out to Hannah Huston in the battles with "Elastic Heart". I think the right decision was made there but Hannah and Maya both did great and I'm glad Christina saw something in her to steal her. It's a shame that I feel Maya struggled in the knockouts and had a shaky vocal which led to her going, because I felt like she definitely had potential. She was also up against Tamar Davis who delivered a killer vocal that night.

 

Anita Antoinette

 

Anita had a great journey on the show of someone who auditioned a few seasons before, didn't make it through, took on the advice and came back and really crushed it. Her season 7 audition of "Turn Your Lights Down Low" was really beautifully sung and won all four chairs. She joined Gwen's team, and her mix of great and terrible songs assigned to her ("Rude"? "All About That Bass"?) took her through to the top 10, where she was eliminated.

 

We McDonald

 

We appeared on Season 11, where she is probably most remembered for having a really soulful, powerful singing voice, and her talking voice was totally the opposite.  I love how it threw off the advisors/coaches each time they first heard it. I loved We's connection with her coach Alicia and how well they seemed to bond. I liked a lot of her performances, my favorites which come to mind include "Feeling Good", "No More Drama", "Home" and "God Bless the Child". She made it to third place of that season as the highest placing female contestant which was a great feat!

 

JChosen

 

JChosen really kicked off Season 12 with a bang with his performance of "Sexual Healing" that got all four chairs turned. In a big shock to everyone, including her, he chose Gwen as his coach. I thought with all the attention his first audition got he could have been someone to go far but he ended up being eliminated at the playoffs which I felt was far too soon for him. I would have liked to have seen more of him but he always has that first performance which was really great.

 

Sa'Rayah

Sa'Rayah!  I really loved her on Season 11 and what she brought. She auditioned with a powerhouse vocal of "Drown in My Own Tears" that saw Alicia and Miley turn their chairs, and she opted to join Team Miley, before being stolen by Alicia in a really great battle against Aaron Gibson performing "I'll Take Care of You". Alicia took her to the live shows as her own choice at the playoffs, however unfortunately was the first eliminated in that season at the top 12 show. I can't say I was surprised but I was definitely bummed as I thought she deserved way better.

[Elliott]

That Ashley De La Rosa write-up is not it! :ermm:

[Solaris]

So quick update

 

I am missing 6 write ups from @sublymonal, 2 from @*Chris, and 11 from @QueenKalie

[*Chris]

LINDSEY PAVAO

 

Lindsey Pavao is best known for her artistry and her quirkiness which helped her sell her rendition of "Say Ahh" during the blind auditions of the second season of The Voice - she was able to turn around 3 chairs, and she eventually went on Team Christina.  She was able to continue to but her own touch on songs such as "Heart Shaped Box" during the battle round, which she easily won.  And during the lives, Lindsey was able to impress the public at a time when many artists out there had a similar tone to her - her and her coach always knew how to choose songs perfect for her voice such as "Somebody That I Used To Know" & "Skinny Love" - my two favourite performances of her..   In other words, she was able to impress with her artistry and her unique tone, and getting eliminated in the semi-finals due to the format.

[*Chris]

JORDAN SMITH

 

 

When it comes to Jordan Smith, the Winner of the 9th season of The Voice, I am fairly indifferent when it comes to him. In fact, there's no denying that he is talented but his songs choices were often a bit too boring for me - I wish they were more excitement when it came to his songs. That being said, I did enjoy "Chandelier" & "Somebody To Love" as they are the two of his performances that I actually remember.  As well, he was far from being my favourite - I am unsure where he would be ranked but he is certainly not in my Top 5 of the season.   And to be honest, the only reason why I wanted to include him on Team *Chris-tina  was for this reason :

 

 

 
Thank you for gifting this song to Queen Celine Dion to perform in Deadpool 2, and also you should all watch this  audition from The Voice : La Plus Belle Voix :

 

 

Edited June 22, 2021 by *Chris

[*Chris]

And done! 

[Solaris]

just @QueenKalie and @sublymonal left and we can move on!

[sublymonal]

Team Nick - Battle Round Write-ups, Part 2

 

204. Melanie Martinez [S3, Top 6 - Team Adam]

I think, if this rankdown had happened before December 2017, Melanie would have been Top 20 material. Of course, we also would only have 12 seasons of The Voice instead of 20 which is… insane to think about. But, alas, Melanie was accused of sexually assaulting a friend of hers and her reputation was a little tarnished. We never found out if those allegations were true, but I choose to believe the victim until proven otherwise.That being said, Melanie was definitely an interesting part of Season 3 and I like her first album, Cry, Baby, before everything that happened so I thought she should advance if only so she got a write-up but I wasn’t about to let her advance any further than this.

 

206. Mark Hood [S9, Top 12, Team Pharrell]

Mark Hood was part of one of my favourite seasons of The Voice, so I have a certain fondness for him, even if he was the first person eliminated in the finals. That being said, I think he’s a talented and attractive dude, so I advanced him because I think he deserves a spot in this rankdown and a write-up. Mark’s audition was the first one shown on the first episode. He received a four chair turn after his cover of Bill Withers’ “Use Me” and ultimately picked Pharrell as his coach, which I think was a good fit for his soulful voice. In the Battle Rounds, he beat Celeste Betton when they sang “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, but Celeste ultimately got the Coach’s Comeback and ended up in the Playoffs anyway. Then in the Knockouts, he beat Sianha Im when he sang Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”. In the playoffs, Mark was Pharell’s choice after Evan McKeel and Madi Davis advanced based on the Public Vote, but I thought his cover of Justin Bieber’s “What Do You Mean” was worth of being advanced, so I’m glad Pharrell picked him.  However, at the Top 12, Mark dug his own grave when he sang “Against All Odds” and the next night, was in the Bottom 2. He sang “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” for the Instant Save, but ultimately lost out to Korin Bukowski which was the right decision. Still, I like Mark and think he’s talented, but he wasn’t one of my top picks so this seems like a fine placement for him.

 

207. Jej Vinson [S16, Top 13, Team Kelly]

It makes me sad that @Teraginn told me Jej is problematic because I definitely had a low-key crush on him. But, alas, Jej is one of those contestants that I think never really lived up to the hype of his audition. His audition was aired last during the third episode of auditions in Season 16. He auditioned with a cover of Drake’s “Passionfruit” that went viral and earned him a four chair turn where he chose Kelly as his coach. In the Battles, he went up against Beth Griffith-Manley and won after the two of them sang Nick Jonas’ “Jealous” which, to be fair, felt like a song choice more geared to Jej, but Beth was saved by John Legend. In the Cross Battles, Jej was paired against Team Adam’s contestant LB Crew. Jej won after he sang a cover of Bruno Mars’ “Versace on the Floor”, which I actually really liked. LB got a chance to compete in the Comeback Stage. In the playoffs, Jej sang Khalid and Normani’s “Love Lies” and was Kelly’s pick to advance to the Top 13. Unfortunately, he was eliminated in the Top 13 after he sang a cover of Nick Jonas and Tove Lo’s “Close”. I remember being sad he was eliminated but not surprised. I think Jej had a really interesting style and voice, but I always wanted more for him so I’m not surprised he only made it to the Top 13 nor that he lost his battle here.

 

208. Josiah Hawley [S4, Top 10, Team Usher]

Josiah almost won his battle and, let’s be real, if @JC was a ranker, he would have won his battle. Josiah is, far an away, one of the hottest guys to ever make the finals on the show. Was he talented? Eh. He was a pretty guy who could sing decently well and play guitar. He was the Tim Urban of The Voice, but we all put up with it because he was hot.

 

Josiah’s audition was shown during the second episode in Season 4. He sang Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning” and received a three chair turn from Adam, Blake and Usher. Ultimately, he picked Usher. In the Battles, he went up against Jeff Lewis and sang “Roxanne” by Police and won his battle. In the Knockouts, he went against Jess Kellner and sang Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black”. Again, I don’t remember being blown away by his voice at all, but it was clear Usher kept putting him against fodder contestants to get him to finals because his looks would probably carry him through the voting rounds. This was back when The Voice was actually trying to find marketable artists.

 

In the live playoffs, he sang Muse’s “Starlight” which was a surprising choice for him, and became Usher’s pick to advance. Then, at the Top 12, he sang The Script’s “Man Who Can’t Be Moved” which felt more up his alley, and was advanced based on the public vote. At the Top 10, however, he sang Coldplay’s “Clocks” and was eliminated. At the time, I remember being upset about it because he was my eye candy for the season and I haaaated Holly, Danielle the Swon Brothers, but the rest of the Top 8 that season was pretty legit so I’m not surprised he was eliminated. He’s also since moved to Tokyo and continued to record music and model so, good for him.

 

209. Taylor John Williams [S7, Top 5, Team Gwen]

 

Taylor was a contestant on Season 7 of the Voice. His audition was shown in the premiere, where he sang a cover of Kanye West’s “Heartless” in the same vein as Kris Allen. He earned a two-chair turn from Adam and Gwen and ultimately chose Gwen as his coach. In the battles, Taylor went up against Amanda Lee Peers and sang a cover of “Jolene”. He won the battle and Amanda was eliminated. Then, in the Knockout Round, Taylor sang “Mad World” up against Troy Ritchie in what was one of the most one-sided battles that season. Taylor’s version of Mad World is probably one of his most memorable performances and earned him a spot in the live playoffs. 

 

In the live playoffs, he sang “Stuck in the Middle With You” in the last spot of the night and advanced based on the public vote. Going into the finals, I wouldn’t say Taylor was a front runner by any means, but he was definitely one of the people that would probably make it far and maybe even into the final if he played his cards right. That seemed to be the direction he was heading when he sang Bread’s “If” at the Top 12 and became one of just two contestants to get the iTunes multiplier. At Top 10, he sang a cover of the Beatles’ “Come Together”, which was decent but didn’t earn him the multiplier that week.

 

Then, at the Top 8, he sang Lorde’s “Royals” and earned the multiplier again, which was one of, if not my favourite performance of his. At that point, it definitely seemed like he was destined for the Finale, but at the Top 5, even with the multiplier on his cover of Blank Space and a pretty solid cover of Falling Slowly, he was the person that was eliminated. I still feel like he got the short end of the stick, but I also think if he was eliminated on that night that he probably would not of won. Still, he was definitely an interesting part of Season 7 and one of my favourites that season.

 

210. Audra McLaughlin [S6, Top 8, Team Blake]

 

Tbh I only picked Audra because I’ve seen her do shows in Nashville with some of my other faves and she’s always funny and her original stuff is good. I also knew some people liked her so I thought she might be a good addition to my team, but when it came time to make the battles, I put her popularity to the test by putting her against Thunderstorm and ultimately she lost. So let’s talk about her journey on the show.

 

Audra auditioned for Season 6. Her audition was shown last in the 4th episode that season and she sang “Angel From Montgomery”. As soon as they showed her bio, it was clear she would pick Blake, which is exactly what happened when she got the four chair turn. In the Battle Rounds, she went up against Alaska & Madi and sang the Everly Brothers’ “When Will I Be Loved”. She won and Alaska & Madi were eliminated. Then, in Round 2 of the Battles she sang Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb” against Megan Rüger and beat her handedly as well.

 

In the playoffs, Blake chose her after her cover of Martina McBride’s “A Broken Wing”. If nothing else, Audra knew how to appeal to Blake’s country sensibilities, so it was clear that going into the lives, she and Jake were going to do well but also compete for the country vote. During the Top 12 show, she sang “Angel of the Morning” and advanced based on the public vote. At Top 10, it was the same story after she sang Reba’s “You Lie” which was one of her best performances, in my opinion. At Top 8 she sang “Forgive” by Rebecca Lynn Howard but landed in the Bottom 4 and was forced to sing for the Instant Save. She ultimately lost to The Queen of the Instant Save, Kat Perkins, after singing a cover of The Band Perry’s “Done”.

 

All in all, I think Audra had a good run on the show, but that’s not why I picked her and, in fact, she was just there during Season 6 to me. I mostly picked her based on what I’ve seen from her since she graduated from the show, but I didn’t have much attachment to her so I broke the tie in Thunderstorm’s favour.

[Solaris]

Alright just need @QueenKalie and we can move on.  If I get them tonight, I will post the new rules.

[QueenKalie]

Owen Danoff

 

I was originally going to pick an all female team to make Miley proud but a bunch of the women I liked were picked by other people so instead of picking fodder women to fill the last couple spots I chose a couple of guys that I kinda liked. Owen was on season 10 of the voice which was a season that had a lot of people that I liked so it was a really good season in my opinion. Anyways Owen had some performances that I liked such as She's Always A Woman To Me. Fun side fact Owen was or still is a big Survivor fan so that's cool too.

 

 

[QueenKalie]

Holly Tucker

 

Holly Tucker was on the legendary season 4. I think season 4 and 5 were the pinnacle of the Voice and while I think Holly was a perfectly fine artist she definitely was out done by other performers that season. Holly was the "Other" country girl on Team Blake during season 4. Holly has released a bunch of post Voice stuff and does a lot of concerts and stuff in Texas which is where she is from. So while she hasn't become a household name or a big star she's probably making a living out of doing something she loves so that's cool I guess. 

 

Here's one of her performances that I did like. 

 

[QueenKalie]

Chevel Shepherd

 

Chevel is one of the more polarizing winners that the Voice has had. She has a lot of fans and haters on IDF and I figured with this group of rankers that she would probably lose this battle but I like Sarah Grace and Chevel about the same so I wasn't too worried about the result either way. Chevel is one of the few country singers to openly reject Blake Shelton for another coach and for that decision alone we have to stan. Most of the time if a country artist ends up on another team its because Blake either didn't turn around or he was blocked or something. But Kelly has been able to take a few of them away from Blake so that's cool. I wasn't sure if Chevel has released any music or not so I checked Spotify and she has released an album this year. It looks to be her first music that she has released it has some okay numbers but nothing special. Here's a video that shows Chevel's journey on the voice. 

 

 

[Elliott]

The only interesting tidbit I have about Chevel is that I thought her name was pronounced like Shovel.

[QueenKalie]

Terry McDermott

 

Terry McDermott was on season 3 of the Voice and he was on Team Blake. Terry finished runner up to fellow Team Blake member Cassadee Pope. There's certainly no shame in finishing runner up to Cassadee. Terry was an older Irish rocker guy and his rock performances were pretty good overall. My only slight complaint about some of his performances is that they were a little karaoke so they sounded a little bit too much like the originals for me. I did like his performances well enough but he was one of the last persons I chose to add to my team so I am not too bothered that he lost his battle.  

 

 

Here's his knockout performance Maybe I'm Amazed since Youtube wouldn't allow me to embed any of his other performances for some reason loi.

 

[*Chris]

7 minutes ago, Elliott said:

The only interesting tidbit I have about Chevel is that I thought her name was pronounced like Shovel.

Same, so I kept calling her that. 

The other thing is her name reminds me of cheval which is the french word for horse.

[QueenKalie]

Kat Hammock

 

Kat is another one of the more polarizing contestants that has been on the voice.  Kat was on season 17 of The Voice and she was on Team Blake. Kat's voice is not very powerful and it's on the softer side of things and that's not everyone's cup of tea which is fine. I like a lot of singers that have soft voices so I didn't mind it at all. Kat wasn't my favorite on her season but I did vote for her and I think she made top 8 so she did alright for herself despite having a lot of haters. Not sure what she has been up to lately but I wish her the best of luck in the future. 

 

Here is Kat's top 10 performance You're Still the One by Shania Twain.

 

 

[QueenKalie]

Grey

 

Grey who has one of the longest and unpronounceable last names goes by just Grey to save all people the trouble of trying to pronounce it lol.  Grey was on  the legendary season 5 and was on Team Adam which was just absolutely stacked that season. Adam's season 5 team is up there with the all time best teams and if Grey was on another season or even another team she probably would have made it a lot farther than she actually did because she was a very  good singer.  Grey was a pop singer that sang some pretty hard songs to sing and she did them very well so I was a big fan of hers back in the day. 

 

Here is her blind audition of "Catch My Breath"

 

 

[QueenKalie]

Bria Kelly 

 

Bria Kelly had one of the all time greatest auditions in voice history and was obviously a 4 chair turn and Bria chose to be on team Usher. I don't know if that was a bad choice or but she was never really able to come close to her blind audition performance. Bria was apart of the "3 musketeers" a trio that was her Tess Boyer and Christina Grimmie. They were all super close on the show and did everything together. I was a big fan of all 3 of them but I prefered Tess the most out of the group. Unfortunately I don't think Bria or Tess is singing anymore and we all are aware of the tragic murder of Christina so this trio kinda is no more sadly. 

 

Here's Bria's blind audition performance of Steamroller Blues

 

 

[QueenKalie]

And with that my write ups are finally done! 

[Solaris]

@QueenKalie where are Joanna Jermaine and Jackie?  I must be blind as I don't see them

[QueenKalie]

2 minutes ago, Solaris said:

@QueenKalie where are Joanna Jermaine and Jackie?  I must be blind as I don't see them

oh oops I lied I am not done and I forgot those 2 whoops. *sigh*

Edited June 23, 2021 by QueenKalie

[Solaris]

theres 3!  

[QueenKalie]

1 minute ago, Solaris said:

theres 3!  

way to pile on lol. 

[QueenKalie]

Jackie Foster

 

Jackie Foster was on season 14 of the voice and started off on Team Kelly but moved onto Team Adam. There were 2 Jackie's that made the live show and they were both on team Adam so for twitter save hashtags they had to go by #JackieF etc so that was kinda funny lol. During her season I was probably the biggest Jackie Foster fan on IDF I think my picture was of her at the time. I still continue to follow her has diminished over time. I liked a lot of her voice performances but some of the music or lack of music that she has released has made me lose interest. 

 

Here's Jackie's Bring Me to Life performance which I think was good.