HOUSTON – The teams are almost complete, and the talent is getting more and more concentrated. Lawd I love the Battle Rounds.
The night started off with a good ole fashioned country battle between Liz Davis and Nicole Johnson on Team Blake. Watching these two ladies prepare for battle, I appreciated the specific notes Blake gave about diction and pitch as opposed to just a general "be better at singing." That said, his reason for picking Liz was total nonsense. Nicole lost her breath? Not that I noticed. And I thought Nicole was actually better by just a hair, but what do I know about country music…
Liz Davis vs. Nicole Johnson
In the interest in saving the best battle for last, we'll deviate from the chronological order of the night and talk about Emily Earle's battle against Mackenzie Bourg for Team Cee Lo. The duo sang Owl City's "Good Times" which is equal parts boring standard pop and nonsense vowels. I will, however, give them both mad props for jumping up and down while singing live on national television. Ultimately, Mackenzie got the nod from Cee Lo… still not really sure why. I do wish Blake had used a Steal and taken Emily Earle on, because she has a super cool blend of country and rock and probably should have been on Team Blake to begin with. Alas. No such luck.
Emily Earle vs. Mackenzie Bourg
I obviously had my favorites coming into these Battle Rounds, and Kayla Nevarez was definitely one of them. So I can't even pretend like I didn't have a huge bias coming into her battle against Alessandra Guercio for a spot on Team Adam. Katy Perry's "Wide Awake" was a perfect song choice for these two 17-year-old future pop divas, and gave them both opportunities for some stylized pop moments which I felt Kayla took better advantage of than Alessandra. In her attempts to not be quite so "trained and perfect," Alessandra came off looking juuuuust a little trashy, which is probably why she and Xtina bonded so hard. Too harsh? I didn't think so. And there were absolutely zero attempts at harmonizing between these two, which was a bit disappointing and was something Adam as a coach could have contributed, but oh well. At the end of the day, Kayla had much more character and personality in her voice than Alessandra, and even though Adam told Kayla to stay humble, you know he likes her spunk and bravado. But don't worry about dear Alessandra. She's found a home on Team Xtina as our favorite overly-exposed coach used her first Steal to round out her team of pop artists.
Kayla Nevarez vs. Alessandra Guercio
Check back next week for more on The Voice as we wrap up the Battle Rounds and find out about the Knockouts.
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