The Battles Are Over But the War Goes On

Now that the battle rounds are over, I figured that it was time to revisit the teams on The Voice.

In reviewing the four rounds together, I think that for the most part the correct decisions were made, but I’m not sold on the battle format. Even though I loved comparing competitors singing the same song at the same time (especially when one singer did surprisingly better than I thought they would), inevitably it meant that promising people who we had barely heard were eliminated, including Niki Dawson (Team Cee Lo), Justin Grennan (Team Christina), and Tim Mahoney (Team Adam).

Also, and this was no fault of the format, some of the song choices were just flat-out crazy, including all of Blake’s choices (“Hunk of Burning Love,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “You Can’t Hurry Love,” “I’ll Stand By You”).

Some other opinions…

Favorite Song Choice: “F*ckin’ Perfect” (Cee Lo)

Least Favorite Song Choice: “Hunk of Burning Love” (Blake)

Oddest Song Choice That Actually Worked: “Baba O’Riley” (Christina)

Favorite Duet/Battle: Rebecca Loebe & Devon Barley on “Creep” (Team Adam)

Most Egregious Elimination, Part I (because he was so much better): Tyler Robinson (Blake)

Most Egregious Elimination, Part II (because her competition was so bad): Kelsey Rey (Cee Lo)

Toughest Battle to Call: Emily Valentine & Curtis Grimes on “Need You Now” (Team Cee Lo)

Favorite Expression: Cee Lo’s face when Emily Valentine & Curtis Grimes kissed at the end of their duet

Most Pleasantly Surprising Team Pick: Jared Blake (Blake)

Top Five Six I’m Rooting For: Devon Barley (Team Adam), Javier Colon (Team Adam), Jeff Jenkins (Team Adam), Vicci Martinez (Team Adam), Beverly McClellan (Team Christina), Nakia (Team Cee Lo)

Contestant I'm Most Rooting For to Get Her Act Together After a Dismal Battle Round: Xenia (Team Blake)

Eliminated Contestant I’d Love to See on American Idol: Rebecca Loebe

Strongest Team: Team Adam (Devon Barley, Javier Colon, Jeff Jenkins, Casey Weston)

Weakest Team: Team Christina (Raquel Castro, Frenchie Davis, Lily Elise, Beverly McClellan). Seriously, I’m pretty sure a team made up of Adam’s rejects (Casey Desmond, Rebecca Loebe, Tim Mahoney, Angela Wolff) would beat this team.

If Each Team Could Pick an Additional Wild Card: Casey Desmond (Team Adam), Cherie Oakley (Team Christina), Tyler Robinson (Team Blake), Emily Valentine (Team Cee Lo). I’d love to see any of these singers again.

I’m not sure exactly how the live rounds are going to work, but I like a lot of these singers and I’m very interested to see what happens in the coming weeks.