The Voice Season 5 Blind Auditions Power Rankings

After a weak first episode, the second two hours of The Voice was filled with a few memorable Blind Auditions, but after that there were three more episodes of wondering where the wow moments were. Last season, I did not think any of the singers who have made it to the top six of season three. But this season is lacking so much talent; I think only one or two singers this season would have made the top eight last season. The two cycles a year is really starting to water down the talent pool. Mark Burnett may want to take a page out of his other show Survivor and start bringing back artists that should have made it further than they did, and not just the Blind Audition rejects like they have for the last couple seasons. Usually after each Blind Audition, I make a list of Contestants That Deserve a Second Shot, but other than Malford Milligan, even none of this season’s rejects really deserve another go around on the show. Hopefully there are more than usual amounts of breakout moments in the Battle (which is a rarely) and Knockout Rounds. Until then, here are the Power Rankings for the fifth season Blind Auditions.

1. Holly Henry (Team Blake): When Holly popped up in a promo for this season, I pondered out loud to the internet, “Is it too soon to call the chick who sings The Scientist the winner of this season of The Voice?” After seeing the full ninety seconds audition, the answer is a resounding yes. The sweet coffee house female indie singers have done fairly well on the show, and usually dominate the iTunes chart each season (but usually ends up losing to someone the bored housewives will call in for but will never buy their music for) and Holly definitely fits that lineage. Either her or Preston had the best selling Blind Auditions song this season by a pretty sizable margin. But Holly actually actual power in her voice that none of her predecessors have had since Dia Frampton back in the first season. The way she delivered “nobody said it was easy” was just beautiful (and was the very reason they used it in the ad). And aside from her voice, I really like everything else about her. I really hope she gets a chance to play her instruments down the line. Plus Holly Henry is a very strong name, the kind that could be a love interest turned superhero in her own right in a comic book. She also looks like a younger, blonder Emma Stone and Holly even exudes the same awkward confidence that Emma has. It goes without saying Stone is one of the greatest living human beings currently walking the planet. My one worry is she went with Blake who just last season went straight country. I had to cringe when Blake talked about how well he has done with singer-songwriters in the past considering he railroaded Caroline Glaser off his team in the Battle Rounds last season. Here is hoping Blake keeps to his word that he is going to “mix things up this season” and helps her to the heights that Dia got in the first season. But where Dia came in second Holly could very well be the first of the coffee-house type singers that wins the whole thing.


2. Cole Vosbury (Team Cee-Lo): Dude came on national television in 2013 and performed The Theme to the Jefferson’s on a singing competition. After the song ended, he really should have just said, “Let’s do this Cee-Lo.” Then drop the mic and walk off stage. This was the second coolest Blind Audition in the history of the series after Lindsey Pavao. I do not know how he tops this but if he goes home prematurely, please give him and his grandmother a reality show.

3. Caroline Pennell (Team Cee-Lo): It is hard to listen to her and not think of last season’s Caroline, Caroline Glaser, They both have sweet soothing, unique voices that could interpret anything. They both showed up to their Blind Audition looking like their raided their grandmother’s closet (Glaser then showed up to the Battle Rounds with a hippie chic makeover, so let’s see what changes are in store for Pennell). It was also extremely endearing how she was noticeably taken aback when the crowd started to cheer and then when the coaches turned around. That is nice for the Blind Auditions, but if she does not learn to keep that under control by the next round, it could be a quick exit. It is lucky she picked Cee-Lo because had she went with Blake she would have had to fight Holly for the quirky teen spot. I would like to see them both in the Live Show. But she did end up with compitition for that spot on Cee-Lo's team.

4. Austin Jenckes (Team Blake): He reminds me a southern version of Ryan Innes from last season (despite from actually being from Washington State). When you can mix a soulful voice with that southern grit that can be a powerful combination. Here is hoping he does not do some weird version of a Gavin DeGraw song in the Knockout Round like Ryan did last season.

5. Matthew Schuler (Team Christina): A rugby singing back dude who likes obscure Young the Giant songs. I’m in. Easily the most likeable guy this season so far. My only problem is that he is a bit of an over-singer and I am never a fan of the vocal gymnasts on the show. And being on Christina’s team is the worst place for that. Plus her teams in the first and third season were laughably bad and her one season where she had the strongest team ended up with the most boring finalist that year and another last place finish. Hopefully she does not mess this up. Or maybe she will and Matthew gets stolen by a better coach.

6. Preston Pohl (Team Adam): Just pure raw emotion, but I wonder if he can keep it up for ten weeks in a row if he makes it to the Live Rounds. Just last year, Midas Whale gave the most passionate performance of the Blind Auditions but ended up flaming out by the Knockout Rounds. I do hope at some point Cee-Lo has a chance to steal Preston because he will be better suited to finding songs that will fit him than Adam probably will.

7. Ray Boudreaux (Team Blake): A nice bluesy voice and being from New Orleans gives him a little extra spice you do not expect.

8. Juhi (Team Cee-Lo): A very fun performance but I still came away wanting a little more (which may be some experience, something that is hard to gain fast). Hopefully she busts out some Nirvana or Sublime later in the season if she makes it that far. It is weird to think Cee-Lo has two teenage girls. Blake, who turned around for both, usually has the teenage demographic cornered and Cee-Lo would be the last of the four judges you would expect to recruit young girls.

9. Will Champlin (Team Adam): If he does not sing Hard Habit to Break at some point in this season I will be very disappointed.

10. Lupe Carroll (Team Cee-Lo): The only aspect of his performance that was disappointing was that he did not bring out his wife to play cello with him. Maybe he is saving that for the Live Shows if he makes it that far.

11. Grey (Team Adam): With the unfortunate arm tattoo, country beginnings, and Kelly Clarkson song you have to think of Cassadee Pope. But she ended up going with Adam instead of Blake. Cee-Lo did hit it a little too much on the head calling her plain. That may have been the bland song selection, but with better choices in songs, she could end up being a second tier Cassadee which may very well be good enough to make it far this season.

12. Tamara Chauniece (Team Cee-Lo): Whenever an RnB singer comes from the church it shows because they have an extra passion which puts Tamara at the top of the best RnB singers this season.

13. Barry Black (Team Adam): The voice is the greatest instrument on the planet and really besides whistling, no one uses it for any other reason than singing. So Barry earns big points for busting out the vocal horn. It is too bad Cee-Lo did not turn around because that would be a much better fit then Adam who will probably use Barry as Battle Round fodder. If so, hopefully Cee-Lo uses his steal wisely. If not, he can also join the percussion section of a group on The Sing-Off.

14. Kat Robichaud (Team Cee-Lo): Right off the bat Cee-Lo got his rock chick ala Juliet Simms, who went to the finals with him two seasons ago. But I was never a fan of the whiskey soaked voices like Juliet’s and Kat is much more palatable. I do worry she will go too far over the top and with Cee-Lo as her coach that will undoubtedly happen.

15. Donna Allen (Team Adam): She has that strong voice that only comes with experience and she does have the spunk of the teenagers on the show. Not the best song selection, it is not the best idea to sing a song with only two lines on a show like this.

16. Monika Leigh (Team Blake): She had some probable in her low end (a new critique I learned this season), but when she went up it was solid. Plus I am down with any white chick who will bust out some BB King. If Blake keeps her in that sultry zone of her first performance, it should work in her favor.

17. Jonny Gray (Team Cee-Lo): A good voice and vibe about him, I do not think the song choice suited him very well. There is a flamboyance to Brandon Flowers voice and Jonny played too straight. With the right song he can be a contender with the right songs and with Cee-Lo as his coach he will either find the greatest songs for him, or pick songs that will bomb massively, there is really any middle ground with decisions Cee-Lo makes.

18. Matt Cermanski (Team Adam): To show just how low the talent level is this season, Matt did not make a team last season and deservedly so, he did not even make my list of Contestants That Deserve Another Shot, and he was only slightly better this season and was one of the better singers this season. Though I do not know why he broke out a guitar for Have a Little Faith in Me unless it was a shameless attempt to court the mom votes who love white guys with guitars. Which is a good strategy, The Swon Brothers inexplicably rode that wave to the finals last season.

19. Stephanie Anne Johnson (Team Christina): Maybe not the best song choice (and probably the wrong pick in coaches, I think Stephanie could have gone further with Cee-Lo) but there is definitely a lot there. I am really interesting in hearing sing more of a power ballad type song.

20. Jacquie Lee (Team Christina): This is the third straight season someone sang Back to Black and it is weird to think this is the first time a female sang it. It is just as weird to hear a sixteen year old girl sing a song with so much pathos. There was nothing bad to say about her performance but there really is nothing good to say. It was just a solid high school talent show performance. Like almost every other teenager that has tried out for their show, Jacquie probably should have waited until she had some more experience under her belt before trying out for the show. She probably could have gone further in a couple years than she will probably make it this season.

21. Destinee Quinn (Team Christina): She ranks very high on the likeability scale (which can go a long way on this show and helped Blake to three straight wins). Bonus points for the Alice Cooper shout-out. But I found her performance widely inconsistent and that is probably the very reason why Blake Shelton, who is very picky when it comes to country singers, did not turn around. But when she was good, she was great and if she can iron out her inconsistencies, she could be a contender in the Live Shows.

22. James Wolpert (Team Adam): Cool song selection but I was a bit surprised all four coaches turned around for him (I said that a lot this season). It probably does not help that this guy reminds me of the guy who was on Adam’s team the first season who name I cannot be bothered to remember or even look up.

23. Michael Lynch (Team Christina): A very fun performance even though it came across as a little wedding singer-y. But it is hard not to be down with a white Irish dude who sings in Spanish.

24. James Irwin (Team Adam): I was not a fan of the arrangement and I wonder if everyone would have turned around if they had waited until it started to get loud. It did not seem like Adam liked it and even made a strong critique about it and all the choaches looked stoned faced by the end of his performance nor really fought for him. For some reason James still went with him because he is “a rocker at heart.” Um, that is a bit of a stretch, rock guys would be better off going with Cee-Lo (think Jamar Rogers) or Blake (think Terry McDermott).

25. Olivia Henken (Team Christina): Another hot country chick that Blake did not turn for that ended up on Christina’s team so there will be an obvious Battle Round showdown with Destinee. Oops, Battle Pairings are out and oddly they are not going against each other. It will be interesting if either improve enough to get Blake to steal. But then again Cee-Lo may steal one of them to put them in “professional” positions.

26. Shawn Smith (Team Cee-Lo): Just a fun performance. Interesting enough, during Cee-Lo’s last season, he picked someone who sang a southern rock song with the last pick of the Blind Auditions and Cody Belew ended up making it a couple rounds into the Live Shows. Shawn could very well be Cee-Lo’s last minute dark horse again.

27. Josh Logan (Team Christina): He sounded like he was trying just way too hard to sound like Alex Clare but came up way short. When someone comes on the show and does a straight karaoke version, and not even a great karaoke version, I do not expect them to stick around very long.

28. Tessanne Chin (Team Adam): This reminded me a lot of Sasha Allen’s performance of the same song last season. There is why Amber Carrington crushed Sasha in the Battle. Sasha, like Tessanne, went 0 to 60 in about five second and stayed there through the whole performance, there is no artistry is being loud throughout an entire performance. She better learn dynamics quick or she could also lose to an underdog in the next round and there may not be anyone there to Steal her like Sasha.

29. Ashley DuBose (Team Adam): Like Tessanne before her, Ashley also closed out her episode singing a bland pop song and did not add anything special to it and then picked Adam. Adam took two powerhouse pop singers to the Live Shows last season, but Sarah Simmons and Judith Hill actually took risks with their song selections. And if America quickly got tired of them, I see America meeting Tessanne and Ashley with a resounding yawn one the voting starts. Luckily for them, the field is weaker this season, so I would not write either off completely.

30. Timyra-Joi (Team Christina): She really should have gone Cee-Lo. With him, Timyra could have done something interesting, with Christina, she will just have her sing dated Whitney, Mariah covers until the voting public gets bored, which will probably happen after a week.

31. Lina Gaudenzi (Team Christina): As I complain all the time, it is not a good idea to perform song that was performed on the show before and done much better and Suzanna Choffel sang Landslide much better because Suzanne has a little extra to her voice. Lena started out as the sweeter version but in the middle started doing way too much to the song.

32. R. Anthony (Team Cee-Lo): Does this guy really want to go by "R."? For a guy who was in a gospel group, you would think he would want to distance himself from Mr. Kelly. But Mr. Anthony's audition ended a lot better than it started.

Even though one person wins, it is fun at this point to see who has the strongest team. So I gave a numerical value to ever contestant, one point for the person in last and forty-eight for number one (I did rank all 48 contestants but only listed 32 because that is the number that will advance to the Knockout Rounds and there really was not much to say about the bottom sixteen, half that were montage; I did listen to the iTunes previews of the montaged singers to properly rate them). And here is how each team stacked up:

Cee-Lo - 333
Adam – 329
Christina – 258
Blake – 256

So as it stands, Cee-Lo and Adam have a significant lead over Christina and Blake. The problem with Blake’s team is that it is very bottom heavy, but if he chooses wisely and trims his fat, it will look much better for him coming out of Battle Rounds because between Holly, Austin, and Ray, I think he can nab two finalist spots for the third straight year. Christina on the other hand will have to use her steals wisely because she only has one person in my top ten and three in the top twenty (and two are at nineteen and twenty).

But who cares what I think. Let us look at what the music buying public thinks about this season’s contestants. Here is how they rank on the iTunes charts at their highest point on the chart in parentheses (or the highest I saw it at) with artists still in the top 1500 as of Sunday evening in bold.

1. Preston Pohl (21)
2. Holly Henry (23)
3. Matthew Schuler (79)
4. James Wolpert (110)
5. Caroline Pennell (190)
6. Matt Cermanski (213)
7. Tessanne Chin (219)
8. Jonny Gray (265)
9. Ashley DuBose (286)
10. Austin Jenckes (298)
11. Will Champlin (319)
12. Ray Boudreaux (350)
13. Brandon Chase (352)
14. Lupe Carroll (374)
15. Michael Lynch (461)
16. Josh Logan (463)
17. James Irwin (477)
18. Grey (515)
19. Jacquie Lee (517)
20. E.G. Daily (523)
21. Monika Leigh (573)
22. Timyra-Joi (618)
23. Nic Hawk (631)
24. Destinee Quinn (639)
25. Brian Pounds (757)
26. R. Anthony (789)
27. Justin Chain (810)
28. Lina Gaudenzi (880)
29. Shawn Smith (908)
30. Sam Cerniglia (976)
31. Brianna Cuoco (991)
32. Olivia Henken (1008)
33. Barry Black (1033)
34. Cole Vosbury (1087)
35. Tamara Chauniece (1229)
36. Jacob Poole (1239)
37. Shelbie Z. (1313)
38. Juhi (1373)
39. Stephanie Anne Johnson (1366)

It should be noted that those top five are currently still the only ones still in the top 1500 and still in that order except James leapfrogged Michael. It also looks like the music buying public did not care for Cee-Lo’s team as much as I did (seriously, what is wrong with America that they do not want to own a countrified version of The Jefferson's Theme Song?); he only had three singers in the top twenty-five of this season with four who did not even make the top 1500. Most shockingly was Kat who probably got the best edit by producers on his team this season and seems to be a lock for the live shows. George and Cee-Lo’s two montaged contestants also failed to make the list. Blake’s two montages were the only ones not here along with one of Christina’s montage contestants, surprisingly her other one, Jacob just cracked the list. Adam did not have any of his team members montaged (Adam got the contestant that closed out the first four episodes and none of his picks were montaged; gee, I wonder who the producers want to win this season) but Donna Allen and Justin Blake failed to make the list. If you use the same formula that I used with to decide who had the strongest team using my power rankings, here are the strongest teams based on the iTunes charts.

Adam – 271
Blake – 203
Christina – 175
Cee-Lo – 131

Not surprisingly Adam has the strongest team with five of the top ten on iTunes with Cee-Lo far behind everyone else. Now it is prediction time. Presuming there will still be two steals in the Battle Rounds and one in the Knockout Rounds, which means each team will go into the Live Shows with five members. If you just count the first five members of each team on my power rankings, you will see who I hope makes the Live Shows, but here is who I predict will make the Live Shows. I am going to go ahead and pick five members from each team not taking into accounts steal mostly because Adam is the only one of these four to take a Steal to the Live Shows and I have a sinking suspicion that most, if not all the coaches will steal back someone they dumped in the Battle Rounds for their Knockout Round steal (though Christina, and looking at the iTunes charts Cee-Lo too should take a steal or three to the Live Shows). I rank each team from most to least confident they will make the Live Shows.

Adam: Tessanne, James W., Preston, Ashley, Will
Blake: Holly, Austin, Ray, Shelbie, Monika
Cee-Lo: Kat, Jonny, Caroline, Cole, Tamara
Christina: Matthew, Timyra, Olivia, Josh, Jacquie

And for an extremely too premature prediction of the finals (did anyone have Danielle, Michelle, and / or the Swon Brothers on the finals after the Blind Auditions last season? I had all three not making the Live Shows) I am guess it will be the same as the last two seasons with Blake having two finalists, Holly and Austin, with the token RnB coach Cee-Lo taking the other spot with Jonny rounding out the finals. Christina will lose all her team members first while Adam hates America for dumping his powerhouse singers before the finals.

Last season, you had to go through the Battle Round promo like a Zapruder film to figure out five battle pairings, but this season, the promo Monday and the lengthy preview Tuesday, you could tell all but two battle pairings and oddly both are on Blake’s team (E.G., Cilla, and Sam were the only ones that got zero Battle Round promo screen time while a single tight shot on Holly did not reveal who she is going against, though you could tell she was standing next to someone in an off-white sweater and in an online video about Cher, Cilla is shown hugging Cher in a similar looking sweater). They even revealed a bunch of what songs they are singing. Here are 22 of the 24 battle pairing (who I think will win is listed first).

Adam
Matt vs. James I. (Counting Stars)
Ashley vs. Justin (Just a Fool)
Gray vs. Nic (Domino)
James W. vs. Will (Radioactive)
Tessanne vs. Donna
Preston vs. Barry

Blake
Shelbie vs. Justin (Don't You Wanna Stay)
Ray vs. Monika (Some Kind of Wonderful)
Austin vs. Brian (To Love Somebody)
Emily vs. Brandon
Holly vs. Cilla (I think)
If I am right above, that leaves E.G. vs. and Sam

Cee-Lo
Kat vs. R. Anthony (I Don't Want to Miss a Thing)
Caroline vs. Anthony (As Long As You Love Me)
Johnny vs. Shawn (Refugee)
Cole vs. Lupe
Juhi vs. George
Tamara vs. Keaira

Christina
Matthew vs. Jacob (My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light Em Up))
Josh vs. Michael (Harder to Breathe)
Timya vs. Amber (Listen)
Olivia vs. Stephanie
Destinee vs. Lina
Jacqui vs. Brianna

They may have even tipped their cap as to two contestants that got stolen, there is someone who looks like a brunette chick who kind of looks like Briana (plus there is a shot of her sister Kaley losing her mind again in the promo) and a very fuzzy looking blond chick who I originally thought was Olivia when I first saw it but am unsure upon second (and tenth) examination who both who get stolen by Adam. But is Adam really going to use both of his steals on Christina rejects. Oddly both Blake and Cee-Lo try to steal one of hers on the Knockout Round.