The Voice Season Fourteen Blind Audition Power Rankings

As an avid watcher of Survivor, Mark Burnett’s other competition show juggernaut which seems to have one new stupid twist per year; I am a bit surprised that The Voice has pretty much been the same since season three. Sure the Knockout Steal was later introduced that was just copycatting the Battle Round Steal. The other changes since were pretty innocuous, they tried two Battle Round once which was stupid, same with twice not allowing voting during the Playoffs. The biggest twist was the Comeback Artist but really that is just the Knockout Steal for your own team. The Twitter Save was just a shameless brand integration.

We finally got our first real big twist in a while this season with the Block. Much like every Survivor twist, the Block was mostly lame and poorly executed. And really kind of cruel because if a singer really wants to be mentored by a coach that turned around, forcing them to pick a coach which may not a good fit kind of hampering their chance of making a run (unless they just happen to get Stolen later). I also find it conspicuous that each coach just happened to be Blocked once. Why wouldn’t everyone Block Blake from getting a country artist? Seriously, Adam always complains about everyone with twang going with Blake yet he ends up Blocking some Spanish singer from picking Kelly?

But I guess they really did need something to spice things up (though half the Blocks were burned in the first episode) because this may have been one of the bottom five talent pools in the show’s history. Maybe The Voice should copy another Survivor tradition and bring back former contestants. Until then, here is how I rank those who made this season:


1. Terrence Cunningham (Team Alicia) – I cannot confirm nor deny he is number one on my list solely because of his hair.

2. Hannah Goebel (Team Kelly) – What a smooth performance. Complete and utter shame she could not pick Alicia.

3. Spensha Baker (Team Blake) – People like to go gaga of belters, but this was just simple and beautiful.

4. Dallas Caroline (Team Blake) – Is this the first time someone has done Willie Nelson on this show? I believe Amber Carrington did Crazy which he wrote but mostly is considered a Patsy Cline song. Such a sweet song you would think someone would have done it before.

5. Wilkes (Team Blake) – Finally someone cool enough to sing The Wallflowers. But it is weird that this is the second country singer recently Lauren Duski being the other) who auditioned with a nineties pop-rock song.

6. Amber Sauer (Team Kelly) – A piano version of Shape of You was really interesting.

7. Kyla Jade (Team Blake) – I was surprised it took so long for anyone to turn. After three underwhelming performances to start the season, I thought the first compitant singer of the season was not going to turn any chairs.

8. Davison (Team Adam) – Decent voice but I was still kind of bored.

9. Johnny Bliss (Team Alicia) – There was a stretch of three seasons coinciding with Shakira being a coach where they had a bunch of Latin artists (this was in the early days when they had a bunch of shocking auditions instead of today’s where everyone fits into four different categories). So it was nice to get some diversity, even if was just shamelessly because there was a huge Latin hit last year.

10. Jackie Verna (Team Adam) – Overdid it in a few places but I mostly enjoyed the performance.

11. Molly Stevens (Team Kelly) – Another decent but utterly boring performance.

12. Jackie Foster (Team Kelly) – Another alright but kind of boring performance.

13. D.R. King (Team Kelly) – Going outside your genre is usually interesting, but RnB doing alt rock rarely works (except Maxwell doing Nine Inch Nails, look it up kids) he was fine, but never really came completely together.

14. Dylan Hartigan (Team Kelly) – Again, mostly boring but I guess that was slightly better than bad.

15. Livia Faith (Team Alicia) – One of my biggest pet peeves of this show is when singers try to do a song that someone already did a definitive version of. Amy Vachal’s version was one of the five best Blind Auditions of all time and Livia is no Amy Vachal.

16. Mia Boostrom (Team Adam) – has an interesting voice, but that was not a very inspiring song selection. I would be interested in hearing her try a better song.

17. Jaclyn Lovey (Team Alicia) – If she is going to be this season’s token indie young girl, I hope she has something a lot more interesting than what she did in the Blinds.

18. Genesis Diaz (Team Adam) – She needs better taste in music.

19. Sharane Calister (Team Alicia) – I was kind bored for this.

20. Pryor Baird (Team Blake) - There has been a rash of guitar playing blues men who are probably better guitarist then singers, and he may be the weakest singer of them.

21. Shana Halligan (Team Alicia) – I usually like singers like this on the show but but she was a little too weird for me. Maybe it was the weird song.

22. Alexa Cappelli (Team Kelly) – Well that was mostly boring.

23. Rayshun LaMarr (Team Adam) – A little too over the top for me. And by a little I mean way too much. Very show choir.

24. Jamai (Team Alicia) – He seems much more interesting than his song selection.

25. Kaleb Lee (Team Blake) – Interesting gravelly voice, boring song seletion. Unfortualy since I is Team Blake, he will probably do more boring country songs all the way to the final.

26. Brynn Cartelli (Team Kelly) – She was fine, probably mostly because the song selection, but fourteen is way too young. I would say fodder, hopefully Kelly does not have the creepy obsession with teenagers that Gwen Stefani does.

27. Brett Hunter (Team Blake) – Novelty acts have a very short shelf life on this show(I bealieve Cole Vosbury is the only one who did a novelty song and made it out of the Battle Round) so this was fun, but dude is clearly fodder.

28. Tish Haynes Keys (Team Adam) – So many good RnB singers, Tish performind so late n the Blinds was just too hard for her to stand out. Doing an overused Areatha Franklin song did not help

29. Reid Umstattd (Team Adam) – I have spent a lot of time this season blasting song selection by people with interesting voices. This was the exception where an mostly annoying voice sang an inspiring song.

30. Christiana Danielle (Team Alicia) - Meh, she is no Amy Vachal. I am actually a little offended Adam turned around.

31. Gary Edwards (Team Adam) – I really did not like what he did with that song.

32. Megan Lee (Team Alicia) – The Voice has a weird bad track record with Asians in that they get montaged at a very high percentage. I also find it weird that they finally put no chair turns on YouTube but not the montage singers.

33. Bransen Ireland (Team Blake) – Tulsa Time was a song on an Eric Clapton so I got excited when I saw that was the song he was singing. Unfortunately I did realize it was also a country song. Yawn. Seriously people, more Clapton on this show.

34. Teana Boston (Team Kelly) – Her voice just sounded off, like too nasally.

35. Drew Cole (Team Adam) – Though the bluesy twist was somewhat interesting, Sex and Candy is maybe the second worst one hit wonder of the nineties after What’s Up.

36. Jorge Eduardo (Team Kelly) – Obvious fodder.

37. Kelsea Johnson (Team Alicia) – Horrible song selection, and she was oversinging too.

38. Stephanie Skipper (Team Adam) – I have to wonder if anyone would have turned around had she not been singing a Kelly Clarkson song.

39. Austin Giorgio (Team Blake): It has been a while since we had a crooner on the showprobably because they rarely made the Live Shows. A good reason for that.

40. Justin Kilgore (Team Kelly) -Boring country dude alert!

41. Britton Buchanan (Team Alicia) – Tony Lucca was one of the best Blind Audition ever and this performance was not even half that. But it was wise for Blake to Block because sadly this is the same type of boring white dude that goes far.

42. Jordan Kirkdorffer (Team Blake) – Ugg, this seems to happen once a season, Adam turns for a horrible country singer that did not deserve a chair turn, then Blake turns just out of spite upping the number of crappy country singers.

43. Miya Bass (Team Adam) – It is hard to find a song we need less than a shouty version of that horrible song. I guess Adam needs fodder.

44. Jamilla (Team Kelly) – Montage, yawn.

45. Jordyn Simone (Team Alicia) – Montage, Yawn.

46. JessLee (Team Blake) – Montage, yawn.

47. Angel Bonilla (Team Adam) – Just how bad do you have to be to be the first every transgender dude on the show and get montaged? Listening to the studio version, it apparently is really bad.

48. Jaron Strom (Tea Blake) – Seriously Blake, what the fork?

Alright, time to see how each team stacks up in my patent pending ranking formula:

Kelly: 328
Alicia: 297
Blake: 289
Adam: 262

So much like Miley last season, the newer token pop coach seems to have the same taste in music with me. It does seem Blake and Adam pander to the bored housewife voting block and stocks their teams with boring white dudes. But who cares what I think, here is how the iTunes buyers rank the singers at the highest peak on iTunes.

1. Terrence Cunningham (49)
2. Christiana Danielle (149)
3. Molly Stevens (156)
4. Livia Faith (168)
5. Drew Cole (173)
6. Brynn Cartelli (211)
7. Jorge Eduardo (226)
8. Johnny Bliss (239)
9. Justin Kilgore (246)
10. Britton Buchanan (266)
11. Jaclyn Lovey (274)
12. Davison (347)
13. Pryor Baird (417)
14. Rayshun LaMarr (465)
15. Jordan Kirkdorffer (474)
16. Shana Halligan (508)
17. Brett Hunter (513)
18. Stephanie Skipper (530)
19. Sharane Calister (533)
20. Hannah Goebel (538)
21. Wilkes (559)
22. Dallas Caroline (561)
23. Kelsea Johnson (615)
24. Dylan Hartigan (657)
25. JessLee (671)
26. Spensha Baker (673)
27. Reid Umstattd (721)
28. Gary Edwards (739)
29. Jackie Verna (823)
30. Kaleb Lee (926)
31. Genesis Diaz (989)
32. D.R. King (1040)
33. Amber Sauer (1046)
34. Jackie Foster (1195)
35. Bransen Ireland (1245)

Now time to see who has the strongest team according to my formula:

Alicia: 230
Kelly: 140
Blake: 136
Adam: 124

Oh, wow, Alicia is dominating. The only problem is, as you will see from the Battle pairing, four of Alicia’s top five ranking singers on iTunes are in the same Battle pairing. I wonder if we will have another situation like last where three of the four finalists start out on Team Miley but Blake gets the win and Adam comes in second. Speaking of those pairing, The Voice YouTube page already announced all the pairings and also “leaked” a pretty uninspiring Battle of a lackluster Reputation track. I guess the loser will end up being Stolen and the promo for next week so allude to a Kelly Battle being the recipient of a three coach Steal. Ugg, these coaches are stupid. So here are the pairing with the singer who I think will win being listed first and ranked by how confident I am that I am right (which is not very confident because how overwhelming mediocre this year is).


Team Adam

Gary Edwards vs. Angel Bonilla
Mia Boostrom vs Genesis Diaz
Drew Cole vs Miya Bass
Reid Umstattd vs. Davison (Steal)
Jackie Verna vs. Stephanie Skipper (Steal)
Rayshun Lamarr vs Tish Hayes Keys


Team Alicia
Johnny Bliss vs Megan Lee
Kelsea Johnson vs. Jordyn Simone
Christiana Danielle vs Shana Halligan
Terrence Cunningham vs Livia Faith
Britton Buchanan vs. Jaclyn Lovey (Steal)
Jamai vs Sharane Calister (Steal)

Team Blake
Kyla Jade vs JessLee
Bransen Ireland vs. Jaron Strom
Austin Giorgio vs. Brett Hunter
Pryor Baird vs Kaleb Lee (Steal)
Jordan Kirkdorffer vs. Wilkes
Dallas Caroline vs. Spensha Baker (Steal)

Team Kelly
Hannah Goebel vs. Alexa Cappelli
Brynn Cartelli vs. Dylan Hartigan (Steal)
Molly Stevens vs. Justin Kilgore
D.R. King vs. Jackie Foster
Teana Boston vs Jamella (Steal)

Jorge Eduardo vs. Amber Sauer