At the end of just two weeks of what most people think is the most enjoyable part of “The Voice,” the blind auditions, most coaches have nearly competed assembling their teams.
Maybe they just enjoy spinning around in their chairs. Or perhaps the unseen pre-auditions and scouting results in singers who uniformly pretty good. Either way, the coaches continued spinning chairs up for singers, choosing 11 of the 17 singers before them on Tuesday’s two hour show.
There may have been signs they were getting choosey, when they failed to choose four singers in a row and six overall in the show (but how many winers and losers we get to see in a certain show depends on how these blind auditions are edited, of course).
All of the coaches got three new singers, except for Cee-Lo Green, who grabbed two. And while Blake Shelton continued to stress his winning streak to contestants, it was Adam Levine who obtained the two singers of the night who had all four coaches turning around.
One was James Irwin, 31, of St. Louis, who returned to the show after failing to draw interest last season, turning all the chairs with a version of R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” that was kid of all over the place.
The other was Ashley DuBose, 23, of St. Paul, a single mother who closed the show with a strong version of Rihanna’s “Diamonds.”
Levine also obtained his only other choice of the night (making him 3-3 in his chair spinning success). It was Will Champlin, 30 of Los Angeles, who had three of the four coaches interested after after starting the show singing Gavin DeGraw’s “Not Over You” in suspenders and white framed glasses.
Shelton beat Green in obtaining Sam Cerniglia, 25, of Chicago, who crooned Michael Buble’s “It’s a Beautiful Day.” But he was uncontested in his other two choices, behatted Justin Chain, 23, of Fort Payne, Ala., who sang the Jason Aldean hit “She’s Country,” and the youngest contestant of the night, Emily Randolph, 15, of Tacoma, Wash., who sang Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.”
Aguilera’s three acquisitions were all women: the soulful Stephanie Anne Johnson, 29, of Tacoma, who sang KT Tunstall’s “Black Horse and Cherry Tree”; country rocking Olivia Henken, 25, of Louisville, who did Carrie Underwood’s “Two Black Cadillacs”; and Amber Nicole, 17, of Allendale, Mich., who did a second Rihanna song, “Russian Roulette.”
Green’s two new singers were gospel-trained R. Anthony, 33, of Tampa, who sang The Script’s “Hall of Fame,” and Keaira LaShae, a personal trainer from Los Angeles, who did Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly with His Song.”
Green still has the most slots to fill for his 12-member team — three — while Levine and Shelton need two. Aguilera needs just one more before the battle rounds and the steals begin — possibly as soon as next Tuesday.