The Voice
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The Battles Round is firing up on NBC’s The Voice, and on Tuesday night’s (March 28) episode two contestants took a flight with the Rocket Man. Only one is going to come back down.
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Chance The Rapper’s teammates Alyssa Lazar, the 24-year-old Clarks Summit, PA native, went head-to-head with Magnus, the 25-year-old Chesapeake, VA resident, on Elton John’s signature tune “You Song.”
“You have completely different tones but it worked beautifully,” said Kelly Clarkson when the music stopped. She pointed out the power in Lazar’s voice, and the full-round-bodied style of Magnus’ vocals, which, coincidently, is also how she likes her wine.
If the singers burned some rocket fuel for the occasion, the judges appeared to be flat.
“It sounds cozy, it sounds like home,” Clarkson remarked, giving Blake Shelton an easy line of attack. Clarkson and Magnus had issues with the performers’ vibrato. No surprises, Clarkson would lean towards Magnus if it were her choice to make.
Niall Horan fancied Lazar’s singer-songwriter-storyteller talents, and her ability to “break in tone and character.” And the Irishman admitted it was a “bold” choice of song which would obviously “lean towards Magnus.”
The final decision came down to Chance. Lazar’s voice and style “was meant for this song, and I feel like each time you performed it, you got better,” he remarked. As for Magnus, “You hype me up.”
In the end, the could be only one. And that was Magnus. Watch below.
The Battle Rounds have commenced on season 23 of NBC’s The Voice, and viewers have already been treated to some tasty rumbles.
One of the highlights from Monday night’s (March 27) episode was delivered by Gina Miles and Kala Banham, as the Team Niall hopefuls tackled Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love.”
Both artists injected country and pop-pop into Justin Vernon’s 2007 number, a haunting and sad song with a tone that feels like an open wound.
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The action on the stage didn’t end with the performance.
“You have a really special gift,” Kelly Clarkson told Miles, the 18-year-old Sacramento, CA native.
Banham, a 24-year-old from Windermere, FL, possesses a voice that “broke my heart,” she added. The compliments kept on flowing. Together, “you’ve got great taste in music, ladies,” Clarkson enthused, and “your voices sound magical together.”
“This is about as evenly matched as we can get here,” said Blake Shelton, remarking that he’d never heard a voice like Miles’. “Man, Gina,” the country star said, “the thought of your voice on a record doing all those crackly weird things that you can do.” And with that, it was clear where his vote would go.
Niall Horan had the tough decision to make, one that he admitted had caused him to lose sleep. Pairing the artists, he admitted, was like shooting himself in the foot. Ultimately, the Irishman went with Miles.
But wait, there’s more.
Clarkson exercised her trigger finger to activate her one steal in the competition. The game continues for Banham.
“Who cares about Niall? Welcome to Team Kelly,” she said.
In doing so, she turned an earlier loss into a win. Clarkson had tried to secure Banham’s services during the Blind Audition, that was until Horan “blocked” her.
Everyone’s a winner. Watch below.
It was fitting that during Tuesday night’s (March 21) final round of season 23 blind auditions on The Voice Katie Beth Forakis sent chills through the studio with her haunting cover of Justin Bieber‘s “Ghost.” The final single from JB’s 2021 Justice album was center stage as the Tennessee grad student performed a bare bones rendition of the synth pop single that ended up drawing two chair turns.
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“Youngblood thinks there’s always tomorrow,” Forakis crooned in a silvery falsetto as first-time judge Niall Horan said, “Ohh, I like that.” As she continued, Horan continued to get lost in the spare piano arrangement and Forakis’ gentle vibe as he ooh’d and aah’d his way through the performance.
But it was Kelly Clarkson who smashed the button 45 seconds in, followed quickly by Horan. Soon-to-depart judge Blake Shelton kept his powder dry and flashed a quizzical look at the camera while fellow first-timer Chance the Rapper closed his eyes and seemed lost in the moment, but not lost enough to turn around.
When Forakis, 25, hit a run of feathery “ooh-ooh-ooh”s Clarkson seemed convinced her turn was warranted, saying, “Wow. It’s like an angel!” Horan was equally shook, shivering and murmuring, “oh my God!” and rubbing his arms to show off his goosebumps as Clarkson delivered a final verdict: “that was pretty.”
Forakis teared up after the final note, as Horan told her, “I honestly didn’t even know I could have hairs on my cheeks,” alluding to his apparent full-body shivers. Niall told her that as soon as Forakis opened her mouth he thought, “all right, great song choice.” And though he expected her to follow Bieber’s lead and “go off and take it to a bigger place,” she kept it at a low boil that appealed to him.
“There’s nothing sweeter than when someone comes in and plays a piano version of what is a massive pop song and completely controls their falsetto for effectively 90 seconds,” he said. Dubbing her rendition “fairy tale stuff,” Niall told Forakis he had one spot left on his first-ever team, then offered her a slot. Chance complimented Forakis’ floor-length orange wrap dress, but noted that his team was full while complimenting her vocals.
Clarkson, who also had a spot to fill, told Forakis she did exactly what the talk show host singer loves to do on her daily Kellyoke segments by taking a song people know and doing it differently, while praising Beth’s “heartfelt” tone.
Watch Forakis on The Voice below and find out whose team she ended up on.
Warring coaches, silly pranks, sass from Blake Shelton — it’s just another ordinary day on The Voice. On the Monday (March 20) episode of NBC’s singing competition, the country crooner’s fan-favorite friendship with new coach Niall Horan was put to the test after the former boyband star fumbled an attempted prank on Kelly Clarkson.
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The hilarious moment happened after both Horan and Clarkson turned around for 18-year-old Gina Miles, who performed a gorgeous rendition of Katy Perry’s “The One That Got Away.” As the two coaches tried to convince the young singer to join their respective teams, Shelton wrote a helpful note on a piece of paper and slyly passed it to the “Slow Hands” singer — who proceeded to read the secret message out loud.
“Kelly can’t coach nerves, she admits it,” Horan read aloud to Shelton’s dismay.
“I am never helping you again … ever!” Shelton responded in a clip captured by viewers. “I write something down on the pad and hand it to you in privacy, and you’re like, ‘Oh, and it says …’ What is wrong with you?!”
“I don’t know if in Ireland it’s common practice to be passed a note about somebody and then read the note aloud to the person,” the “God’s Country” singer later told the cameras.
The senior Voice coach’s disownment of Horan puts a temporary pause on the two stars’ self-professed father-son relationship that’s developed over the course of this season, which marks Shelton’s final lap as a coach following nine wins and 23 total seasons. He’s the longest running coach on the four-person panel, while Horan and Chance the Rapper are both Voice newcomers.
Last week, pranking roles were reversed as Shelton was put on the spot by Clarkson, who facilitated a hilarious lie-detector test on the OG Voice coach.
Watch Blake Shelton and Niall Horan’s prank-gone-wrong on Kelly Clarkson below:
Talent trounces age, every single time. Mariah Kalia can vouch. The 17-year-old Florida native isn’t old enough to drink beer, but she can belt out a tune like few others.
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To be fair, Kalia doesn’t belt it. Her vocals have that coated-in-caramel texture, with muscle at top and down below.
When she performed Billie Eilish’s “idontwannabeyouanymore” during the Blind Auditions on Monday night’s episode (March 20) of The Voice, she had judges wanting more.
Chance The Rapper and Niall Horan turned in quick succession, and engaged in some friendly rivalry as country stars Kelly Clarkson and Blake Shelton stayed put.
Chance was “blown away” by her tone, her stage presence, her mature musical choices. And yes, he wants to know more; the best way to do that is for her to choose Team Chance.
Niall reckoned he was hearing a “young Amy Winehouse,” he was gobsmacked by her range. And yes, if she joined Team Niall, “we’re going to be talking about you in the final, for sure.”
The kid, however, digs R&B, hip-hop, rap, not exactly the One Direction singer’s wheelhouse.
“Sometimes the best things in life are from opposite sides,” he remarked, with an air of comedy desperation.
Clarkson popped up with some advice on how song selection can help her navigate this season, “because you have a rad voice and really killer tones.”
The hopeful coaches then presented their final pitches. Niall, yes, he too was a 17-year-old on the big stage, and he has his head around the song selection. “We’re going to have a good time if you come with me.”
Then, Chance rolled the dice. “I was never in your position. I started touring when I was 17 as an independent artist. “If you want somebody who’s going to take you to that next level,” he said, hands up.
In the end, she went with Chance.
Watch below.
There’s a lot of pressure when covering a hit song, especially when that song had topped the Hot 100 for 15 weeks. However, taking on Harry Styles‘ “As It Was” was no issue for 32-year-old Cait Martin, who put a soulful rendition on the track for her The Voice blind audition.
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Her clean vocals and angelic high notes had all four coaches — Kelly Clarkson, Blake Shelton, Chance the Rapper and Niall Horan — turning their red chairs around for a chance to get the budding star on their team this season.
However, Martin’s mom, who was watching the whole thing from side stage, knew immediately who she wanted her daughter’s coach to be. “Kelly! Kelly! Kelly!” she was heard chanting, to which Clarkson hilariously replied, “You know what they say. You should always listen to your parents. That’s the better path. That’s the one God tells us.”
The original American Idol went on to say, “I turned around instantaneously. I could tell in your voice and how much control you had in the beginning — that beautiful vibrato is so crystal clear — and I knew you were going to go big and powerful, but I didn’t know how big your range was. That was high and you did it so effortlessly. I feel like I would be such a great coach for you. I believed in you light years before these guys turned around.”
Shelton then made his case to be Martin’s coach, using the excuse that season 23 is his last on the show. “I would love to go out with a win on this thing. I think that I can dig down deep and somehow find the energy and passion one more time to win The Voice. It would be awesome if you would be on the last Team Blake,” the country star shared.
Chance the Rapper went on to compare Martin to Whitney Houston, and Horan complimented the singer on her storytelling abilities. “You guys are not making it easy for me whatsoever,” Martin said in response.
Check out the impressive audition below, and be sure to tune in to The Voice on NBC on Monday at 8 p.m. ET to see who Martin’s coach is.
Niall Horan stopped by Hot Ones on Wednesday (March 16) to chat about his freshman season on The Voice while taking on the iconic “Wings of Death.”
Three hot sauces in, the former One Direction-er told host Sean Evans that rejecting hopeful singers is the hardest part of his new gig on the NBC reality show. “‘Cause I know what it’s like to be 16 and stood on a stage, and looking at some famous dude that’s got your future in his hands,” he said. “The easy part is pressing the red button, spinning the chair, saying how you like someone. But when the chair turns around and you’re not with them, how do you give them that rejection feedback? And that’s where I’ve struggled with it, but it’s full circle stuff.”
However, Horan was quick to admit there’s one person he wouldn’t have trouble saying no to as a coach: his 16-year old self auditioning for The X Factor. “I wouldn’t have turned,” he deadpanned before breaking out into a laugh. “Not for that guy. I was right place, right time. No, I don’t think I would’ve turned for myself, put it that way.
“I’d turn for me now!” the Irish singer-songwriter continued. “I’ve learned a lot, I’ve been around the block a couple of times, which is, a lot can be said for someone that’s 29. But yeah, I’d turn now. I wouldn’t’ve turned then.”
A longtime fan of the YouTube series, the “Heaven” singer, whose third solo album The Show drops June 9, handled the heat remarkably well — though he eventually broke out in the shakes when the time came to try the infamous sauce Da’ Bomb. “I’ve been nervous about this for about seven years,” he joked before taking a big bite.
Watch Horan make his way through all 10 sauces during his Hot Ones interview above.
Kelly Clarkson just put an end to Blake Shelton‘s fibbing. After the country crooner told one lie too many while speaking to a contestant on the Tuesday (March 14) episode of The Voice, his fellow judge made him take a lie-detector test — and he definitely didn’t pass.
It all started when Shelton fudged details of his athletic ability after hopeful Chloe Abbott revealed she’s a runner currently training for the Olympics. “I’ve been training for the U.S. curling team for a couple years now,” he said, earning disbelieving laughs from fellow judges Niall Horan and Chance the Rapper. “I just didn’t know how much different it is for track and field.”
Clarkson, however, wasn’t having it. “Is anybody else just sick of Blake lying?” she said, before instructing host Carson Daly to bring out a lie-detector machine.
One of the first things the “Stronger” singer wanted to know after Shelton was hooked up to the machine was whether he’d used a secret block on Clarkson. “I still don’t think that was me,” he replied, before getting exposed almost immediately by a flashing red “FALSE” sign.
“Am I truly your favorite coach?” Clarkson followed up.
“Absolutely,” he answered. But once again, he was deemed a liar by the equipment. “This thing doesn’t work!”
Clarkson gave Shelton a pass for that question, though, as the country star’s own wife, Gwen Stefani, was previously a Voice coach. But that’s when Daly went in with a below-belt question regarding the “God’s Country” singer’s pop-star spouse.
“Did Gwen marry you out of sheer pity?” Daly asked, to which Shelton finally answered honestly, “Probably.”
The OG Voice coach is currently competing for his last shot at winning, as he previously announced that this season would be his last on the show. With nine victories up his sleeve, the musician is the only coach to have been on the judges panel for all 23 seasons thus far of the competition series.
Watch Blake Shelton fail a lie detector test on The Voice above.
When a star is born, grab your sunglasses and step out the way.
Kate Cosentino, a 23-year-old talent from Kansas City, shone bright when she stepped onto NBC’s The Voice stage Tuesday night (March 14), for her Blind Audition.
It was a starry performance, judge Niall Horan would go on to say. He should know when he sees one.
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Cosentino covered Dionne Warwick‘s “I Say a Little Prayer,” doing so in her own pace, stripped down, and with an electric guitar. Though her outfit screamed “clown couture” (her words), Cosentino’s played with no fuss, going with a finger-picking jazzy style, and without overriding effects.
Kelly Clarkson turned first and led a domino effect, as Chance the Rapper and Horan swiftly fell for her charms.
“Amazing,” Chance said at the wrap. “You got such a cool vibe to you.” The hip-hop star paid tribute to her “full voice” which carries a “lot of joy that comes out of it.”
Clarkson moved. “You have such a pretty alto register,” said the country-pop star, “kind of like lullaby-ish. You really could go so many places.”
And with that, the sales-pitch was on.
Horan didn’t muck about. He opened strong: “Would you like to be on my team?” Her choice of song was an indication of high quality and standards. “You could go all the way. You’ve given us this really really famous massive hit that’s really tough to sing. There’s an already-made star in there. You’ve got this Italian confidence.”
Will this star being a shooting one, will it go supernova, or light the canopy for years to come
We’ll wait and watch. In the meantime, Horan will guide the artist into the next phase of the talent competition.
Watch below.
A new contestant hit The Voice stage on Monday night’s episode (March 14) to prove that being hearing impaired doesn’t mean she can’t still rock the mic.
ALI, a 24-year-old hopeful from Walnut, Calif., chose to audition for the spinning chairs with a cover of Roberta Flack’s classic title track to her 1973 album Killing Me Softly. “I heard he sang a good song, I head he had a style/ And so I came to see him and listen for a while,” she sang, with her very first vocal runs at the end of the stanza earning an immediate chair turn from both Kelly Clarkson and Chance The Rapper.
However, it was only after she wrapped up her audition that the singer revealed her hearing loss to the coaches. “A fun fact about me is I am hearing impaired,” she said. “I wear two hearing aids, I was born deaf. I’m so blessed to be able to share this.”
“What!? Oh my god, that’s crazy,” Clarkson marveled, later telling ALI, “Your runs were so intricate and cool and different. That’s a gift.”
Though he didn’t turn his chair, Niall Horan agreed with his fellow coach, saying, “You were amazing. But the second they turned, I knew you were set up,” he said, before getting an unexpected catch in his throat. “You are incredible,” he continued after maintaining his composure. “Any sort of adversity that you’ve had in your life, you are just jumpin’ hurdles here and it’s incredible to watch. So I wish you the best of luck, ALI.”
Watch ALI’s audition and find out who she picked as her coach above.