NBC’s The Voice delivered an eclectic third round of battles on Monday’s episode with several artists that were hard to forget from the blind auditions.
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After I gave Cee Lo Green a failing grade on his battle rounds last week, he rose to the challenge of delivering one of the strangest matches I’ve ever seen. It partially redeemed the coach in my mind with the sheer peculiarity of the battle. He paired garage rockers The Shields Brothers against pixy singer Erin Martin on Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It.”
Nothing about this pairing should have worked, but it became one of the most entertaining things I’ve ever watched. Somehow, The Shields Brothers kept enough of their “Wayne’s World” (as Babyface described it) vibe and combined it with some very authentic singing chops. On the other hand, we had Erin Martin, whose style I’m not sure is even singing. She sounds more like a baby with a very good vocabulary. And after watching her “me, me, me” behavior during rehearsals, I really couldn’t get the idea of a baby out of my mind. In the end, I disagreed with Cee Lo’s decision. If he wanted singers who could rock on almost anything, he should have gone with The Shields Brothers. That aside, I’m not sure Cee Lo could have come up with a more strangely fitting match from his team.
There were plenty of very good matches from the night – Pip versus Nathan Parrett, Ashley De La Rosa versus Jonathas, for example. But, the show gave the night’s “pimp slot” (the last performance of the episode) to the pairing of Gwen Sebastian and Erin Willett.
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I remembered Erin’s soulful voice and sad story of her father’s pancreatic cancer from the blind auditions and I was already partial to her in this pairing. I also remember Gwen Sebastian from the blind auditions and her sob story of giving up motherhood for her career. It just seemed to pale in comparison to some of the many others we’ve heard where the performers had no choice in their matters. That kind of ambition can inspire admiration in some and fear in others. I’m of the latter party. I was very happy to see Erin move on to the live auditions, though saddened by the passing of her father.
Here’s a quick glance of the night’s matches.
Team Adam
Pip beats Nathan Parrett on Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good”
Katrina Parker beats Angel Taylor on Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love”
Team Blake
Jermaine Paul beats ALyX on “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car”
Erin Willett beats Gwen Sebastian on Pat Benatar’s “We Belong”
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Team Cee Lo
Erin Martin beats The Shields Brothers on Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It”
Team Christina
Ashley De La Rosa beats Jonathas on Jordin Sparks and Usher’s “No Air”
Watch Erin and The Shields Brothers’ performance again below.
Email: Jethro.Nededog@thr.com; Twitter: @TheRealJethro
