Idol Chatter & Voice Views

The Voice returns Monday night with the first part of the playoffs.

That’s right, The Voice is splitting up the playoffs over two episodes — in fact, over two weeks — in Season 23.

And that’s not the biggest change.

That would be the fact that voters, for the first time ever, fans will have no choice in who advances.

Monday night, the five remaining artist from Team Blake will perform.

Then Blake will pick two artists to advance to the semifinals, set to air May 15.

The remaining artists from Team Blake include Grace West, Kylee Dayne, Noivas, Rachel Christine and Mary Kate Connor, who got to set out the knockouts thanks to the playoff pass.

Here are the Team Blake performances from the knockouts.

All four performances were solid, but Noivas (aka Savion Wright) might have delivered the best of the entire knockout round.

In fact, I think he’s the likely winner of Season 23. And remember, he was originally a member of Team Chance before Chance the Rapper blundered during the battles and allowed Blake to steal him.

My second favorite Team Blake performance came from Kylee Dayne. Her ending on “All By Myself” was divine. That said, Blake might be more tempted to advance one of his young country singers, Grace West or Mary Kate Connor.