Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Apparently, we’re just one week away from live shows on NBC’s somewhat Idol-like “The Voice.”

The battle rounds conclude tonight at 10 p.m. For those not familiar, here’s how it works. Each mentor/judge pits two of his team members against one another in a duet, then determines who gets eliminated.

Yeah, judges actually judge something on this show.

The third battle round was last Tuesday night, the same night at the final Idol performance show, which explains why this recap/preview is a lot late this week.

Anyway, round three featured one of the best and one of the strangest duets we’ve seen so far, and some disappointing results as far as I was concerned.

The best duet came from Team Adam Levine, as folk singer Rebecca Loebe squared off against medical student Devon Barley. Barley, who sorta reminds me of Kevin Covais from Season 5 of Idol, somehow prevailed.

The oddest duet came from Team Blake Shelton, who pitted preacher’s daughter Serabee and her crazy wild vocals against children’s author Dia Frampton on “Can’t Hurry Love.” Dia survived some major pitch problems early in the song and some stage fright to overcome Serabee, who didn’t exactly follow Blake’s advice to rein in those crazy wild vocals.

Last week also saw one of the youngest competitors on The Voice advance. That would Raquel Castro, 16, from Team Christina Aguilera. At age 7, Raquel starred in “Jersey Girl” as the daughter of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck; now she wants to pursue a singing career. Her on-stage charisma helped her defeat Julia Easton, who’s every bit as talented vocally.

And, in one of the more disappointing results of the night, the annoying teen duo of Tori and Taylor Thompson defeated Kelsey Rey. Kelsey said she’s always been known as the cute girl who could sing and wanted to turn that around by participating on The Voice.

Oh, well, truth be told, whoever prevailed in this showdown probably won’t be around for too long, considering the talent level of some of the other performers.

One other observation from last week’s episode: “The Voice” continues to serve up more current music than Idol. Duets last week included Radiohead’s “Creep,” Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” and Rihanna’s “Only Girl in the World.”

Keep the current songs coming, coaches.

If you want to catch up on who has advanced and who has been eliminated and watch from pre-Voice music by these artists, head here for Team Cee Lo Green, here for Team Blake Shelton, here for Team Christina Aguilera and here for Team Adam Levine.

Tonight’s episode will feature one of the oddest pairings yet in the battle round as Cee Lo Green pits country singer Curtis Grimes against punk rocker Emily Valentine. You might recognize Emily. She made the Hollywood round of American Idol as Emily Wynne-Hughes.

Check back in tonight. I’ll be blogging live during the show.