Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Joanna Serenko performs her Top 17 song on The Voice Season 18. (NBC Photo)

Joanna Serenko continued her Houdini act on The Voice Tuesday night, escaping elimination yet again.

Joanna wasn’t among the four artists voted into the Season 18 semifinals by fans.

Nor was she among the four artists saved by their coaches after the voting results were announced.

But she attracted enough votes to qualify for an instant-save performances, and that turned out to be all it took for the young lady from St. Louis, Missouri, who was 18 when she auditioned for The Voice.

Joanna turned four chairs with that blind audition, but found herself on the cusp of elimination during the battle round and knockout round.

John Legend saved her the first time; both Nick Jonas and Blake Shelton came to her rescue the second. She opted to join Team Blake and sang as a member of his team in Monday’s playoffs.

Here’s a look at how I graded the tonight’s four instant save performances. I’ll embed videos if they become available.

Joanna Serenko, “Lonely Tonight” — Joanna shows off her fine tone, but this is a little sleepy and didn’t feature much vocal dynamics until the final 15 seconds of so. Still, it was a solid performance. Grade: B

Mandi Castillo, “True Colors” — Mandi did last night’s performance all in Spanish. Not tonight. This isn’t as smooth as Mandi typically is, but she showed what’s she’s capable of over the last 30 seconds or so. Very nice ending. Grade: B+

Cedrice, “Breathing” — Cedrice goes a bit more upbeat than the first two contestants. She really needs the big stage to shine. Course I could say the same thing about Mandi. Both are great performers. That vocal wasn’t Cedrice’s best. She’s also West Coast-based, a hugh disadvantage with the instant save taking place on East Coast time. Grade: B–

Michael WIlliams, “To Love Somebody” — Michael’s done a fabulous job on the show considering that he was a one-chair turn. Here, he’s being drowned out by the backing music through the early part of the performance. He delivered a strong ending though. Grade: B–