Her audition: Kristen Marie, 20, of Oklahoma City, Okla., auditioned with “Mad World” by Tears for Fears. Her unique vocals prompted chair turn from Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton. Christina said she heard a little Adele and Sia in Kristen’s voice. Despite the Oklahoma connection with Blake, Kristen chose to join Team Christina.
Her background: Kristen said she’s been performing since she was young, but in children’s choirs, not by herself. Then in her senior year of high school, she auditioned for a talent show and got positive feedback. She’s now a theater performance major and pre-law minor in college. She was also working as a barista at Starbucks and as an intern at a law firm at the time of her Voice audition. She considers her style indie-jazz, a genre that’s not particularly easy to pursue in Oklahoma, she says. She was hoping her Voice audition would prove her dream of a music career “is valid.”
What the show didn’t show:
According to her bio on The Voice website, Kristen is hoping to fulfill her mother’s dreams of being a successful jazz singer.
She considers herself a super fan of The Voice, who tunes in for every episode and considers former Voice standout Melanie Martinez a major musical influence.
Kristen said she always thought she would become a member of Team Blake if she had the opportunity. Then Christina started talking. “Christina said all the things that as an artist I just really needed to hear to pick her,” Kristen said in a conference call with the media. “And in my head I was like, ‘I should still pick Blake, right? Like I’ve always wanted to pick Blake, right? He’s an Oklahoman; he knows what’s up.’ But she just was so convincing and so sharp and so funny and I — like how can you turn down the queen, honestly? It was insane. And so she just said exactly what I needed to hear to be convinced.”
In the same call, she credited her experience as a theater performance major at the University of Central Oklahoma for helping her conquer “a lot of stage fright issues.” “Theater performance really has been just like the biggest, biggest blessing to me just because that was really the only reason I could kind of put on the normal face and not just like lay down on stage (during her blind audition) and be like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is happening.'”
Kristen said she’s been writing music and performing much more in the past year.
As for her audition song? “‘Mad World’ is one of the first songs that I sang that I really kind of found my own voice in and so it was really just kind of a natural choice to get to sing it on the show,” she said. “And it’s just something that showcases kind of like my weird vocal things that I do and all the different choices that I make.”
Keeping up with Kristen Marie:
Twitter: @kristenmariemm
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