Did ‘The Voice’ locals Mathai and Jordan Rager make it to the live show?
Mathai will be back on "The Voice" after surviving the Battle Rounds. CREDIT: NBC
The battle rounds are done! We now go live next week. Tonight, the two remaining metro Atlantans compete: Mathai and Jordan Rager.
Over these four weeks, many of the pairings were mismatches and you could tell based on the song choice and editing who was going to win most of the time.
James Massone vs Wade (Team Cee Lo, “True Colors” Cyndi Lauper). James has some confidence issues during rehearsal but he did a great job during the battle round. He has a more interesting voice. Wade is far smoother and more refined. It’s a toss up. But Cee Lo felt he didn’t hit his high point. So he gives it to the underdog James.
Mathai vs. Nicolle Galyon(Team Adam, “Love Song,” Sara Bareilles). It’s fair to say Mathai, who moved to Atlanta from Dallas a year ago, is the favorite. Mathai gets Alanis Morissette as a coach. “Stretch those notes a little more,” Adam said. ‘You paint a little more,” Alanis said. “You have to give each note due respect,” Mathai noted. Country-leaning Nicolle loves her piano but Adam convinces her to dispense with it for the battle round. There seems to be an odd weakness to Nicolle’s voice and she hits some really flat notes. Mathai has a bit of the same problem Erin last week did: strange, cutesy pronunciations of words. Have they all been listening to Zooey Deschanel? It really wasn’t a very good duet at all. Adam was disappointed and I’m glad he said that. In the end, he had to give it to Mathai.
The LINE vs. Moses Stone (Team Christina, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” Rolling Stones) – The LINE would have preferred country. MC Moses probably would have preferred hip hop. But they get rock. This is one odd pairing! But that’s the point, right? I have no idea who is the favorite. Watching this battle, it’s like a bizarro mashup of Branson, Miss. and the gritty streets of Washington D.C. Cee Lo favors Moses. Adam and Blake both go The LINE. Christina goes for the MC/hip-hop man Moses. I have no problem with that.
Karla Davis vs. Orlando Napier (Team Adam, “Easy” the Commodores) - Adam first opted for pop-rock with “Rich Girl” by Hall & Oates but switched to a more soulful Commodores hit from the same era. Both singers have their quirky charms. Orlando’s bluesy style is contagious and very particular. Karla doesn’t have much depth in the higher registers but I am drawn to her more. It’s a close call, though. Adam picks Karla. He likes her energy and natural tone. (Interesting how Christina slagged it so badly.)
Jordan Rager vs. Naia Kete (Team Blake, “I’m Yours” Jason Mraz) – Street performer Naia is favored for sure here and Blake not coincidentally picked a song that fit Naia. We barely saw Jordan earlier so we know instantly he’s in trouble. Jordan played in bars since he was 16 and wants to meet Blake’s wife Miranda Lambert. Naia fell right into it during rehearsals. Blake asked Jordan to do some harmonies, something he hasn’t done much of. Plus, Jordan isn’t familiar with the song. Miranda ends up being Jordan’s advisor. He is still having trouble with harmonies. During the battle round, Jordan held up well but Naia probably would have had to collapse to lose. She didn’t. “A solid performance,” Christina said. “Naia had a more natural groove of it. You strayed off near the end. For my own personal preference, I’d go with Naia.” Both Cee Lo and Adam noted that Jordan was out of his comfort zone. Adam felt he had nerves. Blake said he didn’t expect Naia to be so nervous. “You missed some notes there,” he said. “There was just some breath. Jordan-you stepped up. It’s interesting to see how far you’ve come. There were a lot of pitch things especially on the harmonies.” No duh. He goes for experience and picks Naia.
Justin Hopkins vs. Tony Vincent (Team Cee Lo, “Faithfully” Journey) – This is Tony’s to lose. He’s clearly the favorite. Carson Daly’s former house band member Justin is intimdated by Tony’s range. It comes down to gritty rocker vs. theater dude. Tony is downright scary. Justin is approachable. Best battle round of the night. . It’s too bad we have to lose either of them. Adam likes Justin’s edginess and gives him the edge. Blake thinks Tony is more versatile but prefers Justin, too. Christina thinks Tony’s versatility makes him more pliable. Cee Lo likes Justin’s heart and soul but gives his final slot to the more experienced Tony.
So of the five metro Atlantans, three made it through: Pip of Marietta, Mathai of Atlanta and Sera Hill of Lithonia. Chris Cauley of Atlanta and Jordan Rager of Loganville didn’t make the cut.
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By Rodney Ho, Radio & TV Talk
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140 comments Add your comment
G
March 26th, 2012
8:59 pm
Mathai vs Nichole = Cutie Pies! Tough battle, but Nichole is having a few pitch and phrasing issues. Mathai has a quirky style, but she’s fairly solid on the vocals. Nichole is a bit generic (Celo) and Idol worthy. They both ended kind of blah. I agree with RoHo that it wasn’t the best battle round, but I agree with Adam choosing Mathai.
G
March 26th, 2012
9:02 pm
CeeLo really didn’t have a choice, but to choose James. Wade seemed to hold back, like he was on Idol or something. LOL!!! Okay just joking. It was really hard to go with James, even though Wade was the better singer…….but not tonight.
G
March 26th, 2012
9:06 pm
[Actually watching The Voice as I type]
Country vs Hip Hop, performing to a rock and roll song (”Can’t Get No Satisfaction”). This is definitely something you wouldn’t see on Idol. Who will actually have the advantage? Moses vs The Line has got to be the weirdest battle round I’ve ever seen. Big shock to see the rapper sing and sounding just as good as…..the country duo. Now he’s rapping. Seems like the country duo is performing backup for Moses. Christina preaches The Voice is more than……the voice and chooses Moses! I agree….
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
9:14 pm
Mathai made it. Glad Moses won over The Line, although they were good. Flipping channels watching The Voice and DWTS!
Good evening.
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
9:16 pm
I agree, G, with your 9:06
G
March 26th, 2012
9:17 pm
Karla vs Orlando depends on what flavor you prefer. Kind of a generic singer vs. blue eye soul. Neither singer wowed me, but I agree on Adams choice……Karla.
G
March 26th, 2012
9:18 pm
Hey Pitchy!
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
9:18 pm
Hey, G. It’s you and me! Want to go grab a Mojito (lol).
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
9:19 pm
Karla deserved the spot. Orlando is quirky in his singing. A little spastic with his tone.
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
9:26 pm
Spastic is not the right word.
Vast Wastrel
March 26th, 2012
9:26 pm
There is enough fluff in these that I’m flipping back and forth to DWTS (to satisfy She Who Must Be Obeyed) with the DVR’s help and not missing anything. No problems with any of the team leaders’ choices so far.
G
March 26th, 2012
9:27 pm
Sipin on a Bud….Yeah, Orlando didn’t do his best at hitting solid notes throughout the song. It’s cool to learn some r&b rifs, but r&b artists are more than rifs.
Next battle is going to be interesting.
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
9:34 pm
I love this song. She sounds great.
G
March 26th, 2012
9:37 pm
Jordan vs Naia. Hearing a lot of nerves early from them both. Naia has an advantage due to the style of the song, but Jordan held his own. Not a good night for county…..Blake chooses Naia. Guess I’m cool with it. Wouldn’t have been mad if he chose Jordan.
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
9:38 pm
YAY, she’s in.
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
9:39 pm
I have a glass of wine…maybe next time we’ll have Mojitos.
DanJ
March 26th, 2012
9:40 pm
Naia had an advantage from the genre but Jordan did better than I thought he would. A little more experience would do him good.
G
March 26th, 2012
9:43 pm
A Journey tune. Thought Journey was an untouchable?
G
March 26th, 2012
9:44 pm
Mojitos!
Must be that time of the month for CeeLo?
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
9:48 pm
“Must be that time of the month for CeeLo” – You got jokes..that was funny.
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
9:53 pm
Too much growl for me.
DanJ
March 26th, 2012
9:55 pm
I like Justin over Tony
DanJ
March 26th, 2012
9:56 pm
Tony scare me! Extra on Walking Dead
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
9:56 pm
Anybody surprised Christina took Tony? NOPE!
G
March 26th, 2012
9:59 pm
This is a good one. Justin vs Toni. These guys just put in work. Can’t be mad with either choice. CeeLo chose Toni. I probably would’ve given Toni the edge too. This guy is serious.
I’m having second thoughts about Wade vs James. Think I would’ve taken a gamble on Wade for the long haul.
Pitchy
March 26th, 2012
10:00 pm
Extra on Walking Dad. FUNNY. I have to agree. Pasty and Gothic at the same time.
Vast Wastrel
March 26th, 2012
10:00 pm
Again two that were both too good to be paired in Justin and Tony at the end.
Seth T
March 26th, 2012
11:13 pm
From my perspective on The Voice tonight, some of the more stage appealing contestants could not sing very well, and the better singers of the 2 in the ring were often sent home.
While the top 24 has some talent, there’s going to need to be a lot of improvement before we can expect to see a good night of performances. And I would say, a lot, lot. lot of improvement.
‘The Voice’ Unveils 24 Finalists Before Going Live – MTV.com | Amazing News
March 26th, 2012
11:25 pm
[...] Atlanta Journal Constitution [...]
Mercedes S.
March 27th, 2012
12:23 am
Seth, totally agree.
Finally saw The Voice and I would have enoyed the musical battles more if it hadn’t been so obvious who would “win”. Liked Jordan a lot but he didn’t have a chance against the hairy girl who got exactly the song she wanted. orlando was more interesting than Karla. Mathai was marginally better than Nicole. Standout of the night for me – Tony Vincent. Great voice, and physically an odd combination of Adam Lambert and Ralph Fiennes’ Voldemort.
Seth T
March 27th, 2012
1:09 am
The girl from The Line, was not very happy they were eliminated – and I can see her point, They got chosen from the auditions because they had a Country Pop type of vibe – then got thrown into a Classic Heavy Rock (Rolling Stones song) battle against someone much better vocally suited to handle that genre.
I wasn’t a fan of The Lne to begin with, but the song choice and pairing was made to get them tossed, not to give them a chance. She should have grabbed Xtina’s little sparkly CD she wears on her head, and frisbee’d it out in the alley.
DebDoes
March 27th, 2012
6:45 am
Justin was robbed….Ceelo picked weird of normal.
Deirdre
March 27th, 2012
7:51 am
Morning!
Happy to see that a few of you enjoyed The Voice last night. And I’ll bet some of you watched DWTS. I didn’t watch either one.
The top 9 on Idol have moved into their Hollywood Hills mansion. I imagine we will be seeing some of that during the results show.
RxDawg
March 27th, 2012
8:13 am
Maatae or however you spell it was a DISASTOR. Now the other girl wasn’t really any better, but at least she sometimes sounded ok dispite her bread and butter voice. But good lord Matie was worse then that modeling girl was. How in the heck could they actually put her through? I was really dissapointed because I liked her audition. Talk about your cannon fodder. If you sing well but in a fairly normal voice then you apparently have a huge disadvantage for these coaches. They do nothing but seem to go after the weird. Are they trying to saturate the market with a bunch of crapy singers so they’re the only good ones? lol
Blake and Ceelow are the worst about it too. Especially Blake.
Mercedes S.
March 27th, 2012
8:14 am
Morning!
Have forgotten everybody’s backstory – does this year’s crop of idols all come from small towns so they can be suitable impressed by the mega-mansion that awaits?
RxDawg
March 27th, 2012
8:27 am
The male singer from The Line duet couple is pretty good. And he really needs to ditch that bad attitude chick. I could tell there was just something off putting about her and I wasn’t at all surprised that she acted like she did at the end.
Mercedes S.
March 27th, 2012
8:32 am
RX, yes, the girl from Line was upset leaving; perhaps because her fears about the set up (all the good parts of “Satisfaction” were reserved for the winner of the bout; the Line was reduced to screams here and there) had come true. Agree that the Line guy was better than his partner.
RxDawg
March 27th, 2012
8:42 am
But this is showbiz Mercedes. It’s a singing competetion. You don’t whine about what song you have to sing (and let’s face it, they didn’t get a difficult singing song). You suck it up and show the world that you can sing anything period. You show that your the best contestent. If you dont? You go home.
But it was more then that. I could tell right away that she was probably a difficult person to work with. Sometimes you just get that feeling about smoeone ya know? So when she started pouting at the end it just sealed the deal for me. I feel for that guy in the duet, she probably rides him like a rented mule.
RxDawg
March 27th, 2012
8:43 am
Oh but I do agree about the set ups. I really like the voice, but these battlerounds they came up with absolutely stink. We lose very good contestants and wind up with terrible ones getting through. The producers are making a mistake by sticking with this type of format.
G
March 27th, 2012
9:13 am
Moses vs The Line. I think the song selection was a fair handicap for both. Heck, no one knew that Moses could even hold a note. Being that The Line had more experience as singers, they should have had any easy advantage over Moses.
Like most closed minded singers (Idol has them too), they were already making excuses as to why they would not do well because of the song genre’. They wanted something that suited them more. The only reason Moses won, was because he fully embrased the challenge, worked hard, and performed well.
Much like XF, The Voice has entered the hip hop realm. In the real word, it’s only fair that they include the rap genre’ because: 1) Its been around for over 30 years 2) It sells millions of units 3) Has a large mult-cultural fan base 4) Has a growning multi-generational base 5) Has it’s own Billboard 100 / Top 10 category 6) Recognized by the Grammys and other award shows. IJS
RxDawg
March 27th, 2012
9:20 am
“Like most closed minded singers (Idol has them too), they were already making excuses as to why they would not do well because of the song genre’. They wanted something that suited them more. The only reason Moses won, was because he fully embrased the challenge, worked hard, and performed well. ”
Very well said G. Moses gave it his all and looked like he enjoyed doing it and I had no problems with him getting in over The Line.
Sam-A
March 27th, 2012
9:45 am
Mercedes: Voldemort came to my thoughts too. Really creepy looking dude. Ok singer, but I thought the other guy much better. This was one of 2 I actually saw (my normal shows’ finale’s were last week, so I’m hanging free). Searching for something to watch until “Castle” now , but I don’t like either “Voice” or “Dancing” enough to devote 2 hours to them. I will say from the bits and pieces I’ve seen of “Voice” over the 2 seasons, I like Adam’s judging the best overall.
Pitchy
March 27th, 2012
10:33 am
Good morning
“She should have grabbed Xtina’s little sparkly CD she wears on her head, and frisbee’d it out in the alley.” – That would have made for some darn great TV and blogging (lol).
back to idol
March 27th, 2012
10:36 am
I am EXTREMELY disappointed in the battle between Jordan and Naia. It’s not fair to give one such a huge advantage by giving them a song that fits their genre to a T. Just as it wouldn’t have been fair to give them a country song. That was totally geared to get her through and I don’t get it. Now had another judge done that I wouldn’t have been suprised…but for a COUNTRY artist to do that to an aspiring COUNTRY singer is a little hard to believe.
Pitchy
March 27th, 2012
10:39 am
I’m just glad The Battle rounds are over!!!!!!!
Mercedes S.
March 27th, 2012
10:50 am
So what happens after the battle rounds? Are they allowed to sing individually? If the “voting” is anything like the one at “X-Factor” – “I will only acknowledge my own singers ” – I’m not interested…
RxDawg
March 27th, 2012
11:03 am
Blake has weird tastes despite being a Country singer. I’d like to take a peek at his iPod.
Mercedes, if I remember last year right, it now becomes more like Idol/X Factor. I belive the teams will still compete within themselves against each other until they get down to 2 from each team (or some similar smaller number). Then the there is no more teams and they all compete against each other. It’s roughly something along that format.
Mercedes S.
March 27th, 2012
11:12 am
Thanks, Rx.
Deirdre
March 27th, 2012
11:19 am
Just watched last night’s episode of Smash. Enjoyed it very much. great soapy fun. Kat McPhee was given a song that I think might make the charts.
iron_eagle
March 27th, 2012
11:20 am
Frankly the reason I watch The Voice is actually knowing Tony Vincent. I first met him in London during his run with WWRY at the Dominion. He took on the role again in Vegas, and wowed many with his talents, grace and charm. At first i didnt know he was on the show, i caught it while channel surfing, heard this voice singing Queen (and as a hard core Queen fan and working yearly on the North American Queen Convention Breakthru 2012 in Atlanta in July (shameless plug)) i immediately stopped hitting the remote… i said dang that sounds like Tony…. whoa no hair…. i start looking for tats…dont see one..then i see Aspen OMG Tony is on tv … so been keeping tabs since…. I wish him well… he truly is talented… like Mathai also…. Rock on Mr. Galileo Figaro !!!!!!!!!!