The Voice premiere recap: Stop and smell the Daniel Rosa

It’s been more than half a year since The Voice last graced our television screens. Man, how I’ve been waiting for this — TV’s best singing competition, which is like saying it’s the best at being the most useless of television programs, but I don’t care because I love it.

The show opens with a recap of how the show works with all four of our coaches stating how groundbreaking and amazing the show is — and I repeat, as if a singing competition has any real importance to the world. Truthfully, the only one thing that’s different now from last year is that Christina Aguilera’s cleavage seems to be at a normal level.

For now. Give it a couple of episodes and those things will be at the brink of popping out at usual. The rest of Christina is its usual, yellow, pasty (outspoken) self.

All right, I’ve got my cup of Coke (oh, wait, wrong singing competition) and a knack for judging people on stages. Let’s go!

RaeLynn | The Southern belle with a voice akin to Dia Frampton (that then turned almost-soulful) who sang “Hell on Heels.” I think she truly had a great tangy sound in her voice, but I was — shockingly, truly — responding much more with Christina Aguilera’s facial expressions. It’s nice, unique, and different… but a little something is missing for me. Sometimes I felt she was almost on the verge of yelling. What bothered me, however, was how much she clamored that she just love, love, lovessss Blake Shelton to then get a suspenseful edit of who she’s going to choose as her coach. Regardless, Blake will most definitely mold her into something even better.

Jesse Campbell | How awful is it of me to hate this guy’s edit? I don’t know why, but I always hate those backstory edits with the slow motion video and the people crying stating somberly that they were homeless. It has the opposite effect on me. Well, anyway, Jesse’s rendition of “A Song for You” was almost flawless — but that doesn’t make me like him. Just like Javier Colon, who had an immaculate voice, but just didn’t do anything for me. My pick to win last year was Beverly anyway… and I bet if it came down to four including Jesse, he wouldn’t be my first choice either. Anyway, he chooses Christina because she’ll fight for him. She gyrates.

Daniel Rosa | He wears a bow tie. He plays a ukelele. And he cries at cameras. Mostly, I’m upset at The Voice editors for showing us that Daniel wanted his dreams to come true — and then they didn’t. Heartbreaking. Maybe it’s because I love the song “Animal,” but Daniel is god-honestly my favorite performer thus far. I’m not musically talented so I couldn’t tell that he was so pitchy. Besides, isn’t that the point? To coach him? After the yeller, the technically perfect singer, comes Daniel whose voice is very unique, very nice. Well, until the next time Daniel. Perhaps I was just so ready to hate him that makes me like his voice even more?

Juliet Simms | Julet sings and it’s dirty and raw — Cee-Lo, Adam, and Christina push their buttons. Then, Christina begins a war (as per usual) with Adam about how he’s a car salesman. She’s made this joke about three times now. “You blew my socks off!” she says, and apparently her blouse too. Christina’s cleavage is now at Christina levels again. Juliet watches in somewhat amusement and then chooses Cee-Lo. Christina apologizes; audiences are still annoyed by her.

Chris Mann | Chris says he studied opera. Suddenly, I’m already hating the coaches if they choose him rather than Daniel. Come on! Then, he tells us his mom has pancreatic cancer in a slow motion video. Oy vey! I apologize. I feel so terrible for feeling this way I do about the slow motion video! He begins to sing and it just reminds me that the United States isn’t the UK and he’s not Susan Boyle. But whatever, he’s got a set of pipes on him — so of course Christina pushes her button, as does Cee-Lo. Cee-Lo asks why he chose that song and Chris cries and says “This is my voice!” and I groan. God, I’m just dead inside.

Ganol Askoy? | Oh wow that was a lot of singing.

Guy after her with dreads | I kind of liked what I heard.

Mark Trussel? | Baby, baby, baby… NO!

Tony Lucca | Oh. My. God. Will Christina recognize his voice!?!?!??! Who cares. What matters is that his voice has perfected that dirtiness in which everyone was so mesmerized with in Juliet’s performance. I think he just became my favorite voice of the episode. Everyone pushes their buttons by — oh no, Christina doesn’t recognize him! How ever will the world continue to go ’round ever again? Everyone pleas that he join their respective team. But he chooses Adam… and now Adam’s got one, sole person on his team. But a damn good one. Wait, Christina’s face changed! She recognizes him! Or someone told her and wrote a script for her really quickly. I’m betting on the latter. “Britney had the biggest crush on you, ohmahgaaahhhh!” “Thank god I dodged that bullet,” Chris should be thinking.

And that’s a wrap. They do a recap of future episodes, and apparently the four coaches will sing again — and it’s a really big deal. All in all, the premiere episode of The Voice was very fluid to watch. We only got a handful of singers but it didn’t feel like so little. As usual, the best aspect of this show remains that it’s quick — and we don’t get anyone that the show wants to make fun of.

So far, Blake’s got one, Cee-Lo’s got one, Adam’s got one, and Christina round out with the most with three on her team.

My pick is Tony Lucca thus far, but who was your favorite performer of the night?