‘The Voice’ Season Two Awards
"If there was a Most Improved award, you'd get it," Adam Levine tells Katrina Parker during The Voice's semifinals, mere seconds before unceremoniously dumping her from his team forever. Unfortunately for Katrina (who would also win Best Adele Impersonation, were there such a thing), there's only one award on this winner-takes-all show. However, who's to say that Rolling Stone can't give out its own awards for the contestants and judges who made The Voice what it was? Read on for our picks for the best, worst and most unstoppable forces of the hit show.
By Joe Berkowitz
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Best Judge: Cee Lo Green
Adam probably had the most honest critiques of any judge. Blake was the most persuasive during the blind auditions. Xtina was the most volatile and exciting of the four. But it was Cee Lo Green who was Purrfect. The cat-stroker and most unpredictable of the judges managed to seem lost in space half the time, but clearly knew what he was doing, winnowing down a team of unique performers to the terrific twosome of Jamar Rogers and Juliet Simms at the end. And although Xtina has the best voice of any of the judges, it was always a pleasure to hear Cee Lo sing on jams like "Dancing in the Street" during group performances. Combine all that with his sincerity, wise parting words after eliminations, his commitment to his team, and a consistently ridiculous series of outfits, and it all adds up to one of the major reasons that people tuned into the show.
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Most Undeniable Presence: Christina’s Cleavage
There was one thing that Christina Aguilera made resoundingly clear during this season of The Voice. Well, two things, actually: her boobs. While contestants on the show sometimes outfitted themselves in racy garments, no necklines plunged the way that Xtina's consistently did. By the last episode, if you weren't intimately familiar with her experiments in upper, inner, and side cleavage, than you must have been watching a different show altogether.
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Best ‘Mask of Terror’ Face: Pip
The Voice is at its most tense when it comes time for the eliminations. While we at home can feel sure that a certain contestant did very well and is definitely not going to be kicked off, we have no idea what it feels like to be up on that stage. One person made it most viscerally clear what it felt like to be up on that stage, though, and that was Pip. Any time his head appeared to be on the chopping block, his face became stricken. He stood there, aghast, awaiting judgment, reflecting all our personal fears of rejection right back at us with open mouth and terror-eyes. It was sad (but not unfunny) to see him go.
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Worst Performance: Erin Martin and The Shields Brothers – ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’
This might be a controversial statement, but not every single performance on reality singing competition shows is a gem. Some of them are like audio emissaries from Planet Garbage. The worst one this season involved former model Erin Martin and the shambling Shields Brothers singing a Tina Turner song. This unlikely binary formed the only battle wherein the participants sounded like they were singing completely different songs, neither of which sounded remotely like the song they were supposed to be singing. It must have been hard to pick a winner, because neither contestant really did "better" than the other.
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Best Guest Coach: Alanis Morrisette
The funniest recurring motif on the show this season involved the testimonials during each battle round episode; when contestants would always, always give some variation of the phrase, "I walked into the room and there's Robin Thicke. Did I die and go to music heaven?" The guest coach who was most worthy of such excitement, though, was definitely Alanis. She delved deep into psychology, asking contestants if there was a range they were scared of breaching. She also memorably gave contestant Karla Davis an alter ego named Bertha: "the big girl who lives inside you."
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Worst Accessory: James Massone’s Headband
I don't claim to understand women in any capacity whatsoever. This lack of comprehension is further confounded, however, by the huge female response to young Boston mechanic James Massone on The Voice. Sure, he's got a really sweet voice and a nice smile, but this good-looking dude's perennial adherence to effeminate headbands has dealbreaker written all over it. In a crowded field of awful headwear that includes Xtina's tiny black Frisbee hat, James' headband still stands out. It's gotta go.
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Best Parents: Jordis
A lot of contestants brought their parents with them to the show, and there is a whole lot of cuteness going on. The parents of bowtie-favoring Pip could often be found beaming in the audience, both wearing bowties. However, you haven't seen adorable until you've seen Jordis' folks. Her dad is Tongan; her mom is Swedish. He's wearing flower-laden tribal garb; she's wearing leopard print. And the celebration dance Jordis' dad does in his flowing muumuu after she aces her blind audition is the best thing I've ever seen. If there's a runner-up, however, it's Naih Kete's mom, whose dreads are even knottier than her own.
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Worst Luck With Women: Jesse Campbell
Jesse Campbell just can't win when it comes to the ladies. First his wife left him because he was too focused on his music career, rather than making a more traditionally stable living doing literally anything else. Then, after advancing pretty damn far in a competition that could lead to some seriously lucrative ends for his musical career, he got booted off of the show by Xtina prematurely in the biggest surprise elimination of the season. This guy can't catch a break.
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Best Burn: Christina Aguilera Calls Adam Levine ‘A Justin Timberlake Wannabe’
Xtina really leaned into her role as antagonist on this season of The Voice, and it was kind of the best. Whether you agreed with her or not (and I frequently did not), her smack-talking always made for good TV. On the second episode, she cemented a feud with Adam that continued throughout the season, by calling him a wannabe JT. Adam must have rejoiced, however, at the best unintentional burn of the season, when fully grown adult, Jonathus, tells Xtina he's had a crush on her since the fifth grade. Ouch!
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Best Performance: Jamar Rogers – “It’s My Life”
There were a lot of showstoppers on The Voice this season, many of which belonged to newly minted Rock Queen Juliet Simms, but the stars just seemed to align on this one. Never mind that the lyrics to the Bon Jovi tune read like something an angsty teen wrote because his parents revoked car privileges after a bad report card; Jamar's triumphant back story (outliving an HIV-positive diagnosis) transforms them into a life-affirming anthem, and the intensity of his commitment to the song is simply electrifying.