Adley Stump Goes ‘Free Fallin" Out of ‘The Voice’ Competition After Battling RaeLynn
When you’re a contestant on ‘The Voice,’ having a ‘case of the Mondays’ isn’t such a bad thing … unless you lose in the battle round, of course. In tonight’s premiere cage match episode, Blake Shelton chose an obvious pairing, putting country cutie RaeLynn up against twangin’ powerhouse Adley Stump.
According to Shelton, the girls “were chosen to battle each other because they’re both completely different” — Adley with her big voice and RaeLynn with her undeniable style — but their similarity is hard to ignore. Despite being inherently countrified, the ‘Drink on It’ singin’ mentor placed a non-country song in their hands, hoping they’d stand out singing Tom Petty’s classic, ‘Free Fallin’.’
RaeLynn, who Shelton called a younger version of his wife Miranda Lambert (not in a weird way), got to work one-on-one with the ‘White Liar’ country songstress as her advisor in the first battle rounds episode. While in the red chair, so to speak, Lambert explained that RaeLynn simply needed to focus on RaeLynn when faced with the competition, and not to try to achieve heights she doesn’t have. In short, as the country icon put it, “her tone is her edge.” Sure, Rae is armed with one name — much like Madonna, Cher and Beyonce before her — but does she have what it takes to be the queen of country… and the winner of ‘The Voice’?
Elsewhere, Adley got to link arms with powerful pop vocalist Kelly Clarkson as her mentor. As we all know, Clarkson was the first to dominate on a certain other singing competition which went unnamed on the NBC network tonight, making her the perfect person to dish out advice.
We were hard pressed to root for bloodshed while watching the two sweet girls, who had plenty of compliments to dish one another along the way, but in the end, only one of them could walk away grinning her pearly whites. “This is the battle of country music. May the best girl win,” RaeLynn said as the show cut to commercial pre-battle.
After delivering an all-over-the-map duet of ‘Free Fallin’,’ the judges weighed in. It seemed each of them were wowed by Rae’s age, and not all of them were floored by her voice, but it came down to Blake Shelton’s opinion of the girls’ performance — and their star power. In the end, he chose 17-year-old RaeLynn to carry his legacy in ‘The Voice’ competition.
Watch RaeLynn and Adley Stump Perform ‘Free Fallin” on ‘The Voice’