With American Idol's popularity waning as the show enters its 10th season, The Voice is primed to take over as the Ratings winner of American Television. Learn more about the show here with our recap of Season 2's first two episodes here.

Last year, the biggest thing going for The Voice was the four current star artists serving as coaches for their own team of artists. Featuring CMA Male vocalist of the year Blake Shelton, Maroon 5 lead-singer and main writer Adam Levine, R&B/Hip-Hop vocalist Cee Lo Green and pop icon Christina Aguilera, the show immediately was a big hit for ratings starved NBC and much like the first season of American Idol, the show produced solid ratings and positioned the second season really take off as a cultural phenomenon.

While neither season one winner Javier Colon or runner-up Dia Frampton (currently on tour with mentor Blake Shelton) haven’t scored too big in the radio or album charts as of yet, that didn’t mean that this show wasn’t ready to break-out this week, particularly given the audience’s good-will to the contestants on the show.

The contestants are picked by talent scouts from various ways, be it the host Carson Daily seeing a rocker’s youtube viral take on Adele, through idol-like auditions (but without ‘judges’), or through good ole talent searches by talent scouts and producers.

None of the potential stars auditioning are delightfully bad either. It’s a strong-point of The Voice and certainly something that makes the television show stand-out from American Idol and The X-Factor’s ‘laugh at the contestants who think they good but aren’t’ production style – and it’s influence on Idol’s not so snarky audition rounds this year.

How The Voice blind audition process works:

Each judge is given the chance to coach/mentor 12 vocalists (up from eight on the shorter season one). They don’t see the vocalists when they enter the stage to sing in front of Blake, Christiana, Cee Lo and Adam. The judges chairs are turned to face the audience and if they like what they hear, they have a button to hit to see who is singing. What it means is the judges are ‘blind’ and are solely thinking they’d like to work with a vocalist who sounds good to them.  If two or more of the judges decide that they want to work with the vocalist, the vocalist then gets to pick which judge to work with. This leads to some all-in-good-fun spirited debate between the judges (who like to be called coaches) as to who would make a better mentor for the aspiring vocalists.

Now, onto the first week (Two Episodes) of season two recap:

First up for the show this year is country farm girl RaeLynn. Only seventeen, she has enough swagger to try and pull off a cover of the Pistol Annie’s “Hell On Heels” song, a song written by and featuring Miranda Lambert, Blake’s wife. Last year he wasn’t so happy to hear somebody try and sing his wife’s song yet he was impressed enough to want to work with the young blonde girl (her hair color is right for Nashville radio acceptance). Adam also turns around and he and Blake share some jabs at their abilities to coach. But Honestly, Blake had this one from the start: he’s married to the girl’s idol, Miranda Lambert and she chooses him to be her mentor.

42 year old R&B singer Jesse Campbell is next and he’s a single father and almost immediately, Christina, Adam and Cee Lo turn around, followed quickly thereafter by Blake. The talented singer chooses Christina who says she will ‘fight for him.’

The judges pass on the pitchy Daniel Rosa and then move on to hearing a sultry performance of The Beatles “Oh! Darling” and the song immediately finds Adam and Cee Lo interested while Christina follows quickly thereafter. In the end, Juliet Simms, with the growling Pat Benatar-like vocal gets to choose between the three coaches and ultimately chooses Adam who boasts that he won the show last year.

Opera is not something that Idol has ever cared to showcase yet like America’s Got Talent, NBC’s summer ratings winner, The Voice is all about vocalists, not pop-tarts looks – though that ultimately helps -  so at the very least the very talented Chris Mann – from Nashville – gets a shot. He chooses Christina, the wailing diva, and it’s a paring that makes sense.

The show ends with somebody Christina once knew. Troubadour singer/songwriter Tony Lucca, someone who has had a steady career working in clubs across the country, once was on the Mickey Mouseketeers televisions how with Christina. The soulful crooner belts out Ray LaMontagne’s “Trouble” and does an admirable job. But Christina doesn’t know who he is. Tony chooses to work with Adam (who has a similarily soulful voice) and as the show gets towards the end, she runs back to the side room and tells him that she does remember him (but only AFTER he walked by her close enough for her to know who he was) and says that Britney Spears had the biggest crush on him.

The Voice Season Two Day Two Blind Audition Recap:

With the judges back for more (it looks as if they’re wearing the same clothes so this episode was a two-part debut). And the first act we get is country/pop duo The LiNE, featuring Hailey and Leland. The Nashville-based duo impressed all four judges, even though Blake was the first to turn around and see that they were hearing a duo and not a solo act. Christina convinces the duo to go with her after dissing Blake’s history with country duo Elenowen last year (he sent them home before the live shows).

Turning on the ‘dreams and second chances’ drama that TV often loves, particularly reality TV, former crystal meth addict-turned-volunteer (he also has HIV cause of his drug abuse) Jamar Rogers sings a Cee-Lo-like take on The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army” and all of the judges know right-away that Jamar has to work with Cee Lo and Cee lo only.

After rocker Neal Middleton fails to impress the judges, which really is hard to do because neither is a rock singer, we get country singer Gwen Sebastian. Gwen, who had her own record label partnered with a small Nashville Indie the past couple of years, auditions with a story about putting off starting a family in order to chase her dreams. She gives a spirited rendition of Sugarland’s Stay and has each of the boys turn around to see who this singer is. She ultimately chooses Blake Shelton as her coach.

The beautiful Pamela Rose shows exactly why this show is so good. It’s not about ‘the package.’ Honestly, had this girl tried out for American Idol, she’d have been given a ticket to Hollywood and live shows. Sexy sells. Thankfully, these singing judges all notice pitch problems and kick her to the curb.

50 year old soul diva Kim Yarbrough takes a turn at “Tell Me Somethin’ Good,” a Chaka Khan classic, and does it remarkably well. In fact, she LOOKS like Chaka. Adam and Christina turned around, even though Cee Lo literally danced in his seat. Adam was so very happy to have her choose him as her coach.

St. Louis-native and Air Force member Angie Johnson got her audition on the show because host Carson Daly saw her perform Adele’s “Rolling In The Deep” and became, for a moment, invested in her success. His pitch to producers worked well enough to get Cee Lo to turn around during a good but not great version of the one-note Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker”

The handsome and boy band ready Dez Duron, a Yale football player taking some time off for this show, auditions with a wobbly take on the iconic boy band song “I Want It That Way” and doesn’t succeed in getting any judges to turn around, although Christina wishes, after seeing him, that she could’ve chosen him. We suspect any number of boy band factories currently looking to capitalize on the fad’s rebirth these past couple of years, will offer him a slot in a band. That, or he could go to Hollywood and land a CW gig.

Blake Shelton found something interesting in quirky Lindsey Pavao, as did Christina and Cee Lo. She mentions liking outside-the-box artists and takes that love to a whole new level with an interesting take on Trey Songz “Say Aah”. Christina wins her over with comparisons to their hair styles being similar.

The show winds down with another professional singer – the voice isn’t hiding the pro angle like Idol tries to – who wows the judges enough. Jermaine Paul appears after a wobbly performance of “Teenage Dream” from Hoja Lopez. The singer’s problem wasn’t her voice but the key she sang the song in.  As for Paul, he takes on Avril Lavine’s “Complicated” and turns it into a R&B delight. Cee Lo and Blake jumped to hear the talented vocalist with ‘swag’ according to Cee Lo and he chose Blake to be his coach instead.

The final singer of the night was LA based and former Columbia Records artist Angel Taylor. She sang Adele’s “Someone Like You” and all of the boys turned around and while she revealed to have a huge crush on Blake, she ended up choosing Adam instead. Honestly, Adam’s a better fit for her.

And that’s a wrap! What do y’all think of the show? We will be doing these weekly recaps for y’all and while we are country music centric and will approach The Voice – and any tv contest like it – from our country music kaleidoscope lens.