How Alexa Wildish’s “Magical,” “Young Joni Mitchell" Knockout Left Everyone “Awe-Struck”
Wildish's vintage singer-songwriter style won over the Coaches.
The Voice is designed to capture a cohort of talented musicians and then pass them through a series of increasingly difficult filters – the Battles, the Knockouts, the Playoffs – until only one remains. To that end, the competition is getting fierce as evidenced by an absolutely killer trio of performances from Team Niall in the Knockouts. By the time the lights came up there wasn’t a dry eye among the Coaches.
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Alexa Wildish opened the set with a performance of “Believe” by Cher so transformative as to almost redefine the song. Covering a song always runs the risk of getting lost in the original performance, but Alexa’s interpretation managed to stray fantastically far afield while still capturing the soul of the song and it was enough for her to win the Knockout and move on to the Playoffs.
Watch Alexa Wildish sing “Believe” by Cher on The Voice Season 24 Knockouts
Alexa’s version of “Believe” hearkened back to a time in music, even a subgenre of sound, which has largely faded away and might be poised for a comeback. It’s not hard to imagine Alexa headlining a reimagined version of Lilith Fair with tens of thousands of young people grooving along. It bucked every convention of modern popular music; every note was unexpected but every note was correct.
“Alexa, nobody does what you just did anymore. It’s a singer-songwriter, warm sound where you’re just really, really into the lyrics,” said Gwen Stefani. “That was just so magical for me. I love it so much.” John Legend agreed, through tears and a tissue. “It was such a cool choice picking that song and you executed it so flawlessly. It was perfect, perfectly done,” John said.
Niall Horan, meanwhile, agonized over the choice ahead of him and he wasn’t alone. All of the Coaches were horrifyingly aware that they had just seen three of the best performances of the year with no Steals or Saves remaining. Niall said as much, “There’s no Steals or Saves left which makes this… I don’t even have words for it,” while mulling over his choices.
Whichever two he didn’t choose, regardless of their undeniable talent, were about to head home and there were no easy choices. You could almost see Niall’s discomfort in making the choice, any one of them might have easily won the entire competition with the performance they delivered in any other year.
Yet, Alexa’s transformative performance just barely edged out her competitors and won the day.
“Alex is the most mind-blowing moment I’ve ever had on this show,” Niall said. “I chose Alexa as the winner because she is a one in a million talent. She could potentially win this thing.”
We’ll find out when The Voice Mondays and Tuesdays at 8/7c on NBC and next day on Peacock.
