The Voice 24: Watch Mara Justine’s Fierce Teddy Swims Cover of “Lose Control”
The Voice Season 24 Live shows kicked off on Monday night with performances from the Top 12. The singers were fighting for a spot in the Top 9. Tuesday night, 8 will be voted through and the other 4 will sing for the final spot. Monday night was very pleasing. It was full of fresh song selections, minus a few, and one singer, Mara Justine from Team Niall Horan, delivered an extremely dynamic performance of a current trending song.
During rehearsal, Niall tells celebrity mentor Chance The Rapper about his bitterness during the Blind Auditions after he lost Mara to John Legend after he won the singer over with a duet. However, Niall then stole Mara in the Knockouts, and is still very proud of that moment. He calls Mara, his “soulful entertainer.”
For this round, Mara chose “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims which has both Niall and mentor Chance The Rapper thrilled in rehearsals as she hits some huge notes. Chance remarks, “Mara was incredible. She has this like very angelic presence, but when she got into it, it was just so soulful.” Mara thinks America will love the song as it is viral. I personally have been seeing the song across socials a lot. It’s a great choice for Mara.
Mara does NOT lose control
Niall advises Mara to just “switch a few of the pitch things” in the second verse to fine tune the performance. He sees the “confidence” she has going into the round. Mara gets teary-eyed as she is very thankful to make it this far. She promises, “I’m going to use all of those kind words and feedback, so when I go up there, that’s going to be the little fire under my butt.”
One thing is for sure, Mara does not “lose control” one bit on this performance. From the first note, her raspy tone is on display. She builds the performance with an excellent sense of dynamics and is spot on with the tricky riffs that the original singer Teddy Swims absolutely nails. Mara adds a few touches of her own, including a cool falsetto run at the falsetto and topping it all off with a gravelly belt. She did the trending song, justice.
The past few rounds, she has been super smart with song choices as she truly shines on pop rock numbers with soul undertones. Her stage presence has truly evolved from her American Idol and America’s Got Talent days where it seemed a bit erratic, but now she is extra in an effective way, feeling every bit of the song. This performance should allow for Mara to sail through to the next round.
“You deserve to go the whole way”
She gets a standing ovation from the panelists. Her coach Niall says, “I’m so proud to watch the growth,” adding, “the confidence you have gained by getting to the lives has been unbelievable, and that was by far your best performance of the season so far, and you deserve to go the whole way.”
Mara wasn’t the only stand out on Team Niall as Nini Iris’s passionate take on The Cure’s “Lovesong” was also a showstopper. Team Reba McEntire’s 16-year-old country singer Ruby Leigh was also stellar, covering her own coach’s song “You Lie.” Honorable mentions go to Team John’s AZÁN who got Lauryn Hill’s approval to sing “Ex-Factor” and Team John’s Lila Forde who’s tone was beautiful on “Closer to Fine” by Indigo Girls. Overall, tonight was a very strong night. I just wish the live shows were longer as it feels like we blink and they are done.
