VOICE OVER: The Battle Rounds Begin on NBC's The Voice!

On NBC's The Voice, tonight, October 8, marked the start of the battle rounds! The last two weeks were the blind auditions in which singers auditioned, the coaches decided whether or not they wanted the singer, and the performers themselves chose which team they wanted to join. So now, it's almost a completely different show. Now it's about each artist competing against another awesome singer to stay on the show.

So here's how it works: each team has two singers at a time who go head to head, singing together, but simultaneously trying to shine. After they finish, it's up to their coach to decide which one should remain on the team. As mentioned last week, this season has a slight twist called a steal. Each coach is allowed two steals, meaning that when a coach lets a mentee go, one of the other coaches has a chance to claim that singer for their own team. This gives the coaches the opportunity to keep the very best singers on the show and even pick up people who they had wanted at the auditions. If more than one coach tries to steal at a time, it's up to the singers to decide who they want as their coach.

So the first battle of season three was on Team Blake with the help of Michael Bublé as an expert coach. Casey Meussigman and Terry McDermott sang, "Carry On Wayward Son." Scottish rocker Terry seemed to have a more trained voice, while country singer Casey Meussigman definitely had to adjust his country voice to the style of this song. However, Casey was not at all short on confidence. He told Michael Bublé that he thought he could win the whole competition and that he had no qualms about making Terry a, "casualty on my way to success." Both of these guys really brought everything they had to the table tonight as they battled it out to see who would stay on with Blake. In their rehearsal before the performance, Blake told them, "Casey, you won't back down from anything. Terry, you're a B.A. Singer. You have your work cut out for you." Later, Blake also commented, "Casey has shown the most growth. They've both worked hard, and they've both decided to win." Their duet was an amazing performance, but it seemed clear that while they were both talented performers, Terry shone just a little brighter than Casey. After they sang, Blake said, "Terry, the challenge for you is I'm a country guy, and I can relate to country artists more. You both have a great voice with a lot of power." To Casey's surprise, Blake chose to keep Terry. Though Christina told Blake that he had a tough decision and that both of the guys really brought it, and CeeLo told Casey that he sounded great, no one stole Casey to keep him in the show.

With Mary J. Blige helping Team Adam, Collin McCloughlin and Bryan Keith prepared, "Santeria" by Sublime. Adam told his mentees, "I think this song is a common thread for you both. It's a dark song." Interestingly, Adam found a pitch problem with Collin, but not because he was off-key. On the contrary, he said, "Collin, you have maybe the best pitch I've ever heard, but you need that imperfection too. Put a little more danger into your performance." It's hard to tell whether that is technically a compliment or not. At any rate, this kind of constructive criticism proved very useful to both of these guys as they prepared to battle it out to retain their spot on The Voice. Bryan had more of a rocker voice, which made him a natural as he and Collin sang on stage. The former was clearly comfortable performing, having full confidence in his voice and style, while Collin seemed to have trouble adjusting the almost bad-boy style of the song. Both of them were clearly challenged to do their absolute best with this selection. After their amazing performance, each coach commented on their performance, with the consensus being that Bryan was the better, more comfortable one. Blake was the only one to say he would have chosen Collin. He told them, "That was a lot of fun. You both have completely different types of voices, but there's a laid-back, fun side to what you do. There were no pitch things at all for Collin. I would go with Collin." Adam told them, "Collin, you came up with beastly intentions. It comes down to who interpreted the song in the way that makes me want to take this person forward. The winner of this battle is Bryan." A dejected Collin started to give Adam his final remarks, but Blake and CeeLo both pushed their buttons for a steal. Blake was quick to remind Collin that CeeLo had only minutes before said he would choose Bryan. And with that kind of logic, Collin couldn't help but pick Team Blake.

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