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Ranking The Best Guest Mentors On 'The Voice' Is Hard, But I Managed To Do It

With more than seven seasons under its belt, NBC's The Voice has had some incredible stars from the music world make their way onto the series to mentor contestants and teach them how to give their best performances on the show, and in the future. We've seen everyone from Aloe Blacc to Lionel Richie to Taylor Swift on the show, but which mentor was the best? It's tough to decide who's better than who, since they're all so good, but let's be honest. Even greatness can be ranked. Let's take a look.

by Keertana Sastry

Aloe Blacc — Team Adam (Season 6)

The thing I liked about Aloe Blacc’s time on The Voice was that he worked extremely well with Adam. While Blacc wasn’t necessarily the most memorable mentor in a solo sense, he understood what Adam was trying achieve with each contestant and the two helped improve Adam’s contestants when they needed it the most.

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Cher — Team Blake (Season 5)

Cher didn’t do as much critiquing as I would have hoped during her mentoring days, but her presence and what she did contribute helped kick her contestants’ butts into gear. Because if you’re not intimidated and trying to impress Cher, then why are you competing, amirite?

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Taylor Swift — Team Usher (Season 4), All Teams (Season 7)

Who would have thought that Taylor Swift would be a great mentor? She didn’t exactly get too critical with the competitors, but that’s a good thing. That’s what the coaches do best. She focused on helping them in categories that are her strengths like performance and showmanship. She’s been brought back as a mentor twice now, once for contestants in all of the teams, and it would actually be a delight to see her back once again in the future.

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Lionel Richie — Team Xtina (Season 2)

It’s Lionel Richie. He’s an icon in the music industry and he knows exactly what he’s talking about when he does any kind of mentoring. Any kind of mentoring is awesome when it comes from Lionel Richie. Without him, this list would have a huge missing piece.

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Chris Martin — All Teams (Season 6)

Martin was quite a good resource for all of the contestants to have in his appearance during Season 6 of the show, because he offered both lots of positive reinforcement but also absolute truths about people’s voices and where their strengths were actually located. Plus, it was fun to watch contestants geek out over him and watch him interact with the coaches like Adam and Blake.

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Jill Scott — Team Usher (Season 6)

Jill Scott is a powerhouse singer, so it made perfect sense for Usher to want her to mentor his contestants. Scott left a memorable stamp during her mentoring with important critiques that challenged the contestants to go outside the box.

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Jewel — Team Xtina (Season 2)

Jewel has coached, mentored, or judged on three separate music competitions outside of her time mentoring on The Voice. She was involved in The Sing-Off, Platinum Hit, and Nashville Star. So while Christina Aguilera’s choice to have Jewel mentor her team might seem strange from the outside, it makes perfect sense given all those credentials and thanks to her incredible musical prowess. She was a brilliant judge of potential and ability and should be brought back as often as possible.

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Miguel — Team CeeLo (Season 5)

Miguel worked his butt to show that he belonged in his mentor’s slot by not only eloquently critiquing the vocal abilities and musicality of CeeLo’s team, but also demonstrating in areas that were weak. His voice is beautiful, so any opportunity to get him to sing is a good one.

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Jennifer Hudson — Team CeeLo (Season 3)

She was honest and at times very direct with CeeLo’s contestants, which was absolutely necessary in making them better, or at the very least, helping CeeLo see who was worth keeping.

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Alicia Keys — Team Pharrell (Season 7)

Alicia was a smart choice to mentor for Team Pharrell as she helped light a fire under the contestants to step up their game vocally and within the realm of how to perceive a song. She helped contestants create new sounds for themselves and for popular music, and it really made a world of a difference.

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Miranda Lambert— Team Blake (Season 2), Shakira (Season 6)

Miranda Lambert has been a mentor twice now, once for husband Blake Shelton’s team and once for Team Shakira, and it’s easy to see she was brought back. Lambert is able to be completely warm with her mentoring while still providing the right kind of critique to let her contestants soar.

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Ryan Tedder — Team Adam (Season 5)

Tedder has experience both in front of and behind the mic, which made his critiques and mentorship an invaluable one for the contestants. He was able to be both supportive and critical when necessary which makes him arguably the best mentor on the series. He was the best!

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