It was a big night for Shakira on “The Voice” Tuesday. She got to perform the title track from her new album, “Empire,” only to see the near-collapse of her empire on the show, when two thirds of her team on the verge of the first viewer vote elimination.
Team Shakira members Tess Boyer, 21, of Glen Carbon, Ill., and Dani Moz (the stage name of Danielle Mozeleski), 26, of L.A., were in the bottom three along with one from Usher’s team, T.J. Wilkins, 23, of Los Angeles, after the first viewer votes were cast Monday (along with complicated iTunes sales credits and other questionable election procedures).
So for the first time of the season, the three had to sing for their lives — not for judges, but for home viewers who would instantly save one. The decision would be made by tweets — or rather those by Twitter subscribers in the East and Central time zones only (the show wasn’t even on yet further West).
Its results, given in the final seconds of the episode, saved Tess — no surprise to anyone who had been watching the vote totals as they were displayed during the commercial break. Except for the first seconds, she had a solid 40 percent or so of the vote the whole time, followed by T.J. and Dani.
It’s been an odd journey for Tess on the show, who was first picked up by Usher in the blind auditions only to be cast off during the first battle round, stolen by Blake, for whom she lost the second battle round — when she was stolen by Shakira. You just can’t keep this girl down.
So Shakira and Usher are both down one team member, while the teams of Blake Shelton and Adam Levine sailed through intact.
Clearly, Shakira’s all female team seemed the most vulnerable. Though Tess was returned to the fold after singing Kelly Clarkson’s mid-tempo “Dark Side,” the one Shakira member who didn’t make the bottom three was the one whose microphone conked out midway through her performance Monday, Kristen Merlin.
Dani Moz, the blonde who towered over the other singers, went home after singing Adele’s “Turning Tables” on Tuesday. Monday she sang Pink’s “Just Give Me a Reason” and those who didn’t vote for her, ironically, gave her no reason.
T.J. Wilkins’ performance on Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” Tuesday was faultless, but remained the first casualty to Team Usher. On the brighter side, another member of Usher’s team, the nerdy Josh Kaufman, was the first to be saved. After his version of Sam Smith’s “Stay with Me” hit the iTunes Top 10 Monday, he was first to make the show’s Top 10 as well.
After the precision of the prerecorded episodes of “The Voice,” Tuesday’s first live results show was ragged and had a maddening pace. Carson Daly would slow things down to a crawl — his pause before saying whether someone was safe was so long you’d think his mike went out like Kristen’s — but then he’d speed up judges toward the end so he could make the time.
Plus there were all the time fillers.
In addition to Shakira’s performance, Adam Levine got to sing with his team on a version of Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer.” And Blake Shelton led his team with a version of Travis Tritt’s “Put Some Drive in Your Country.” And neither had to worry about losing a team member, yet.