On the first results show where home voters had full control Tuesday, the symmetry of the four teams on “The Voice” began to shift.
With the elimination of Adriana Louise, 22, from Christina Aguilera’s team and Michaela Paige, 16, “the Mohawk girl” from Blake Shelton’s team, it meant that only Cee Lo Green and Adam Levine had their full complemet of three singers going into the Top 10 competition next week.
Both Christina and Blake, who had a singer win season two, advance with just two singers each.
The ousters came after Louise sang Carrie Underwood’s “Good Girl” Monday and Paige sang Pink’s “Blow Me (One Last Kiss).”
The 10 who advanced did so after long pauses for dramatic effect, sometimes lasting as long as 20 seconds, as host Carson Daly said, “America saved…” I wonder how it would have worked out had news commentators used the same approach in announcing the U.S. election results a week ago.
Even with the pregnant pauses, there was a lot of time left for fooling around, in the form of performances.
Aguilera did what she could to promote her new album out that same day by singing its single “Make the World Move” with help from Cee Lo Green.
Jason Aldean was the guest performer, but when he did his number, having two contestants join him – Bryan Keith and Dez Duron join him only showed how much their voices were lacking.
One of two collaborations with their coaches, Cee-Lo’s performance of the Bee Gee’s “Staying Alive” with Cody Belew, Nicholas David and Trevin Hunte, was more about costumes than vocal prowess.
But Blake Shelton’s performance of “Life is a Highway” turned out to be a showcase for Paige and the rest of his team, Cassadee Pope and Terry McDermott.
Losing two women in the contest right off the bat raises questions whether The Voice will have the kind of purge of female contestants that American Idol has seen. Still, just six of the remaining 10 are male.
There seems to be some interest in voting this year, as Daly said the vote totals this week surpassed last year’s finale, though of course he gave no numbers for either.