The Voice Recap: Angered Management [Updated]
Don’t make Usher angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.
Indeed, during Night 2 of The Voice‘s Season 4 Battle Rounds, the “U Got It Bad” singer took a stern approach to his coaching role, getting offended when an underperforming contestant dared to laugh mid-rehearsal. “What’s funny?” “Why you smilin’?” “This is funny to you?” Usher asked with increasing levels of irritation.
Another reason not to make Usher angry? Dude is responsible for discovering Justin Bieber, so if you’re an aspiring music star/selfie-Tweeter, it’s probably best to stay on his good side anyhow.
Aside from Usher’s brief bout of bad-assedness, though, it was yet another Voice episode brought to you by Feel Good Inc. Blake got extra nurturing over a pair of teenage girl contestants. Adam pitted a firefighter against a sheriff, and even though only one advanced, it felt like both of ‘em came out smiling. And everything ended with a delightful steal.
The only bad news was that one of the season’s most exciting Blind Auditioners — Grace “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” Aksew — was relegated to a brief “also advancing to the Knockouts” highlight reel. Ah well, as the Stones tell us, you can’t always get what you want…
Still, here at TVLine, we aim to get you what you need, and with that in mind, it’s time for me to weigh in on the night’s proceedings: I’ve ranked each individual battle (that got more than 10 seconds of play) from least- to most-promising winner, as I often do!
3) Team Usher: Josiah Hawley defeats Jeff Lewis on the Police’s “Roxanne” | I agreed with Shakira that neither of these guys was particularly impressive, but Josiah’s intermittent use of his male modeling background to serve “Blue Steel” to the audience was particularly irksome. No wonder Usher was grouchy during their coaching session. Jeff may have committed First Degree Nervous Giggle in rehearsal, but I heard more promise in his performance.
2) Team Adam: Warren Stone defeats Michael Austin on Jason Aldean’s “My Kind of Party” | From a purely vocal standpoint, Michael outsang Warren, who got knocked off the beat faster than a rodeo cowboy on a particularly wild bronco, never to get back on. Sure, the firefighter shook his booty better than anyone has all season, but you can’t download that on iTunes — at least not the last time I checked!
1) Team Blake: Danielle Bradbery defeats Caroline Glaser on Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Put Your Records On” (Caroline stolen by Adam) | Danielle certainly has power and clarity on her side, but at 16, she has yet to develop any real personality in her voice. Yet under Blake’s Season 4 “Country or Bust” philosophy — which has left me utterly flummoxed — it was pretty clear she was taking home the TKO (in his eyes, anyway). Thankfully, both Adam and Usher appreciated the warm, lilting cadence of Caroline’s delivery. Yeah, Blake was right that she sings with an accent, but as his adviser Sheryl Crowe noted, girlfriend (who could be Julia Stiles’ little sis, no?) also has unique tone as an asset — and that might come back to bite Team Blake later in the season.
Also advancing: Grace Askew (YAY!) over Trevor Davis (Team Blake); Tawnya Reyonolds over Mark Andrew (Team Shakira); Audrey Karrasch over Jamila Thompson (Team Usher). I didn’t really get enough info from those 10 second snippets to make any kind of informed judgment, and so I shan’t make any judgment whatsoever!
On that note, I turn things over to you: Who were your favorites from Night 2 of The Voice‘s Season 4 Battle Rounds? Were there any decisions with which you disagreed? Were you psyched to see Caroline get saved? Hit the comments with your thoughts!
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