‘The Voice’ Cuts Two, Christina Aguilera Shows Her Group ‘Love’

Gaming last night’s elimination round entirely by amount of comments and shares on The Voice‘s Facebook page, it looked like pseudo-Xtina Sylvia Yacoub, crooner Bryan Keith and soulful foghorn Trevin Hunte were the most likely to go. After many long, dramatic pauses, Carson Daly announced that Yacoub was indeed headed back to Michigan with her incredibly loud and competent voice, and that America had also booted Keith. When he’s not doing the Eighties dad-rock songbook on The Voice, Keith has fronted a metal band so perhaps he has that to go back to. Yacoub spent much of Monday’s b-roll talking about how heading to law school doesn’t quite have the same appeal as singing on TV in front of 12 million people. And then there were eight, but not before Christina Aguilera opened the show by leading her team through a booming performance of “Let There Be Love” from her new album, Lotus. 

On to the power rankings:

Coach: Blake Shelton
Rank: #1
America was up in Cassadee Pope’s grill after Monday’s tear-jerking performance, taking her version of the Shelton- and Miranda Lambert-penned “Over You” to Number One on the iTunes singles chart overnight and giving her performance approximately a fajillion likes and around 15,000 shares on Facebook. (By comparison, Keith and Yacoub had less than 100 each by the time they were eliminated on Tuesday). Teammate Terry McDermott also remains intact on Team Blake.

Coach: Cee Lo Green
Rank: #2
Team Cee Lo also stayed intact with former shoo-in Hunte sweatin’ it at the bottom of the pile. Perhaps that will teach him to leave the grindin’ jams to teammate Cody Belew, who got a lot of love and America-votes for his “Crazy in Love” fiesta on Monday. As he told Christina Milian in an interview during rehearsals last week, what he was aiming for was “like the Grammys threw up.” If so, more Grammy-barf is Belew’s ticket to ride. Funky Minnesotan Nicholas David appears to be running a strong second in America’s hearts this week.

Coach: Adam Levine
Rank: #3
Teen Melanie Martinez’s version of “Seven Nation Army” went top-10 on the iTunes singles chart overnight, surprisingly. Martinez seems to be a particularly divisive contestant and she and Levine have struggled to find material that suits the tiny-voiced song stylist. Tonight, during an ensemble number where she performed Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” alongside her coach and teammates, she showed that projection is not really her bag. Her teammate Keith heads home, leaving only Amanda Brown as the object of Levine’s bromance.

Coach: Christina Aguilera
Rank: #4
Even the pleadings of Coach Xtina couldn’t save Yacoub from elimination. Upon news of Dez Duron’s save (no duh), she started rambling about how he isn’t always going do the “Bublé thing” and he’s going to “change it up.” Does that mean he’s going to do the worm next week? In his rehearsal interview with social media correspondent/resident cornball Milian, Duron said he likes to “get emo” and listen to John Mayer, so perhaps that offers a hint of sensitacho to come.

Best slow morph from looking confident to obviously sweating it: Trevin Hunte, who seemed to realize he had almost Ushered himself outta the competition, being eliminated second to last. 

Telling moment: After Cassadee Pope and Cody Belew performed with Rascal Flatts, the members of the band seemed a lot more eager to hug Pope than than Belew, though Cody looked awful nice in the billowy maroon blouse wardrobe put him in.

Worst elimination stress face: Melanie Martinez must have known she wasn’t going home due to her special place on the iTunes chart, but she looked like she was going to turn and projectile vom on teammate Bryan Keith until they announced her name. Running a strong second: Sylvia Yacoub’s wide-eyed mask of terror.

Previously: Cassadee Pope Captivates With ‘Over You’ on The Voice