The Voice Battles Rage On: Four—or Five?—More Make the Cut

Cee Lo, Adam, Blake and Christina shore up their teams

By Natalie Finn May 18, 2011 4:00 AMTags

On The Voice, it was another week of hopefuls battling for the chance to be judged by America next month.

Duos (or, in one case, a trio) from each team squared off for the second week in a row, with Cee Lo Green, Blake Shelton, Adam Levine and "mama bear" Christina Aguilera looking to shore up their teams ahead of the live rounds.

As always, the contestants seemed to literally sing their hearts out, trotting out every trick in the book to impress their team captain one last time. Unless they already had it in the bag, of course...

When Adam paired Angela Wolff and Javier Colon, Angela admitted that she was just excited for the chance to sing with Javier, he's that good.

And sure enough, he crooned "Stand by Me" like an angel, positively blowing the well-meaning Angela out of the water.

"There is an extremely beautiful girl on that stage right now, but all I can do is sit here and go, 'Javier,'" Blake noted, his voice going soft on the last word.

"That makes me feel strange a little bit," Javier joked, to which the country star (who has since become a newlywed) retorted, "Imagine how I feel!"

Even Christina, who bangs the drum for both contestants usually, could only come up with "You have a very sweet presence" for Angela.

Cee Lo didn't have quite as easy a choice, considering her picked Ne-Yo's "Closer" for Nakia and Tji Austin, whose voice is far closer to the original's than his sparring partner.

But Nakia trumped Tji (Vicci, Tji...who is coming up with these spellings?!) in a surprising upset.

And Blake ended up killing two birds with one stone when he selected father of six Jared Blake over newlyweds Elenowen after they duked it out with "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."

The three of them sounded surprisingly good together, but all of the judges were impressed with how well Jared, who first auditioned with the Dixie Chicks' "Not Ready to Make Nice," adjusted to a song that was the exact opposite of his usual style.

Christina capped off the night by pitting Janis Joplin-esque wailer Beverly McClellan, with her shaved head and tattoos, against the R&B stylings of Justin Grennan, who, as Blake pointed out, looks like a guy who works at a bank.

Bev didn't quite "murderize" Justin, the way Adam feared she would, but she beat him anyway by connecting more with the fierce lyrics of the Who's "Baba O'Reilly."

So that makes eight finalists chosen for the live rounds, which kick off June 7, with eight spots still up for grabs.

Beverly, Jared, Nakia and Javier join last week's winners Vicci Martinez, Frenchie Davis, Patrick Thomas and Casey Weston in the pool.