'The Voice' recap: Teams build, but tension has yet to mount

‘The Voice’ recap: Teams build, but tension has yet to mount

By Amy Reiter

April 3, 2013 12 AM PT

“The Voice” wrapped up its second and penultimate week of blind auditions for Season 4 on Tuesday night, with each of its four coaches adding two singers to his or her team.

Usher added 20-year-old former Ford model Audrey Karrasch, who was excited to show her stuff to the coaches, but not quite as thrilled as her mom, who gushed, “I’m so excited I could pee.” She sang “Price Tag,” spinning Blake Shelton and Usher, and while it looked like she might go Shelton’s way, before anyone even had a chance to ask, she blurted out to the newer coach, “OK, Usher, I’ll do it. I pick Usher.”

Usher also made a last-second button push to pick up Berklee College of Music grad Orlando Dixon, calling him a “diamond in the rough.” Dixon, who’d sung “So Sick” a bit sedately, couldn’t have been more delighted. “This is my idol right here,” he said of his new coach, “seriously.”

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Shakira was the only one to turn for 19-year-old Brandon Roush, a long-haired rocker who works with autistic kids and who showed off his unusual tone on “With a Little Help From My Friends.” “You won’t be sorry,” Roush assured her, sweetly. “I promise you.”

She also snagged R&B; singer C. Perkins, who didn’t get much airtime.

Shakira did not net dreadlocked Memphis family man Patrick Dodd, though she tried. Dodd, who produced an interestingly raspy “Walking in Memphis,” went with Adam Levine instead, saying he was following his gut. “Shakira deserved him and you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Shelton told Levine, who also picked up last season returnee Agina Alvarez.

Of course, Shelton didn’t have any such pangs of conscience when he plucked artists away from other coaches. After picking up pop singer Trevor Davis, Shelton was the last of the three coaches who spun for 17-year-old country singer Savannah Berry’s “Safe and Sound.” You could see right away that he was the one she’d been waiting for, though – and when she listed Sugarland and Miranda Lambert as her top two influences, well, that pretty much clinched it. After a little back and forth, Berry did choose Shelton, prompting him to boast, “It’s just so easy.”

Levine, meanwhile, said he’d at least tried to make it “really, really hard” for her to pick Shelton. “That’s all I can do.”

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Next Monday and Tuesday, the coaches will complete their teams of 12 during the final week of blind auditions. Yes, so soon.

What do you think of the show so far this season?

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