From left: Cee Lo Green, Carson Daly, Christina Aguilera, Blake Shelton and Adam Levine
Art Streiber/NBC
The Voice took the competition to another level Monday, as Blake Shelton and Christina Aguilera's teams went head to head in the first live show of the season.The fates of each of the 12 performers are now in the hands of viewers, whose votes will determine which competitors are sent home on Tuesday's elimination show.
Keep reading for more on Monday's episode:
In what might have been the night's boldest move, one of Shelton's protégés, 17-year-old RaeLynn, put a country spin on Maroon 5's "Wake Up Call" – a rendition that earned high marks from the song's original crooner, Adam Levine.
"RaeLynn, you broke my heart twice," Levine told her. "You broke my heart when you didn't pick me, and then you broke my heart again today when you did our song and you did it so darn good."
Levine also jokingly chided his buddy over the song choice, telling Shelton that the twangy twist was "my idea that you stole."
But less playful tensions flared between Aguilera and Levine, who sniped back and forth during their critiques.
Moses Stone of Team Aguilera drew mild criticism from Levine after his take on Kanye West's "Stronger." "Personally, I think you have a lot more potential as a singer than a rapper," Levine told him. "I want to see you singing more."
"I love the way you rap," Aguilera responded. "I disagree with Adam. I think there's a place for everything with you."
Toward the end of the show, things got particularly testy between the pair. "You done?" Levine asked Aguilera at one point, after she interrupted his feedback for Jesse Campbell, who closed out the night with a performance of "What a Wonderful World."
"The show's called The Voice," Levine told Campbell when he was able to continue. "You're the dude to beat."
That prompted an apology from Aguilera, who explained, "I thought you were going to be negative."
The evening's most emotional performances came courtesy of Team Aguilera's opera singer Chris Mann, who dedicated Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" to his mother, as well as from Team Blake's Erin Willett, whose father passed away during the show's battle rounds.
Willett earned high praise from Cee Lo Green for her take on Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City."
"The circumstances that you're performing under, to be as strong and as confident and proud as you are out there, it's really to be commended," the coach said. "You are just a champion tonight."
Next Monday, Team Cee Lo and Team Adam will take the stage.