Emily Ann Roberts Is The Country Girl To Beat

Watch out, country stars — there's a new girl coming to town and she's about to give you all a run for your money. The Voice 's Emily Ann Roberts gave her best performance of the competition in tonight's Top 10 and proved that she's not going home any time soon. The 17-year-old aspiring country artist showed the audience the emotional, vulnerable side of her voice in a sweet rendition of Patsy Cline's "She's Got You." Though she's been a favorite since her Blind Audition, this is the first night Roberts really shined for me. If she can keep delivering strong performances like tonight's, there's no doubt that Roberts will make it far in this competition.

I'll be honest, I haven't been a huge Roberts fan until this point in the game. Though I'm a big country music fan, she just didn't do it for me. I kept comparing her to Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert in my head and she didn't compare. But Roberts proved me wrong tonight. By choosing an older, more mature ballad, she showed that she doesn't always need to sing cutesy songs to win over the audience. The Team Blake artist was able to plant her feet on the stage, sing from her heart and be vulnerable in front of the audience. This showed a whole new maturity in her that I hadn't seen before. Roberts proved that she has what it takes to join the likes of Kacey Musgraves, Kelsea Ballerini and Maddie and Tae in country's new guard, and that she'll probably be joining them soon.

So Roberts proved she could keep up with the big country stars, but does she have what it takes to win The Voice? Yes, but she probably won't. The only problem is her competition. While Roberts is the #1 country artist on the show, she has to compete with Jordan Smith, who's #1 at basically everything. Unfortunately for Roberts, Smith will win this competition unless something totally tragic happens. She'll at least make it in the Final Four, though. But that's only the beginning. As soon as she leaves The Voice, Roberts will go on to take over the country world — and that's better than winning any singing competition could ever be.

Image: Tyler Golden/NBC