Curse of the Voice
10 years on air — and hasn’t produced a pop star
ONCE Alisan Porter was the last singer standing on the 10th season of “The Voice” in 2016, she won — as all of the confetti-doused champions do — $100,000 and a recording contract. But after that pitch-perfect ending on NBC’s singing-competition juggernaut, her pop-star dreams soon turned into a nightmare.
“It was sort of like, ‘I got this record deal, but what do I do now?’ ” said Porter, 39, who became the first winner for original “Voice” coach Christina Aguilera. “Once you win, they’re on to the next season within two months and you’re a has-been. And I was, like, terrified that I wasn’t gonna use this momentum to make it in the music business. It was definitely not what I had expected.”
As a star-making vehicle, “The Voice” hasn’t performed up to expectations.
Although the show — now celebrating its 10th anniversary and its 20th season — has consistently been a hit since premiering on April 26, 2011, it has failed to produce a big star yet. While winners such as Cassadee Pope (Season 3) and Danielle Bradbery (Season 4) have had some success, they certainly haven’t become household names like “American Idol” champs Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood — or, for that matter, seventh-place “Idol” finisher Jennifer Hudson.
Surprisingly, none of the “Voice” winners have gone on to find the kind of stardom that might one day land them a coaching seat in one of those big red chairs that Clarkson, Hudson and other A-list artists have occupied.
“Everybody thinks that the person should be set,” said Sawyer Fredericks, 22, who won Season 8 in 2015 when he was just 16. “That’s not the case.”
Making the multi-octave leap from cover singer on the “Voice” stage to establishing your own identity as a recording artist has been a tricky transition from the very beginning.
“You still have to prove yourself as an artist, because the whole time that you’re on the show, you’re not singing your own songs,” said the first “Voice” winner, Javier Colon, 42. “But after being on television and having so many millions of people watching, you would hope that you’d at least have a fighting chance.”
Each winner gets that chance through the recording contract with Universal Music Group, including Republic Records — major-label home of The Weeknd, Drake and Ariana Grande, who this week was announced to be the