🪰 15 Years of ‘The Voice,’ and Not One Superstar. What the Hell Is Going On?

Remember when winning a television singing competition could turn some unknown kid from Small Town, USA, into one of the biggest stars on the planet?

Kelly Clarkson certainly remembers. Carrie Underwood remembers.

Kelly walked onto the very first season of American Idol in 2002 as an unknown girl from Texas, and by the time the confetti finished falling, America had fallen in love with her. More than two decades later, she’s still a household name, selling records, hosting television shows, and belting out songs that make the rest of us sound like dying farm animals.

And then there’s Carrie Underwood, who went on to become one of country music’s biggest stars.

The show also introduced us to Adam Lambert, and what about Jennifer Hudson, who won an Emmy, Grammy, Tony, and Oscar?

I mean, come on…

The point is, plenty of performers turned their television appearances into legitimate music careers.

Now let’s talk about The Voice.

Good Lord, what the hell happened here?

NBC launched this wildly popular singing competition back in 2011, when the iPhone 4 came out. They promised to discover incredible voices that might otherwise never get their big break.

We watched the celebrity coaches spin around in those ridiculous red chairs, fight over contestants, shower everyone with compliments, and act like they’d just discovered the next Whitney Houston.

And America gobbled it up.

But here we are, 15 long years later, and can anybody name a single winner who became a household-name superstar?

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Now, before somebody starts yelling about Morgan Wallen or Melanie Martinez, yes, both appeared on The Voice and later built successful careers. But neither won the competition, and that’s a pretty important distinction when we’re talking about a show that’s supposed to discover and launch the next generation of big music stars.

It’s especially strange when you consider that the celebrity coaches themselves are often some of the biggest names in the business.

How does a show surrounded by that much talent, money, and music-industry influence keep producing winners who disappear the minute the cameras stop rolling?

And I have another question…

Could part of the problem be that the music industry has changed so dramatically that talent alone doesn’t buy you a seat at the table anymore?

Because we’ve looked into this at Intelligent Fly before, and the absurd financial advantages enjoyed by young pop stars with wealthy parents might have something to do with it.

But first, we need to figure out why America’s favorite spinning-chair competition seems to have developed a rather unfortunate superstar problem.

THE SHOW THAT MADE EVERYONE FAMOUS EXCEPT THE WINNERS

There’s something almost comical about how successful The Voice has been as a television show compared with its rather underwhelming record of turning winners into major recording stars.

Season after season, viewers watch talented singers battle for a life-changing opportunity, only for most of the winners to disappear from the national spotlight faster than the cleaning crew can suck up the confetti.

Meanwhile, the celebrity coaches keep collecting paychecks, getting all that exposure, and returning for yet another round of whirlwind chair spinning.

This video I stumbled upon digs into that strange disconnect and makes a very interesting comparison with American Idol, which managed to produce big music stars when television dominated American music entertainment.

And the explanation for what’s really going on might have to do with when these shows became popular and what actually happens onstage.

AMERICAN IDOL HAD SOMETHING THE VOICE NEVER DID

One of the most interesting points in that video is something I hadn’t even considered.

Timing.

When American Idol exploded in the early 2000s, the American entertainment landscape looked completely different.

At its peak, the show was pulling in somewhere between 30 and 40 million viewers per episode. That’s an absolutely staggering audience, especially when you remember that people were tuning in twice a week.

We’re talking about a time when millions of Americans were watching the same contestants, talking about the same performances, and voting for the same singers.

TikTok wasn’t competing for everyone’s attention, and Instagram wasn’t busy turning your neighbor’s daughter into an overnight celebrity because she lip-synced a tune in her kitchen with a wooden spoon.

Television still had this extraordinary ability to turn a complete stranger into a household name almost overnight.

And American Idol wasn’t the only show benefiting from that golden era.

Over in Britain, The X Factor was introducing audiences to performers who would eventually become massive international acts, including One Direction, Little Mix, and Leona Lewis.

So clearly, television singing competitions could produce actual music stars.

By the time The Voice arrived in 2011, however, the entertainment industry was already changing.

Viewers were now spreading their attention across so many more platforms, and the days of practically the entire country gathering around one television program were fading fast.

Today, The Voice can still attract millions of viewers, but that’s a fraction of the enormous audience American Idol commanded back in its heyday.

And when your entire business model depends on making somebody famous, having tens of millions fewer eyeballs watching your contestants is a pretty significant problem.

But there’s another problem with The Voice that I think deserves just as much attention.

THE BIGGEST STARS ARE ALREADY SITTING IN THE RED CHAIRS

Let’s be honest about what really keeps people tuning in to The Voice. Sure, the contestants are talented, but isn’t half the entertainment watching the celebrity coaches bicker, flirt, crack jokes, and fight over who gets to claim the next big superstar? Somewhere along the way, the show started feeling more like a celebrity hangout, with a singing competition on the side.

Think about the show’s signature gimmick.

The blind audition is supposed to level the playing field by allowing coaches to judge contestants entirely on their voices.

Great concept, right?

But the big emotional payoff isn’t really the singer’s performance. It’s watching some famous celebrity spin around in a chair and act like they’ve just heard an angel descend from the heavens.

The show has basically built a hugely successful entertainment franchise around the reactions of people who are already mega famous.

Meanwhile, the contestants spend week after week performing other people’s songs, hoping their interpretations will impress the coaches and viewers enough to keep them in the competition.

And that brings us to a problem that’s considerably bigger than those goofy red chairs.

Wait, I need to do a quick side quest here. About those chairs…

NBC:

The high-tech seats play the biggest role during Blind Auditions, where Coaches slam their red buttons and turn their chairs when they like an Artist’s voice. The chairs are so beloved, one even went on tour earlier this year.

Inside, the chairs have complex electronics. They’re built to spin 180 degrees and can even be custom adjusted, as audiences saw with the first-ever double chair for Coaches Dan + Shay during Season 25 of The Voice.

And there’s one secret feature these chairs have that will totally blow your mind. Read more, below:

In 2023, then-Coach Chance the Rapper visited TODAY with hosts Savannah Guthrie and Carson Daly, where he revealed something epic about the Voice chairs.

“I’m the leak. I’m the one who dropped the info,” Chance joked. “Yeah, basically our chairs, the famous red spinning chairs on the show — a lot of people don’t know this — there is a heating setting underneath it to get yourself warm, and a cool setting too.”

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, being an amazing singer doesn’t automatically make somebody an amazing recording artist.

A contestant might deliver a breathtaking rendition of a Whitney Houston classic, but that doesn’t mean anyone will care about the original music they release six months later. And apparently, some of the people who actually won The Voice have struggled with that exact issue.

WINNING THE SHOW ISN’T THE SAME AS WINNING A CAREER

What I think is interesting is that former Voice winners have talked about how difficult it is to turn their TV success into a sustainable music career.

Back in 2012, a New York Post article highlighted frustrated contestants who walked away with the trophy, a recording contract, and the belief that their futures were guaranteed. But as these winners discovered, getting America to vote for you on TV is one thing. Convincing people to buy your original music afterward is an entirely different mess.

In other words, the record deals weren’t the golden tickets they used to be.

New York Post

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 newest “Voice” coach starting next fall — and Taylor Swift’s former Big Machine Records for the country artists.

But that “arranged marriage,” as Colon describes it, has been problematic, stifling the careers of some “Voice” winners before they’ve even had a chance to get started.

SO YOU WON THE VOICE. NOW WHAT?

Well, isn’t that a lovely little surprise?

You spend months competing on national television, survive elimination after elimination, and finally win the whole damn thing, and womp, womp.

Here’s your trophy, your recording contract, and apparently, a hearty handshake before you’re thrown into the music industry’s shark tank while wearing a chum bikini. Because the truth is that winning a singing competition doesn’t guarantee anybody will give two-toots about your music once the competition ends.

During the show, contestants have a team of television producers, a massive full-scale production that’s designed to make their performances exciting, and a huge built-in audience. They get professional coaching, elaborate staging, and national exposure.

But when the season ends, all that machinery moves on to the next batch of starstruck hopefuls.

Now, the big winner has to develop a full-blown identity as an artist, find original material that will knock everybody’s socks off, and somehow convince listeners to stick around without a weekly television appearance reminding them who they are. I mean, it’s a tall order.

And even with a major-label contract, there’s still no guarantee the music industry will invest enough time, money, or attention into making that transition a successful venture. And this has me wondering whether The Voice has spent 15 years doing exactly what it was designed to do…

Produce entertaining television.

Whether it produces successful musicians afterward might be an entirely different priority, like my earlier “side quest” up there…

And like I mentioned earlier, there’s another uncomfy reality facing aspiring stars that we recently explored here at Intelligent Fly.

These days, having a great voice might be the least important part of becoming famous.

MAYBE THE REAL PROBLEM IS THAT FAME HAS BECOME A RICH KID’S GAME

We dug into this rather depressing phenomenon at Intelligent Fly, and I think it deserves a place in this conversation.

Because when you look at how expensive it can be to establish a music career, you start understanding why somebody with an enormous amount of talent might still struggle to get anywhere.

Just think about what happens after an aspiring singer gets their first big opportunity.

They may need to spend months recording music, traveling to performances, making promotional appearances, creating content, and trying to build enough momentum to get noticed. That’s a wonderful gig if Mommy and Daddy are paying the rent and footing all the bills.

But what happens when your parents aren’t wealthy, you’ve got bills piling up, and your second job at Applebee’s doesn’t particularly care that you’ve got a recording session scheduled for Tuesday afternoon?

Suddenly, chasing your dreams starts looking like a luxury you can’t afford.

And we’ve got some interesting numbers to back up just how difficult this industry can be.

The 2023 Musicians’ Census, which surveyed nearly 6,000 musicians in the United Kingdom, found that 44% identified a lack of sustainable income as a barrier to their careers.

Another quarter pointed to the disadvantage of not knowing people in the industry.

Yep, money and power matter these days if you want to be the next Britney Spears.

And while those figures aren’t specifically about American reality television contestants, they still illustrate the financial obstacles struggling musicians face.

Talent might get your foot in the door, but money and connections can make a difference in whether you’re able to keep that door open long enough to get through.

We’ve reached a strange point where an aspiring artist with wealthy parents (like Taylor Swift) can afford to spend years pursuing opportunities that somebody from an ordinary working-class can’t.

Now, I’m not suggesting every successful pop star comes from money or that wealthy parents explain why The Voice hasn’t produced a Kelly Clarkson in 15 years. But I do wonder whether the show has been selling contestants an outdated dream.

After 15 years, The Voice has clearly figured out how to make a successful television show.

But for a competition built around discovering the next great recording artist, its track record with winners is pretty meh.

Whatever the reason, I think it’s pretty remarkable that a show dedicated to supposedly discovering America’s next great superstar has spent a decade-and-a-half making the people sitting in those stupid red chairs its most reliable ratings grabber.

Maybe somebody should turn one of those chairs around and ask the winners what happened…