Past Contestants, Future Stars

[viajero]

Season 8 finalist Koryn Hawthorne has been quietly making a name for herself in gospel music and is now out with her first music video.  It reminds me how much I like her voice.

[Sharpie66]

Brooke Simpson is in The Evolution of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who saw the tweet from the director and responded with heart emojis: 

Edited August 21, 2018 by Sharpie66

[viajero]

On 8/21/2018 at 1:55 PM, Sharpie66 said:

Brooke Simpson is in The Evolution of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who saw the tweet from the director and responded with heart emojis: 

Brooke was easily the best of the bunch.  I hope this gets her noticed.

[Sharpie66]

I haven’t seen this mentioned elsewhere here: Janice Freeman, from the 2017 season, died over the weekend from a pulmonary embolism, at age 33. https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/03/entertainment/janice-freeman-the-voice-contestant-dies/index.html

[Koalagirl]

On 3/4/2019 at 4:23 PM, Sharpie66 said:

I haven’t seen this mentioned elsewhere here: Janice Freeman, from the 2017 season, died over the weekend from a pulmonary embolism, at age 33. https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/03/entertainment/janice-freeman-the-voice-contestant-dies/index.html

The show acknowledged her passing when they ran the credits after episode 3.  

[Mockingbird]

This is two years late, but I was catching up on The Voice and I found myself wondering what Michelle Chamuel had been up to. Then I found her “Insights and Turnpikes” album—free to stream if you have Prime—and was pretty delighted. Her voice is lovely, as you’d expect from her. 

Edited March 14, 2019 by Mockingbird

[viajero]

I love the way Kelly makes a real effort to help her team members after the show and not just the finalists.  Here she is with Lynnea Moorer at one of her shows covering Billie Eilish's idontwanttobeyouanymore.

Spoiler

This may also help explain why Kelly freaks out so much when one of the contestants covers this song in next Monday's episode.

[JeanneH]

Season 15 winner Chevel Shepherd sang "God Bless America" at the 2019 Indy 500 yesterday. She was wearing a near-stereotype country cowgirl outfit. Her former coach, Kelly Clarkson, was also on TV at the same event, singing the national anthem.

[viajero]

Melanie Martinez finally released her second album and full length musical motion picture that goes with it (which she wrote, directed and stars in).  Melanie's first album may be the most successful ever released by a Voice contestant in terms of total accumulated sales.   The album itself went platinum and included 2 singles that went platinum and 6 others that went gold. 

Unfortunately, I don't think there are quite as many really good songs on this second album. Too many of the songs seem to have been written to fit the plot of the musical rather than serve as stand-alone singles.  But I did find the movie quite entertaining in that weird mixture of bitingly ironic cutesy horror that characterizes Melanie work.  But you can judge for yourself.

Edited September 14, 2019 by viajero

[dcinmb]

Chris Mann: 🎶“Hello . . . it’s me. I’m in California dreamin’ about going out to eat . . .”🎶

 

[marymc]

Hi all,

 

This is my first season watching the Voice. I am curious if any of the past winners have made it big. I'm wondering if they have Ryan Tedder and other high profile people working on the show how none of them make it big. It's kind of pointless otherwise. Do they not look after them after the competition is over or what the issue is? Clearly theres some talented people on it

[viajero]

On 5/20/2020 at 5:18 PM, marymc said:

Hi all,

This is my first season watching the Voice. I am curious if any of the past winners have made it big. I'm wondering if they have Ryan Tedder and other high profile people working on the show how none of them make it big. It's kind of pointless otherwise. Do they not look after them after the competition is over or what the issue is? Clearly theres some talented people on it

I think Cassadee Pope from way back in Season 3 remains the most successful winner, with several gold and platinum records and a Grammy.  Jordan Smith (Season 9) and Danielle Bradbury (Season 4) have also had some commercial success.  But for the most part, winners have not done all that well. 

There have been many complaints that contestants receive little support after the show is over. But I think equally important is that:

·        The audience for the show is not at all representative of the general music buying public.  To win The Voice, you usually need to appeal both musically and in terms of personality to women over 50 from middle-America.  There is a reason why they do so many songs that are 30 to 60 years old.  Covering too many songs that came out in this century is almost the kiss of death.

·        Having a good voice and being likable isn’t enough to make it big in the industry.  You need an artistic vision (preferably along with song-writing chops) that is going to set you apart in today’s highly competitive and extremely fractured music business.  This is particularly true if you are not a country singer.

Too many of winners have been like Todd Tilghman; nice guys with decent voices, who have zero chance of any kind of commercial success.

It’s probably no coincidence that the show’s most successful past contestant in terms of sales remains Melanie Martinez, with 3 platinum and 7 gold records (and with a current charting single possibly on its way to another platinum).  But she finished only 6th in Season 3 when she was just 16 and didn’t make it big until 2 or 3 years later once her music had matured.  No one is ever going claim that Melanie is more than a decent vocalist, but she does have a defined and very unique artistic vision that sets her apart and gained her legions of die-hard young fans, almost despite having been on The Voice. 

Several other non-winners have made it big in less commercial genres like Christian or gospel music.  This includes another non-winner in Koryn Hawthorne (Season 8 ) who has won Grammy’s in this last category.

Even though the show has not produced any really big stars, it has had a very positive effect of the careers of many past contestants to the extent of helping them make a career out of music even it often at a local level.  I think this is what keeps people trying out for the show.

Edited May 22, 2020 by viajero

[vibeology]

11 hours ago, viajero said:

Too many of winners have been like Todd Tilghman; nice guys with decent voices, who have zero chance of any kind of commercial success.

I'm not a Todd fan but I think if he leans into Christian pop-rock, he has a pretty good chance of being a success. Not A-list but certainly capable of genre specific stardom. It'll also help if he has any writing or producing skills. If he's smart, he'd do an EP with a Christian pop crossover type song (Like that Lauren Daigle song that was big recently) as the lead single and the rest of the songs more clearly Christian pop-rock. He's never going to be as famous as the coaches going that way but he can probably carve out a loyal fanbase and live comfortably making music.

[Amy Beth]

TikTok has been behind a bunch of viral pop hits, now there’s finally a country song getting the treatment. And the artist is former a Voice contestant Andrew Jannakos. He was unlucky enough to be on Team Adam during the awful CrossBattles purge. But he got a song into the Hot 100 and went to #1 on iTunes.

Article from Music Row here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjq0cTW5oTsAhVFYTUKHXcLAVIQFjAAegQIBhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmusicrow.com%2F2020%2F09%2Fnewcomer-andrew-jannakos-breaks-through-with-viral-country-hit-gone-too-soon%2F&usg=AOvVaw2RtJIkpne0_up0vVod29mM

Just now, Amy Beth said:

TikTok has been behind a bunch of viral pop hits, now there’s finally a country song getting the treatment. And the artist is former Voice contestant Andrew Jannakos. He was unlucky enough to be on Team Adam during the awful CrossBattles purge. But he got a song into the Hot 100 and went to #1 on iTunes.

Article from Music Row here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjq0cTW5oTsAhVFYTUKHXcLAVIQFjAAegQIBhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmusicrow.com%2F2020%2F09%2Fnewcomer-andrew-jannakos-breaks-through-with-viral-country-hit-gone-too-soon%2F&usg=AOvVaw2RtJIkpne0_up0vVod29mM

 

Just now, Amy Beth said:

TikTok has been behind a bunch of viral pop hits, now there’s finally a country song getting the treatment. And the artist is former Voice contestant Andrew Jannakos. He was unlucky enough to be on Team Adam during the awful CrossBattles purge. But he got a song into the Hot 100 and went to #1 on iTunes.

Article from Music Row here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjq0cTW5oTsAhVFYTUKHXcLAVIQFjAAegQIBhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmusicrow.com%2F2020%2F09%2Fnewcomer-andrew-jannakos-breaks-through-with-viral-country-hit-gone-too-soon%2F&usg=AOvVaw2RtJIkpne0_up0vVod29mM

 

 

1 minute ago, Amy Beth said:

 

 

 

[viajero]

Dia Frampton, the runner-up in Season 1, has the lead role in a new indie holiday movie that was just released called "I Hate New Years", available on demand on Apple-TV, Amazon and Google Play.  I haven't seen it yet, but Dia plays a pop star who ends up falling for her best friend while out celebrating New Year's Eve in Nashville.  It has a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, for whatever that's worth.  The reviews (even the negative ones) are highly complementary about the original music in the movie (some of which is written and performed by Dia).  Dia also gets generally positive reviews for her "compelling screen presence (albeit in a quiet, somewhat shy way)" - which sounds just like the Dia we saw on The Voice.  This despite having almost no acting experience.  The more negative reviews seem to come down to the fact that its just a better made version of a cheesy holiday rom com, except that the romance is between two women.

Kristen Merlin from Season 6 has a supporting role in the movie.

 

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by viajero