‘The Voice’ Fails Where ‘American Idol’ Succeeds

The Voice, the singing competition reality show on the NBC entertainment network, has a serious flaw. Vinnie Mancuso of the Observer has pointed out that the four celebrity “coaches” on the show will always be more famous and overshadow the contestants that compete on The Voice. This is by design, this is how The Voice has been created. In that way, is the exact opposite of Fox Network’s American Idol, where celebrity judges oversee the singing competition, but the contestants are clearly the focus of the show, not the celerity judges.

“Then I turned The Voice off and went about living my life, because I realized that conversation does not matter. In fact, that conversation barely exists. Outside the hardcore fans, can anyone name one past winner of The Voiceoff the top of their head? I mean, okay, I’m sure plenty of people can name the past winners of The Voice. But can they name them because of any other reason than the fact they were on the show? What I’m trying to say is, it boggles my mind that The Voice is the most popular singing competition on TV right now, and it has not produced one star that remained one iota as relevant as they were on the show itself,” Mancuso wrote for the Observer about The Voice.

The contention is who wins, or even competes on The Voice is irrelevant because the real attraction to watching The Voice is the drama and competition between the four coaches to win the competition. Those who watch the program will remember incidents such as Blake Shelton giving out Adam Levine’s phone number, or the many times when two or more of the four coaches have fought over getting a contestant to join their teams. The entire focus of the show truly is the four celebrity coaches and not the unknown contestants who appear on the show while the four coaches are truly the stars of the show. On American Idol, the contestants are the stars of the show.

Mancuso bolstered this argument with the facts, about how little musical commercial success has been achieved by the winners of the first seven seasons of The Voice. All have received recording contracts, yet there has been no major commercial success for any of the winners of The Voice.

Javier Colon, winner on the first season of The Voice, has had anemic sales and left his contract with Universal Republic one year later. Jermaine Paul, winner on the second season of The Voice, reached number 32 with one hit song and that is all. Season 3 winner Cassadee Pope has had moderate success, but she’s no Carrie Underwood. Danielle Bradbury, the season 4 winner on Blake Shelton’s team, has had five songs in the Billboard top ten. Tessanne Chin, the winner of season 5 of The Voice, sold 7,000 copies of her album the week after it was released, lowest of all winners of The Voice. Season 6 winner Josh Kaufman has hardly been heard from since winning the show. Last season’s winner of The Voice, Craig Wayne Boyd, just won so “let’s give him some time to fade into obscurity,” Mancuso writes.

“The Heat Turns Up as the Battles Continue,” The Hollywoord Reporter tells us about “The Battle Rounds” taking place in the current season of The Voice while the real battles are between the four coaches. It is also noted how the four celebrity advisers, Ellie Goulding, Lionel Richie, Meghan Trainor and Nick Jonas are added to the show. That just adds four more celebrities to The Voice to even further overshadow the unknown contestants who will remain obscure after their 15 minutes of fame on The Voice.

Mancuso’s contention is further supported by looking at the success of both winners and others who have competed on American Idol, where the contestants, and the singing competition, are what is featured front and center on the show. American Idol has had some busts with its winners as well, but most of its winners gone on to have significant commercial success in the music industry.

American Idol’s first season winner, Kelly Clarkson, has sold more than 23 million records. Most recognize Carrie Underwood, the season four winner, who has sold more than 14 million records. David Cook won season 6 and has sold more than one million records. There have been busts as well, such as season 9 winner Lee DeWyze, who is now about as obscurely known as some of the winners of The Voice. Season 11 Idol winner Phillip Phillips has also achieved some success since appearing on the show.

Further illustrating the fact that the four celebrity coaches dominate The Voice, the question was raised about whether one of the coaches, Christina Aguilera, is “running the show” by an article in the Inquisitr. Most article about The Voice almost always center around the activities of the four coaches rather than the contestants.

It clear that The Voice puts the focus on the coaches and the contestants, even those who win, suffer in obscurity while those who win, or even come anywhere close to winning on American Idol have a shot at success in the music business because they are the star of the their show. The record sales clearly make the case. There may never be a winner of The Voice that sells a million or more records.

[Photo of The Voice from the Observer via Trae Patton/NBC.]