It may be best not to get too attached to the winner of The Voice every season, because
there's a good chance you won't hear much from them afterwards.
Unfortunately, most of the winners of the hit NBC singing competition have struggled
to make an impact in the music industry.
Here's a look at those Voice winners who didn't quite make it big.
Javier Colon
As the winner of the inaugural season in 2011, Javier Colon had every reason to think The
Voice could do what American Idol had done for its champions.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
Colon's debut album with Universal's Republic Records, "Come Through For You," spent one
week on the Billboard 200 at Number 134, and so began the trend of unsuccessful post-Voice
careers.
Colon said in a statement on his website,
"I went in with high hopes, as I believe everyone did.
But when you pour your heart and soul into a new album that you think is really great,
and your label who is supposed to support, market and promote your music does neither,
it's really hard not to be upset."
Colon parted ways with Republic the year after winning The Voice and was on his own until
he signed with independent label Concord Music Group in 2014.
He released his follow-up album, Gravity, in 2016, and continues to tour intimate venues.
Jermaine Paul
You can pre-order Jermaine Paul's album, Make Love Save the World, from Target — just
don't expect to get your hands on the CD.
The album from the Alicia Keys backup singer-turned-Voice winner was scheduled to come out in 2015 but
never was released.
The R&B vocalist has only released a pair of original songs in the years following The
Voice, but on the surface he seems content.
Paul's Facebook page is a mix of gig news and proud posts about his family.
Tessanne Chin
The way Tessanne Chin tells it, her 2014 major label debut with Republic, Count on My Love,
was almost destined to fail when it was released seven months after she won The Voice.
Chin told Popdust that it was difficult for her to be taken seriously as an artist because
people only saw her as, quote, "the girl who won a competition show."
She said,
"You come off a reality show and vocal competition where you sing other people's songs and then
you have to figure out what kind of artist you are in the space of three months."
Not surprisingly, Chin and Republic have since parted ways.
Still, Chin told Popdust that she's thankful for the opportunities The Voice provided her.
Josh Kaufman
Rather than hold a grudge against the big bad record company for not going through with
his album, Josh Kaufman opted to look at things from Republic's perspective.
He told Fansided,
"Record labels feel, justly, that they don't have as much room for error anymore.
They really are looking for sure things, and so it's hard to get a big record label to
put a lot of time and effort and money behind you if you haven't 100 percent proven you're
going to sell a bunch of records."
And in an interview with Nuvo, the soulful singer said,
"I think after several years of releasing stuff from winners of The Voice, I think they
just got really wary."
Once he was done with the show's tour obligations, Kaufman skipped the studio and headed straight
to Broadway to star in Pippin in 2014.
He then made his 2016 self-titled EP when it became apparent Republic wasn't going to
get behind him.
Craig Wayne Boyd
Season 7 winner Craig Wayne Boyd has said that he was the one who ended the relationship
with Republic's Dot Records following The Voice.
Still, the folks at Dot probably weren't too distraught.
Boyd told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that when he showed up to the label,
"...they said 'You're who and you're what?'"
Boyd self-released his song "I'm Still Here" in 2015 after asking out of his Dot contract
and then started a crowdfunding campaign to finish his album on PledgeMusic the following
year.
But in the end, Boyd signed with Copperline Music Group in 2017 and released his album,
Top Shelf, through the Nashville-based indie label.
Sawyer Fredericks
Farm boy Sawyer Fredericks was 16 when he received the confetti treatment.
He released his album A Good Storm in 2016, which spent one week on the Billboard 200
at Number 48.
Fredericks announced on Twitter the following year that he and Republic mutually agreed
to part ways and that his mom would be his new manager.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, he claimed he had asked the label for complete
control over songwriting responsibilities to no avail.
With help from Pledgemusic, Fredericks plans to release another album, titled Hide Your
Ghost.
Alisan Porter
As the star of the 1991 film Curly Sue, Alisan Porter made headlines simply for auditioning
for The Voice.
But that apparently wasn't enough for Republic to get fully behind the season 10 winner.
Porter tweeted in 2017, "Not everything worked out perfectly with my 'record deal' so I went
back to the drawing board.
My EP is written and I begin production [Friday]."
She told People creative differences were to blame, saying,
"[Republic] just wasn't the right fit for me.
I have a really clear vision of who I am, and it might not be the most cookie-cutter
commercial radio [vision].
[…] I would much rather be true to myself than to do something that didn't feel right
for me."
Porter released her EP, I Come in Pieces, with Moon Child Music in 2017.
That year, she appeared on The Voice to preview the Las Vegas show The Voice: Neon Dreams,
and subsequently posted on Instagram, "Nothing in my life has turned out the way I may have
expected it to.
But I wouldn’t change a single thing because right now, tonight, I’m reminded that it
is just not up to me!"
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