For the fourth time in the show’s seven-season history, a Team Blake member won NBC’s “The Voice.”
For the third time in the show’s run, that winner has aligned himself with the country genre.
At the conclusion of Tuesday’s two-hour results show, NBC’s flagship series revealed that Team Blake member Craig Wayne Boyd is the latest winner of NBC’s “The Voice.”
Not theoretically surprising given his positioning within the powerful country genre, his affiliation with Team Blake and his season’s worth of buzzworthy performances, CWB’s win might have served as a practical shock to those who familiar with the iTunes single sales chart. Rival contestant Matt McAndrew’s reigning #1 “Wasted Love” has thus far dramatically outsold Boyd’s “My Baby’s Got a Smile on her Face,” and he also had a second performance (“Lost Stars”) in the top ten at the close of voting.
While the lack of a multiplier bonus meant that iTunes was not going to be a gamechanger this week, the chart positions did suggest a more favorable reception to McAndrew’s performances.
Ultimately, however, iTunes only serves as one component of the voting process and thus only serves to indicate one element of public reception. On the aggregate, Craig Wayne Boyd clearly did more to mobilize support.
McAndrew finished second, while his fellow Team Adam members Chris Jamison and Damien landed in third and fourth, respectively.
From a business standpoint, Craig Wayne Boyd’s win should certainly function as a source of optimism. To date, the most successful alumni from “The Voice” have operated within the country genre. Winners Cassadee Pope and Danielle Bradbery have not yet become the superstars some expected, but they received solid airplay for their first post-show singles and moved considerably more albums than non-country winners Javier Colon and Tessanne Chin.
This past year, previous “The Voice” contestants The Swon Brothers and RaeLynn became recognizable voices on country radio.