NBC’s ‘The Voice’ finale: Is it too country?

Last night, “The Voice” had its final results show before the finale, and for the most part, we’d argue that the first part of the results show went exactly as it should. We had a chance to see super-talented people like We McDonald, Billy Gilman, and Sundance Head advance to the final round of the show. You’ve got at least some variety in here, coupled with one artist from three of the four coaches. What’s not exciting about that?

Then, you get to the controversial part of this: Seeing Josh Gallagher make it through to the final four over Ali Caldwell. We don’t want to bash Josh per se, given that we did think that his performance on Monday was very good, and he does do a good job at a certain style of music. Yet, at the same exact time this means that a good 50% of the finale will be country — when you add in former country singer Billy, that’s 75%.

If you’re wondering why this happens, remember that like many other network shows, a great chunk of the viewership in “The Voice” is in the midwest. These people are country fans, and to their credit, they pick up songs on iTunes and support their artists hard. Even when you look at the performance of reigning champions, Cassadee Pope is easily the most successful winner that the show has had over time, while you can also look at RaeLynn as an example of a non-winner who has still made some waves in the industry. Their popularity is in many ways justified by the results.

Unfortunately, finding winners that could be successful in some other genres of the show has proven to be fairly difficult. Pop artists don’t seem to get a lot of votes on this show, especially ones that have the confidence or the style that you need to be successful in this industry. Take a look at a Rihanna, or even one of the show’s own coaches in Miley Cyrus. We don’t think either one of them is winning this show, and they may not get to the finale because they don’t have that sort of “aw, shucks” demeanor.

So when it comes to the commercial side of things, “The Voice” clearly isn’t doing anything wrong by having so many country artists make it far. Unfortunately, it’s a little bit of a different story when you start talking about things from a viewership standpoint. Having a finale so heavily slanted towards one genre is boring, and it’ll be even more so if everyone does ballads. That was one of the biggest problems with Monday night’s show as it is.

For some further news right now when it comes to “The Voice,” be sure to head over to the link here right now! (Photo: NBC.)