Chris Blue Talks Life After Winning ‘The Voice’
NBC Reading Time: 3 minutes
During Season 12 of The Voice, Chris Blue went from the last person on a team to the last man standing. He also gave coach Alicia Keys her first, and only, win on the show! But life after The Voice hasn’t exactly been what Chris Blue expected. Stardom isn’t guaranteed and he had to learn that the hard way.
In a recent interview, Chris said:
“It’s not an overnight thing. I realized that a lot of load in the end is on me, and that was something I wasn’t ready for. After winning The Voice, I needed a team of people to do everything for me, and I wanted that. Now, I want to make sure I’m involved in everything, and it’s taken time for me to get there. But now I’m here, and it’s beautiful. Again, just not what I expected.”
Chris had an interesting way of describing his life and career since The Voice. From what he said, it seems like he didn’t have the support he expected after winning. And this is a common thread among winners of the show! Whereas American Idol, America’s Got Talent, and even The Four really push their winners to stardom, we rarely hear from winners of The Voice, outside of an appearance or two on the show in future seasons. Just think about Chloe Kohanski, Sawyer Fredericks, Tessanne Chin…the list goes on! His frustrations are understandable and all too familiar.
Since his Season 12 win, Chris Blue has been investing a lot of time into his music career. This has required him building his own brand, assembling a team, touring, and making music. In 2017, Chris released two singles, “Blue Blood Blues” and “Humanity.” But, get this, when The Voice brought Chris back to sing “Blue Blood Blues” on the show, they never even posted a video of his performance on YouTube. Ouch!
It really must be hard for these winners to feel like they’re being supported when this is the treatment they get. Especially when you look at what Idol has done for Maddie Poppe, the difference is staggering. And while Chris says these things take time, that hasn’t been the case when people actually find success and stardom after winning these shows. It might take a while, but the talent show success stories don’t usually lose this much momentum. Even Maddie has been on a nation-wide tour, making media appearances left and right, and maintaining a YouTube series about her journey since the win. While she hasn’t released any new music, she is very much still in the public eye.
And on The Voice specifically, they make it seem like the artists get so much time with these coaches and form special bonds. That’s really what differentiates it from other shows, where the celebrities are just judges. But that personal relationship doesn’t seem to have a longterm effect on these contestants’ music careers. The mentorship for most ends when the show does.
Yet Chris Blue has stayed optimistic through it all! He and his wife Stephanie recently celebrated their first anniversary. They live in Knoxville with their dog, Marble. And Chris has been working on making more music! He is collaborating with Mr. TalkBox aka Byron Manard Chambers and producers Harmony Samuels and Breyan Isaac. Chris is scheduled to release new music in early 2019. There’s no set date for an album release, however, because Chris and his team are taking their time to pick the best songs for it.
“Michael (Jackson) went through 800 (songs) before he got to ‘Thriller.’ We don’t quite have 800, but we have quite a few, so it’s just a matter of getting those songs together and saying, ‘Okay, this is what we want to give to the world’ and give it to them.”
