Josh Kaufman, 38 at the time, began his time on The Voice by singing “One More Try” in his blind audition.
He felt the song was appropriate because he was giving music one more try while contemplating that it might be time to get “a responsible job.”
Josh Kaufman poses with his trophy after winning The Voice. (NBC Photo)
After all, he was a struggling musician, supporting a wife and three children. And tutoring students on how to do well on college entrance exams to bring in extra money.
Well, that one more try turned out pretty well for the guy from Indianapolis, who sang with a band called The New Etiquette back home, opening with dinner plates clinking in the background.
His falsetto and smooth vocals carried him all the way to the Season 6 Voice title. He was proclaimed the winner of a three-way showdown with Jake Worthington and Christina Grimmie Tuesday night on the show’s Season 6 finale.
Along with the win, he’ll get a recording contract. And he’ll be one of the headliners on a summer tour that will include the top finishers from Season 5 and Season 6.
His victory also broke the five-season stranglehold Adam Levine and Blake Shelton held on The Voice title. Blake had won three times (Jermaine Paul, Cassadee Pope, Danielle Bradbery) and Adam had won twice (Tessanne Chin, Javier Colon).
But the win for Josh and Team Usher will also likely be the most controversial yet on The Voice. Perhaps even deserving of an asterisk.
At the opening of Tuesday’s show, Carson Daly announced that one of Josh’s songs from Monday’s show (“Set Fire to the Rain”) was difficult to find on iTunes because of a glitch on the site. As a result, all iTunes votes for this week were being thrown out “to ensure fairness.”
Then he assured fans that doing so didn’t affect the outcome.
Jake Worthington congratulates Josh Kaufman on winning The Voice Tuesday night. (NBC Photo)
This after thousands and thousands of fans spent thousands and thousands of dollars downloading music, thinking they were spurring their favorite on to victory.
This after fans of second-place finisher Jake Worthington and third-place finisher Christina Grimmie saw them surge on the iTunes charts, presumably enhancing their chance of victory.
Tossing out all those votes will likely leave a sour taste in the mouths of lots of viewers.
It might — and probably should — damage the show’s credibility.
Fans of Jake Worthington might even point out that their singer was beating Josh on iTunes with every song from Monday’s show, not just the one that was difficult to find.
Heck, you can forget the “might.”
Lori Hasting tweets: “No freaking way. #theVoice that is such #bs I’ll never watch again. #itunes #crap #teamjake #boycottthevoice #boo”
Matt Chollett tweets: “How ironic voters couldn’t download Josh’s song on iTunes, they take out all iTune votes & suddenly Josh wins #TheVoice #ScrewJob
If I were to tweet about the situation, it would probably go like this: @NBCTheVoice Since you threw out all those iTunes votes, how about refunding viewers’ money for the downloads.
Just to ensure fairness, as Carson would put it.
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2 Comments
If throwing out the iTunes vote didn’t change the result then why get angry about it?
They weren’t going to use the 5x multiplier for the finale votes even if they weren’t thrown out. Throwing the votes out did not affect the outcome, which means he had the most votes even if they wouldn’t have thrown out that nights votes. Itunes was not the only voting method. They also counted the accumulative votes on itunes from all the live shows. If you watched the charts he was in top ten more than once with several songs in top100. Compare that to Jakes overall charting from all the live shows. Obviously he had the most accumulative votes overall from each voting method. Why can’t people just be happy for the guy instead of crying about it because their favorite didn’t win. He won fair and square get over it!