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As country music continues to enjoy a strong presence on the latest season of The Voice, with Riley Green impressing as a new coach and numerous contestants opting for country songs for their Blind Auditions, it's hard not to think back to Morgan Wallen's fateful appearance on Season 6 of the hit TV show back in 2014.
Wallen joined Usher's team after a successful audition, before Adam Levine stole him later on in the competition. He progressed to the The Playoffs, with much having been made since of the fact that the Sneedville megastar was, at the time, advised to sing pop songs for most of his stint on the show. Then, as soon as he decided to perform a country track - Florida Georgia Line's ‘Stay’ - he was voted off.
During a 2020 conversation with Grady Smith, the ‘Thought You Should Know’ singer-songwriter reflects on his experience on The Voice, something he admits was “so random”.
Wallen begins, “It was so random, bro. I'd never seen at the show before”, with the country crooner revealing that there's an arduous selection process contestants have to go through before they get the chance to perform in front of the coaches.
He recalls, “There were two spots left when I went, and Shakira and Usher were the only ones with spots, and they both turned around. So at least I got that to say. But everybody's like, ‘Well, why didn't Blake [Shelton] pick you...’ Like, he couldn't...They don't always show it that way on the TV either. So, like, people don't know when you try it out, you know what I mean? They think it's like all in order, but it's not”.
Amusingly, although he doesn't go into the specifics, he makes it clear his experience being a member of Usher's team was not ideal, to say the least, “So [I] ended up on Usher's team. Hated it”. Wallen then doubles-down and admits he did not enjoy his time on The Voice as a whole, confessing that he “hated pretty much a lot of it”.
He touches on how the way in which the producers dressed and presented him felt inauthentic. You could certainly argue his ‘country-ness’, so to speak, was somewhat toned down.
Wallen explains, “They dressed me like [a fish out of water]...I didn't know what I was doing, man. Like, I've always loved country music, but I've also always loved all kinds of music, and I have a voice where... I can sing other stuff that's not country. So they wanted me to sing pop music...They got me dressed like...I don't even know what”.
He continues, “Singing a pop song. So I'm like, yes, I'm very ‘fish out of water’. I don't know what's going on. You hear all these people, you know, these big-wigs, and I've never even been on a plane before the show, so I'm like...I don't know anything. I'm so naive to all this stuff, you know? And I go in there and they're like, you know, we want you to do this and do that. And when all these people are telling you, like, well, maybe that's what I should do. I don't want to do that, but maybe that's what you should do, you know...I'm basically a kid, and...I listened to them”.
Wallen emphasises that this was ultimately a bad decision, but he doesn't harbour any ill-will, “Clearly it was the wrong thing. But now, looking back, I'm really, really thankful that it didn't work out because I...made it to, like, the Top 20, and I finally sang a country song. That's when I got kicked off, singing a country song”.
He concludes, “I'm not mad at them for that. They were probably doing what they thought they were going to make the most money off...They weren't trying to ruin my life or anything”.
Given how Wallen has since blossomed into one of the biggest artists on the planet, it's difficult to know whether to classify him as a The Voice success-story or ‘the one that got away’. Bearing in mind the fact that he didn't win, how different his sound and style was during The Voice, and how he evidently didn't really want to adopt that aesthetic but felt he had to, it feels like Wallen should perhaps be viewed as an artist that slipped through the cracks and whose potential was perhaps unclear at the time, rather than someone who thrived because of The Voice.
Wallen stresses during this 2020 interview that there's no bad feeling between him and the show, and just recently, one of the current judges, Adam Levine, expressed his pride at how far the ‘Last Night’ chart-topper has come since his time on The Voice.
While we can't say Wallen's global domination can really be credited to The Voice, you can't help but feel that even Wallen would agree that his time on the show taught him the importance of being true to your artistry and your own gut feeling in music.
Now, Wallen is simultaneously one of the most consistent hitmakers in modern country music and one of the most experimental, with each new chapter pushing the boundaries of his sound, vocals and the industry's expectations of genre limits.
Judging by his latest singles, ‘Been By Now’ and ‘Last Thing You Need (From GTA VI: The Album)’, it seems he's on the precipice of another exciting, category-defying era.
Looking back at his performances on The Voice, we're just glad Wallen figured out the artist he wanted to be after his high-profile run on the show, and went on to cement himself as a touchstone for how to stick to your guns creatively, and be the kind of artist you want to be, not the kind of artist others expect or pressure you to be.
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