‘The Voice’ 2017: Gwen Stefani Loses Entire Team In One Night
It was not a good experience for Gwen Stefani in Tuesday night’s results show of The Voice.
The Voice Semifinals sent home four of the Top 8 artists, with Team Alicia Keys’ Vanessa Ferguson and Team Blake Shelton’s TSoul being instantly eliminated for being the bottom two vote-getters. Team Gwen’s remaining contestants, Brennley Brown and Hunter Plake, were in the middle three alongside Jesse Larson from Team Adam Levine. These three sang one more time to compete for the Instant Save, with only one getting to advance to the finale.
When the final results came in, Jesse had emerged victorious, eliminating Brennley and Hunter and thus, the entirety of Team Gwen. Gwen is now the only coach to not have a singer in The Voice Season 12 finale, with Adam having Jesse, Alicia having Chris Blue and Blake having Lauren Duski and Aliyah Moulden. This isn’t the first time Gwen has been without an artist in the finale; in Season 7, her first as a coach, her last artist was eliminated in the Semifinals. Season 9 is the only instance of Gwen getting an artist to the final week of competition on The Voice, with eventual fourth-placer Jeffery Austin.
Regardless of what team they may have been on, though, the elimination of both Brennley and Hunter was a shocker for some in the Voice-watching community. Both artists had charted within the Top 10 on iTunes at different points of the season, which tends to correlate with greater popularity. Hunter even made it to the Top 10 for his Semifinals performance of U2’s “With or Without You,” his third consecutive week doing so, while Jesse still has yet to place within the Top 10 for any of his performances. Brennley may not have charted in the Top 10 on iTunes since her performance of Linda Ronstadt’s “Long, Long Time” in Top 12 week, but she was still placing within a high range in subsequent weeks.
Brennley and Hunter are taking their eliminations in stride. They both took to Twitter to show their appreciation for The Voice and promise big things ahead.
My ?is so full.A beautiful ride.This doesn't just happen to people but it did to me and Im forever grateful.To God be the glory.Get ready..
— Brennley Brown (@BrennleyBrown) May 17, 2017
Wow. What an incredible journey! Get ready for some music dropping this year. ????? @plakemusic
— Hunter Plake (@hunterplake) May 17, 2017
Now, Gwen will simply have to comment on other teams’ artists in next week’s two-part season finale of The Voice. If Blake wins with either Lauren or Aliyah he would extend his record to six wins, meaning he would have won half of the show’s 12 seasons. He previously won with Jermaine Paul in Season 2, Cassadee Pope in Season 3, Danielle Bradbery in Season 4, Craig Wayne Boyd in Season 7, and Sundance Head in Season 11.
If Adam wins with Jesse he would notch his fourth win as a coach, previously taking the trophy with Javier Colon in Season 1, Tessanne Chin in Season 5 and Jordan Smith in Season 9. This is Alicia’s second season as a coach, placing third with Wé McDonald in Season 11. If she wins with Chris, she would become the second female coach to win The Voice after Christina Aguilera helped take Alisan Porter to victory in Season 10. This would be a similar trajectory to Usher, who got a contestant to the finale in his first season, Season 4, and then won his second season, Season 6, with Josh Kaufman.
Lauren, Chris, and Aliyah have all charted in the Top 10 on iTunes. Lauren has reached the Top 10 in three consecutive weeks, for her covers of Billy Dean’s “Somewhere in My Broken Heart,” Wynonna Judd’s “Tell Me Why,” and Shenandoah’s “Ghost in This House.” Chris and Aliyah charted in the Top 10 for the first time this week, the former for both his solo performance of Tamela Mann’s “Take Me to the King” and his duet with Vanessa on Alicia’s “If I Ain’t Got You.” Aliyah got to the Top 10 for her cover of MercyMe’s “I Can Only Imagine.”
The Voice airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.
[Featured Image by Trae Patton/NBC]
