And the winner of 'The Voice' Season 16 is….
Longtime incumbent coach Blake Shelton may have dominated The Voice Season 16, getting three male country contestants to the top four — but ultimately it was newbie coach John Legend and his one finalist, 25-year-old female pop singer Maelyn Jarmon, who prevailed on Tuesday’s finale. Team Blake’s Gyth Rigdon, Dexter Roberts, and Andrew Sevener placed second, third, and fourth, respectively.
“I had no expectations going into this,” exclaimed Maelyn. “I am grateful to John for being the best coach possible. I knew we would work well together, and we did!”
New York City theater diva Maelyn wowed the panel from the start her torchy, Adele-level audition of Sting’s “Fields of Gold,” explaining that she turned her deafness in one ear and partial deafness in the other ear into her “superpower,” hearing music in a unique way. All four coaches turned around for her, with Blake praising her “precision and power,” Kelly Clarkson calling her “special,” and Adam Levine describing her as “astounding,” but it was John, who said she was “magic,” who snagged this golden girl for his team. On that night, the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) winner declared his goal of adding a fist-shaped Voice trophy to his crowded mantel, and now, he can officially say he’s a VEGOT winner.
Now we will have to wait and see what sort of career lies ahead for Maelyn. Mature, adult-contemporary-leaning female crooners (Season 5’s Tessanne Chin, Season 10’s Alisan Porter) haven’t received much support from the show or its affiliated record label after their wins, but Maelyn does have Legend in her corner now. And if he were to lend her his composition and production skills or deep industry connections, she could end up on the charts or on Broadway,
Oher highlights of the finale included Maelyn blending her beautiful voice with Sarah McLachlan’s on an exquisite “Angel”; the Jonas Brothers and Khalid smoothly crooning their respective Song of the Summer contenders “Cool” and “Talk”; K-pop superstars BTS slaying the stage with their superslick choreo; Taylor Swift and Brendon Urie performing their hit duet “ME!”; and semifinalists Shawn Sounds, Jej Vinson, Dominic Hayes, LB Crew, and Kalvin Jarvis forming an R&B “supergroup” of sorts to sing Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative.”
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
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