If you thought the ratings for The Voice finale were bad, they’re nothing compared to sales for the winner’s single. In fact, industry pundits don’t expect ‘Cruel’ by The Voice 2016 winner Alfie Arcuri to shift even a 1,000 copies before week’s end.
As Tone Deaf reported earlier this week, the grand final episode of this year’s season of The Voice saw a significant dip in the ratings. Just 1.15 million metro viewers tuned in for the grand final, down from 1.5 million just 12 months ago.
And whilst News Corp reports that Arcuri’s single was rocking the top 40 on iTunes just hours after he was announced as the winner, Noise11 reports that the track has struggled to make it any higher in the charts, barely remaining in the top 40.
According to Noise11, one industry executive has described the single as “a f***ing disaster”. Less than 24 hours after it was made available, the track was still at the bottom end of the iTunes top 40, charting at a dismal Number 37.
According to Noise11, this would suggest that at best ‘Cruel’ had sold around 300 units in the 24 hours since Arcuri won the reality singing competition. At the time of writing, ‘Cruel’ is sitting at Number 32 on the iTunes singles chart.
“The guy has a very good voice but the song is totally wrong for the winner,” one industry heavyweight told the outlet. “He can sing. The song didn’t give him credit to his voice. It was too cool. It was overly produced. It just wasn’t good.”
[include_post id=”483303″]
‘Cruel’ saw its peak on Tuesday when it rose to Number 24 on iTunes, before tumbling down to 36. These figures don’t bode well for the song’s position in the ARIA singles chart and Noise11 suggest the song will struggle to sell more than 1,000 units.
Contrast this with The Voice judge Delta Goodrem, who currently has the Number 1 album in the country and whose single ‘Enough’, a collaboration with rapper Gizzle, is sitting at Number 10 in the iTunes chart.
No doubt figures like these will only do more to cement the program’s reputation as a promotional tool for its judges and coaches rather than as a launch pad for its contestants, something even former Voice coaches have suggested.
