The music industry is a rough place. Plenty of musicians have made it big because of sheer luck or possibly nepotism. And likewise, plenty of extremely talented vocalists through the years have not gotten as much fame as they deserved. Let’s look at just a few incredible voices in pop music that should have made it to superstardom, but just haven’t gotten there quite yet.
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JoJo
JoJo had all the makings of a superstar. She still does, and she’s finally on the up-and-up in her career. However, she lost a lot of time back in the day, and that is wholly because of how her early-career label sabotaged her.
You might remember JoJo’s incredible vocals from early 2000s hits like “Leave (Get Out)” and “Too Little Too Late”, and then… silence. That’s because her label at the time allegedly sabotaged her. JoJo claimed that Blackground Records held her career hostage for almost seven years, as the company refused to release her third album. Naturally, because she was signed to that label, she could not release music elsewhere.
Thankfully, in the 2010s, she successfully broke free of that particular label. JoJo finally released her third record, Mad Love, in 2016 and has been catching up with her initial career potential ever since.
Tori Kelly
Tori Kelly has all the elements of a superstar in the pop world. Her vocals? Gorgeous. Her songwriting talents? Amazing. She’s also quite versatile as an artist, and her fanbase has been dedicated to her from the start. So, why isn’t she even bigger today?
Even though Kelly does have mainstream-level popularity, she never quite reached superstar status because she never gave in and made a wholly “pop” album. Unbreakable Smile came close, but Kelly is just too authentically herself to sell out and change her sound in order to become a superstar.
Allie X
Allie X’s vocals are absolutely insane, especially during live performances. She’s one of the most underrated singers on this list. And the reason she isn’t bigger is quite simple: She is perfectly content with being an indie pop artist. She enjoyed mainstream commercial success in the 2010s and even worked with big labels like Universal and Sony Music at different points in her career. However, much of her work has been self-produced, and she’s talked about that choice quite freely.
Amber Riley
Nobody has a voice like Amber Riley. In fact, many fans of Glee think she’s the best vocalist to come out of the show. Riley has enjoyed quite a bit of success in the musical theater world, but she deserves way more, both in musical theater and in the music industry as a whole. The woman should be an EGOT winner at this point! There’s just no good reason why she isn’t one of the most famous voices to ever reach superstardom. Hopefully, the music world will wake up.
Photo by Leon Bennett/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
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