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David Cook - News
DAVID COOK Album Out Today
| 18-11-2008 18:03 | 0 reaction(s) | add reaction | add news |
 Since David Cook won the title in May, his fans have been hungrily anticipating the arrival of the American Idol's self-titled album, out today. Cook can empathize. "I feel like I've been waiting for Nov. 18 for 25 years," he says.
The seventh-season champ describes David Cook as the reintroduction of David Cook, not the Idol grunt at boot camp but the liberated rocker at ground zero.
"I wanted this record to be a definition of me as a person," says Cook, parked in 19 Entertainment's conference room overlooking the Sunset Strip. "The goal was to make an eclectic rock record. Bar-Ba-Sol is guitar-driven and heavy but still melodic. On the flip side is Permanent, with a string section and piano. The power behind that song is the angst and the vocal. I love both songs for the aspects in my character that they define. It sounds egotistical, but I see myself as a complex person."
Cook, 25, does embody contradictions. He is by turns reserved and goofy, articulate and tongue-tied, humble and ambitious.
He talks about ducking attention and fostering harmony among Idol finalists but also confesses: "I've had a competitive spirit all my life. Love me or hate me, just don't ignore me."
Comfortable in front of reporters and cameras, he strikes Zoolander poses to amuse onlookers during a photo shoot.
Newfound fame "is the most awkward thing," he says. "When people look at me as a rock star, it seems humorous to me. I look at myself as a goober."
In the next breath, when envisioning his ideal future, he says emphatically: "I just want to be an important artist. I don't want to be a flash in the pan. I don't want to be a one-hit wonder. When people talk about this period in music, I want my name to be brought up."
This album's pivotal role in that goal may explain his anxiety before a Nov. 1 appearance on Saturday Night Live, also spotlighting John McCain. The show drew 12 million viewers, a fraction of the 31.7 million who tuned in for the May 21 Idol finale, yet Cook says the SNL gig was a bigger freak-out.
"Dress rehearsal was full of nausea and dry heaves," he says. "It was so nerve-racking because it was our big unveiling as a band. I listened to the performances (of Light On and Declaration) the day after, and you can hear some timidness in my voice."
Despite being swept instantly into the industry's major league, Cook was not timid when it came to making his album. For starters, he was no neophyte. He had released 2006 solo debut Analog Heart after four albums with former band Axium, plus an EP with the Midwest Kings. He also embarked on his post-Idol career with enviable chart credentials posted the week after the finale, when he landed 11 songs on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, the most since The Beatles nailed 14 in 1964.
Though determined to dictate the shape of his album, Cook also found himself starstruck by collaborators.
"I was kind of dumbfounded to work with my musical heroes," says Cook, who had e-mailed a wish list to his manager the day after the finale and wound up co-writing tunes with such faves as Johnny Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls and Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace. "It was like going to Disneyland every day."
Cook says he never let the star power of heavyweight co-workers or the clout of producer Rob Cavallo deter him from following his impulses.
"I'm comfortable with who I am as a musician and artist," he says. "As humbling as it is to work with these people, I understand it's work. If I'm going to sing these songs for the next 15, 20 years, I need to love them.
"I've got to stand up for myself because I don't know if anyone's going to stand up for me. I was lucky Rob tuned in early to what kind of record I wanted to make. He brought something out of me that I couldn't have done on my own."
The songs, many of them completed while Cook was on tour, reveal his love for early '90s alt-rock. He's especially fond of the push-pull dynamics in Seattle grunge because "every song punched you in the face but cradled you before you hit the ground. It was heavy and delicate at the same time."
The first full-tilt rocker to capture Idol's crown isn't worried about the franchise's pop bent. As he confronts rock's rebel-craving ranks, he shrugs off fears of a stigma from the show's assembly-line process, citing Chris Daughtry, the 2006 finalist who rocked the chart with a multiplatinum debut.
"If I'd done this in Season 1, it might be different," Cook says. "I think Chris and Bo (Bice, 2005 runner-up) laid the pavement for someone like me to win. Anyway, whether I do rock or jazz or pop or country, there will always be people shining a negative light on it."
True, early reviews are mixed, and few expect a commercial blockbuster. With music sales in steady decline, "it would be almost impossible for Cook to top Daughtry's sales figures," says music writer Don Waller, one of USA TODAY's American Idol coaches.
On record, Cook's vocals "sound good, strong and totally professional, with the distinctive character and sandpapery timbre that are instantly familiar to those who watched the show," he says.
First single Light On, however, "is by-the-numbers generic power balladry, a song that could be anybody from Green Day to My Chemical Romance," both also produced by Cavallo.
If RCA pumps money into promoting Cook and releases a second single by Christmas, the disc might sell 500,000, Waller speculates.
"I doubt that would turn a profit for the label, though," Waller adds, suggesting it will take a million-seller to establish Cook as a commercial entity.
Music consultant Tom Vickers predicts a brighter future.
"There hasn't been a mainstream pop/rock-leaning hitmaker since Bryan Adams, and I see Cook in that zone," he says. "He's not as hard-edged as Daughtry; he's genuinely likable, the right amalgam of rock star and regular guy."
Cook hopes to validate the Idol decision, particularly since handicappers predicted a landslide for David Archuleta. Cook got 56% of the votes, 12 million more than the favorite.
"I guess I have a chip on my shoulder, because I hate that some people call it an upset," he says, then allows, "I stood on the side of the stage that last Tuesday and thought Archie owned it. Give the kid credit: 17 years old, and he came in as a front-runner and held it for 14 weeks. I came in under the radar and had time to get my feet under me."
And that big brother/little brother narrative? Media hokum.
"To look at him as someone who needs protecting demeans him a little," he says. "I was seriously trying to keep my own boat afloat. What made the season fun is there wasn't a lot of behind-the-scenes drama. We ran a clean race."
Contest stresses faded on the road. "I know I ended up winning the prize everyone was shooting for," Cook says. "I was worried about a backlash, but nobody made me feel unwanted. I never felt any malice or jealousy."
Likewise regarding younger brother Andrew, rejected in Idol auditions only to see Cook head to Hollywood.
"I think he had to distance himself for a while to make peace and come to grips with it, but then he became one of my biggest supporters," Cook says.
As career pressures mount, Cook increasingly leans on his family, torn this year between celebrating his success and rallying around older brother Adam, who is battling brain cancer.
"There were uncertainties going into the summer, but we got good news while I was on the road," he says. "He's continuing treatment, and we're all cautiously optimistic. My brothers are my backbone, my parents are my oxygen. I can't operate without them."
The sleep-deprived former bartender sighs and admits he is homesick for Blue Springs, Mo. He craves time off to spend with girlfriend (and ex-Idol finalist) Kimberly Caldwell or to catch up on sports, Family Guy and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Cook stops to remind himself why he tolerates the pandemonium: "I would rather do this than toil in obscurity."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2008-11-17-david-cook-main_N.htm?csp=34
Album Review
Even if post-American Idol albums are as calculated and overblown as the show itself, they generally succeed at evoking a sound pop fans had forgotten. Before she reinvented herself as an expressive pop-rocker, Kelly Clarkson, the show's inaugural winner, recalled the sweeping, innocuous power pop of vintage Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. The same is true about Season 3 winner Fantasia Barrino, whose barnstorming, idiosyncratic vocals were a throwback to the churchy sounds of Southern soul circa 1967.
David Cook, the grand champion of Idol's ho-hum seventh season, loves the soaring alt-rock of the 1990s. His self-titled debut, in stores today, could have come out in 1996. Cook belts booming anthems of undying love and bruised feelings that crawl then surge then crawl again before fading out on a sustained note. The production throughout is glossy and bombastic, the lyrics sometimes sappy. The album is hopelessly predictable.
But Cook's big, expressive voice and undeniable passion for the material, no matter how lame some of it is, buoy the album. To help give his sound some authenticity, the Idol winner worked with a few of his musical heroes, namely Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace, who co-wrote three cuts. Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra co-wrote one song.
Cook's engaging, enthusiastic vocals bind it all. He's especially impressive on the harder rocking cuts: "Bar-ba-soul" is a standout. But even when he's knee-deep in sappy sentiments, as on "Mr. Sensitive" and "Life on the Moon," Cook manages to invigorate the songs with passion and warmth, the hallmark of a promising pop star.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/music/bal-to.cd18nov18,0,5324743.story?track=rss |
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