David Cook Albums (2)
'David Cook'
Release Date 11/18/2008
Tracks 26
Label 19 Recordings/RCA
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Seven years into its run and American Idol has finally produced a winner who can hold his own and work with his own Idols. This says more about David Cook, grand champion of season seven, than it does of the franchise itself: AmIdol suffered a significant ratings slowdown during its no-drama seventh season and, despite the megastardom of Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson, Carrie Underwood, and Chris Daughtry, major-league stars only saw the show as a way to hock a new album. Fortunately, major-league stars hold no fascination for David Cook. As he proved time and time again on the show, Cook's greatest wish was to be an American Our Lady Peace, a hurdle that's not exactly hard to clear. This low ambition works in Cook's favor on his eponymous major-label debut as it gives him a goal that's achievable -- plus, it's been so long that this sound has been in fashion that his heroes are waiting in the wings, eager to contribute to a project that may just raise their own profile. Foremost among these is Cook's biggest idol, Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace, who co-wrote three songs, but he's not alone: Zac Maloy of the Nixons has three songs, while Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra assists on "Avalanche," forgotten neo-grungesters Injected rev up the record with the hardest-rocking (and best) song in "Bar-ba-sol," and Johnny Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls, no stranger to reality TV himself, gets a credit on "Declaration." It's a virtual parade of second and third stringers from the late '90s, all led by Chris Cornell, who continues his slow march into alt-rock anonymity here with "Light On," a perfectly fine bland power ballad that strangely finds the Soundgarden singer trying to write like those who followed in his footsteps. All these rockers may give Cook some relative street cred but they're no guarantee for a hit record, something the AmIdol enterprise desperately needs at this point, so they're paired with certified hitmakers: Cathy Dennis comes in for "Heroes," Chantal Kreviazuk teams with Maida for "Permanent," and most notably, Espionage work with Maloy on his three songs. If Espionage's work leaves no discernible impact -- there's nothing that sounds remotely similar to Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" or other hits they've penned for Chris Brown or Jessica Simpson -- Kerviazuk and Dennis compensate by gently weaving tried and true commercialisms into their songs, gently pushing Cook toward a crossover he's already made anyway. He not only is a star thanks to AmIdol, but he's always been ready to do big, happy, crowd-pleasing grunge-pop, as his self-released 2006 debut, Analog Heart, proved. David Cook is remarkably similar to that now-suppressed effort, heavy on crawling, melodic midtempo rockers and power ballads, only given more gloss in its production and writing. All this makes David Cook remarkably similar to the debut of his AmIdol forefather, DAUGHTRY, but where Chris Daughtry wallows in his stylized amorphous angst, Cook is a friendly puppy dog, eager to please. This may result in some embarrassing earnest moments -- none too coincidentally, they're almost all enabled by Maida, including "Mr. Sensitive," which rolls up the worst traits of Our Lady Peace and David Cook in one big blob of goopy glop, and the Maloy/Espionage "Life on the Moon" isn't far behind either -- but this enthusiasm makes David Cook a likable record: he's so happy to be here it's hard not to warm to him at least a little bit. After all, it's hard to be mad at somebody who wants nothing more than to make an album that could be played comfortably between the Toadies and Third Eye Blind. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Prior to his big break on the seventh season of American Idol, David Cook was like many struggling regional rockers, rotating through a few bands, setting up camp in a few homes, writing originals along the way, sometimes getting enough tunes together to put out an album on his own. Once his first band, Axium, split after garnering a reasonable amount of attention -- they topped a local Kansas City poll and placed in a Got Milk contest -- he settled down in Tulsa, playing guitar with a group called Midwest Kings while also working on solo stuff, putting out an album called Analog Heart in 2006. Like many local records, it didn't get much play outside its region until it showed up on Amazon's MP3 store partway through the American Idol competition, when it was promptly pulled. Why was it pulled? Because American Idol and 19 Entertainment like to present their Idols as the product of immaculate conception, so they don't want any of their Idol prehistory on the market. Sometimes there are good reasons for this, but in the case of Cook, Analog Heart might have been pulled just because it would be a little too close to what he would do after the show. Anybody familiar with Cook's parade of post-grunge won't find this surprising -- it's stuck in the late '90s, positioned somewhere between 3 Doors Down and Third Eye Blind -- but the shock is that he sounds a lot more convincing when he isn't belting out covers of Our Lady Peace. Cook remains almost defiantly conventional, but he's singing these power ballads and vaguely inspirational anthems with earnest conviction, believing every cliché that passes through his lips and, more importantly, building the tunes upon seriously big arena hooks. It's still rather bland made-for-radio grunge-pop -- designed as much to be his entry into the big leagues as to actually be played on Top 40 -- but with a little gloss the stuff on Analog Heart could sit alongside DAUGHTRY quite comfortably. And that's almost certainly why it was pulled -- there will be a time for David Cook to sit alongside DAUGHTRY and it's not the spring of 2008. It's the holiday season of 2008. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
