But…David and Jive are trying to introduce him in pop radio with a hit or two and then as he matures in style and talents, he can do anything. Look at Buble who is making it on pop radio, and even Jason Mraz, for that matter. They are making it to pop radio, and they don’t fit “pop” IMO. I think David is trying that route too.

I guess what strikes me about this comparison, though, is that I’d say these guys *started* in a rather different niche than radio pop, grew their popularity in those niches, and *then* were able to begin getting played on pop-format radio. ….

To me, that’s kind of the core problem that many of the AIers have, actually.

Except for a few corporation-produced-to-blueprint hot properties like Bieber, or whatever, most people grow into being really popular stars after starting by being totally themselves in some more niche-y area. (and, yeah, for some of those people the niche is pop — but I think it’s more complicated than that. Gaga, for example, is a pop star now, but a few years ago when she was starting out, her niche was “weird sort of poppish but also sort of indie-ish theatrical club performer”).

For most singers, you start in some sort of niche (which could be a local niche, but is often a somewhat-less-than-poppy genre niche, as well), and then as you grow your popularity, if you’re good enough — and David and many other AI alums certainly *are* “good enough”! — and have a style that can be loved by masses, you may well catch on with the public to the extent that your stuff gets picked up by pop radio and so on, and *then* you put out the really “radio-friendly” pop songs.

But when you come off AI, you’re pretty much forced to do it the opposite way — make a splash at pop *immediately,* even though hardly anybody who comes off the show is really specializing in whatever the main thread of pop radio music is doing at the exact moment they’re forced to debut in it. …. And that’s way the heck harder, seems to me, no matter *how* talented they are (and quite a few, like David A. as a shining example, are *very* talented). But because they’re being asked to grow a pop career that way, they’re handicapped, I think.

I can definitely see David having the experience of a Buble at pop, as you say.

But I have a much harder time seeing him — or just about anyone, actually — successfully navigate the kind of *reverse* road that AI puts them on. Because on the reverse road, you are not allowed the time to develop either your own style or a solid fanbase that loves your style, as people like Buble have done — to earn audience acceptance over time. Instead, you’re immediately thrown into the most ruthless, and cookie-cutter, format of all, and, to be considered as “making it,” you have to have at *least* a string of Top-20 hits (and I’ve even seen people saying that that isn’t enough — that you need a string of Top-10 hits.) right off the bat in one of the hot radio-friendly modes of the exact moment you arrive, or in some mode that will get to be one of those one-off styles that they play big-time only once in a while. That requires not only talent but a tremendous amount or luck, which is, by definition, completely unpredictable.

Better, for people with talent, to earn their way into being big popular stars, rather than having to produce these rabbits out of hats, I think. (plus, if you get to do a niche-ier thing first, then you will probably always have that niche to make a long-term independent-level career out of, should your try at pop fail. But if you are pushed into pop first, and it doesn’t go so well, you’ll have to go back later to square one and try to establish that niche later anyway, to get a career at all.)