One thing for sure about Cook is that he never looks back, always forward & he’ll play & play with a song (given time) until he’s 100% happy with it. I love DCTR but I know it was done quickly & I am really looking foward to a progression in his next album & I’ll be the first in line to buy it. Let’s face it, it’s hard not to like David Cook. I think his personality wins people over every single time. He’s just such a nice guy.

noctem seizure
11/11/2009 at 11:41 pm
….but it doesn’t suck

Hey, it’s nice to have someone besides your friends tell you that you don’t suck! (tm David Cook)

Garnetstar
11/12/2009 at 1:53 am
Regarding the vocal strain. I have posted elsewhere that I think his nerves caused him to choke up on his vocals

Completely agree. He over sang it and over performed it, and I would attribute that entirely to nerves, since in the normal course of things this would be right in his comfort zone vocally. It’s got to be a little hard to put something of yourself out there like that for everyone to critique I would think, especially in these oh so kind and gentle internet days. It’s a wonder he has any fingernails left at all.

sunchick much love to your entire post. David Cook has the most awsome fans.

Where do I get my “Free David Cook RCA” t-shirt?

David says he lets the producers consider the current musical trends, but he simply writes what’s personal to him. As he put it, “It’s my job to be artistic and it’s somebody else’s job to reign me in.”

No, David, I would not assume the producers know anything about music trends. They are fighting the last war; not being innovative, looking ahead, or thinking outside the box. So, if you want to sound like what was successful in the past, you should allow them free rein. If not, you should rein THEM in not vice versa.

Oh … and from that interview it sounds like Monty Anderson is not going anywhere. I wonder if that means that Phil Marshall has to find a new bass player.

Dear Marnie Brodersen of Examiner.com:

You do not “reign in” people or anything else for that matter. You rein in people (and horses for instance). Those are two different words, with two different meanings, and you used the wrong one.

Love,
Someone who is not an internet journalist.

Awww at this…

She calls me Cookie, and I call her Ms. Underwood. And it’ll probably stay that way until I reach her level.

And this interview with the Examiner writer slash obvious fangirl is all kinds of interesting. This is my favorite bit…

When asked about how his songs have evolved from the album as he has been on tour, David said that it’s a bit of a combination of his band purposefully doing so, and it happening as a natural process. As he points out, no one wants to go to a live show that sounds exactly like the album. He also notes that this album was really made on the fly due to time constraints with the AI tour but, as he says, “I really like the niche we’ve carved,” calling it “high energy.” When it comes to writing songs, David says he lets the producers consider the current musical trends, but he simply writes what’s personal to him. As he put it, “It’s my job to be artistic and it’s somebody else’s job to reign me in.”

Dear RCA,

Lay off the reigns a little bit. Please.

Love,
sunchick

I’m looking forward to some music from David that includes more keyboards, maybe strings and/or horns. I’m interested to hear what he would do with more variations, with some additional layers and lushness.

Apparently, I’m going to get my wish according to one of his latest interviews:

Q.: @ItsAFugue: D.C. said that he wants 2 use piano influences on his next CD…are there any other new influences he plans 2 experiment with?

A.: I don’t want to make the same record again, and I definitely want there to be a progression. But there’s also something to be said for not ostracizing the people who got into the last one. So we’re just going to try to expand a little bit. I really want to broaden the scope and incorporate new instrumentation and try different things. I know specifically I want to get into more strings and piano and more riff-based guitar. On the last record, we did a lot of churning-it-out guitars and let that wall of sound be the basis for a lot of these songs. I want to get into more riff-based stuff, bands like Injected and Big Wreck are bands that I really get into and they were always really good about finding riffs.

I was not happy about this one quote though:

On whether fans might get their wish for a third single to be released from his current album:
“I’d be surprised if we did. But again, I’ve learned to never say never.”

Is this the first time he has said that it’s unlikely?

but I would like to see his music done in a much modern way, with interesting melodies, sounds, bridges, etc. They’re so used to the same structure, the same sounds (like in the beggining of the song, it ´s exacly the same sound as Straight Ahead).

I agree.

Article about David Cook show.

Anyway, as threatened in the headlines thread, now that I have the lyrics (ish), I’ve been chewing on them and am prepared to lay my overanalyzed mumbo jumbo on ya. Feel free to read and discuss, or not… Ahem….~clears throat~ On the surface, when you first wrap your brain around this song, you think, okay, it’s a dysfunctional relationship song which Dave has done before and does so well. Yet it’s still new and fresh. He’s kinda like the Steven King of dysfunctional relationship songs that way, if eery stories were dysfunctional relationship songs. I imagine he could throw 20 dysfunctional relationship songs at me with a slightly different twist to each and I’d probably relate to all of them for different reasons. Some people just have this ability to pinpoint an aspect of the human condition and write about it in a way that rings true.

So, like, when I compare this song to, say, for example, Honest (my jam), Stitches, and Lie, I get completely different vibes even though they seem like similar subject matter. For me, it comes down to key words that set the tone. We’re Only Honest When We’re Sleeping… Specifically it pants the picture of these people who lie to the outside world (and themselves?) that everything is hunky dory and then they come home to reality, and crawl into their cold bed and dream of being someone else. In general, though, I think it’s kind of about any set of circumstances that find you sleepwalking through life and only being awake when you’re dreaming. It makes me think of facades, really, and fear, and putting yourself out there in all your broken glory rather than painting over the cracks. Stitches…this one is all about the perseverance, intestinal fortitude. Of course, also kinda sounds like a break up song, but isn’t all jaded ennui like Honest. This one is a scrapper, chock full of imagery that suggests being beaten up and bloodied and then just crawling back into the ring and stitching yourself back up and getting back in the fight. Cuz hey, even if you lose, you might also win (I found what I always wanted, as she walked away…) Lie…again, obvs, sounds like people on the verge of breaking up, but this song is gentler, more poignant. It’s a song of acceptance and regret…coming to terms with something that you can’t change even though you’d like things to be different, but not saying it out loud just yet so you have one more night of blissful ignorance.

And Make Believe…well, who uses the term “make believe?” Children, really, right? This one for me is all innocence lost and wishing you could hang on to it. Kind of like the giddy feeling you get when you first fall in love versus the reality when the bloom is off the rose and you wonder, where do we go from here? I think David’s gotta be asking himself that question right now, you know? Okay, so, America fell in love with me on a TV show, and it was like a fairytale ending. Now I have this career and it’s a year and some change later. What happens next? Can I recapture that giddyness and make them fall in love with my new music? Will anyone still give a damn?

Of course, I could be completely full of crap, but it works for me. Also, I’m pretty sure I can submit this lovely bit of bullshittery in lieu of that number one fan application I never got around to filling out.

All the comments about the Ed Vedder voice are cracking me up. I love Eddie Vedder!

Q and A with David Cook.