Idol Headlines for 12/11/09

By On 12/11/2009 · 299 Comments · In American Idol, Headlines

‘So You Think You Can Dance’: Nigel Lythgoe thinks Jakob or Russell will win season 6

So Legacy and Mollee are out of crown contention, but as you’ll see in their clip, they couldn’t be more proud of the Top 6 and seem to be in great spirits regardless.

One thing they may be bummed about, however, is that they’re now ineligible for this year’s special prize, courtesy of Adam.

Adam, whose first professional job as a dancer was on the Academy Awards show 20 years ago, is actually directing the broadcast in 2010 and has announced that he will be hiring the Top 2 dancers to perform on the stage that night.

Sweet, no?

So, who will take the job?

Well, according to judge Nigel Lythgoe, this race is really between Jakob and Russell…

Zap2it.com

Billboard Artists of the Year

14. Kelly Clarkson

After taking a much-publicized stand to follow her own creative muse on 2007′s “My December” (which only yielded one Hot 100 hit after her previous album, “Breakaway,” afforded four top 10s), Clarkson returned to her winning chart formula in 2009. “My Life Would Suck Without You,” from “All I Ever Wanted,” became her first Hot 100 No. 1 since “A Moment Like This” in 2002.

Billboard

More Idol Headlines after the JUMP…

Best of the ’00s in TV: Best Reality Shows

“American Idol” (Fox): Given our culture’s recent obsession with celebrity, it’s not surprising that the by far most popular series of the decade was a show where the top prize wasn’t cash, but enormous fame. What’s most remarkable about “Idol” is how idiot-proof the concept is. It doesn’t matter that Simon Cowell is the only judge who ever has anything interesting to say, that the theme weeks are usually poorly-planned, that the contestants sing the same handful of songs every year, that the results shows are usually enormous wastes of time, that the most talented/commercial singer doesn’t always win (see Taylor Hicks in season five) or that most of the “improvements” the producers institute (like last season’s “Judges Save”) are usually anything but. People just want to vote for their favorite singer until their fingers bleed ‘“ to feel like they played a role in someone else’s achievement of fame and fortune ‘“ and they’ll suffer through all sorts of inanity to do that. And sometimes (like below), you actually do get to see the birth of the next great pop star.

NJ.com

Skiing or Mexico? Adam Lambert’s Holiday Plans Undecided

Adam Lambert has no idea what he is doing over the holiday season ‘“ and that’s just the way he likes it.

“I don’t have any specific plans yet and am going to play it by ear,” he told PEOPLE at the Anti-Defamation League’s Award Gala honoring director Steven Spielberg in Los Angeles Wednesday.

“I hope to spend it with the people I love: my friends and family. I will probably stay in L.A., though the spirit may move me to throw on the snow clothes and head to Big Bear, or maybe go down to Mexico.”

People.com

Why ABC Kissed Off Adam Lambert

The network says, “It was an editorial decision to show very little from the performance and focus on the fresh, new interview with Adam Lambert.”

Interesting, because the “fresh new interview” was all about “the kiss.”

ABC went on to explain its decision to show girl-on-girl by saying, “The Lady Gaga kiss was used quickly in context of things that upset her father.”

So why not a quick peck from Lambert then?

The network goes on, “ABC never had a problem showing the kiss, In fact we did not edit it out of the west coast feed of the AMAs.”

TMZ

Lambert to ABC: What Do You Want From Me

In Thursday’s episode of “Sanctimoniously Dumping Adam Lambert,” “The View’s” token Sane Person Whoopie Goldberg insists the daytime talk show’s chat with, and performance by, Adam Lambert have been pre-taped because ABC is “still concerned about his musical performance because of what happened at the American Music Awards.”

We sit up and take notice because our ABC source, who wanted to remain anonymous because he had not authorized himself to speak, had insisted Lambert’s “The View” appearance was being taped because Lambert could not be in town on Thursday to perform live.

Washtington Post

On The Download: Allison Iraheta

Being the third-runner up on ‘American Idol’  can be either a boon or a blessing. Remember Anthony Fedorov or LaKisha Jones? Nope, nor do most people!

But you may have heard of a guy with the last name of Daughtry? Or perhaps you’ve followed the semi-successful genre-specific careers of Josh Gracin, Tamyra Gray or LaToya London?

Season eight’s third-runner up, Allison Iraheta, was signed to Jive Records (the same label to which winner Kris Allen was signed), as soon as the label was allowed to sign her. In Allison, we have one of ‘Idol’s’  best all-time voices and one of the most packaged rock personas since Chris Daughtry presented himself in season five.

Access Hollywood

‘Idol’ finalist achieved what he set out to do

For Michael Sarver, a top 10 finalist in Season 8 of TV’s “American Idol” contest, winning isn’t everything.

“On ‘American Idol,’ the last 10 contestants are the ones who go on tour,” said Sarver, who will perform with three other former “Idol” contenders Dec. 19 at the Paramount Theatre. “I had my goal set to make the top 10. My biggest goal was not necessarily to win it, but to make the tour. That would give me the opportunity to sing on the road. That would give me a chance to show more of my talents to the fans than they saw on the show.”

Napier Sun

Justin Bieber makes spirits bright

During Jordin Sparks’ set, Bieber reappeared to double as Chris Brown on ‘No Air,’  though his vocals were slightly drowned out due to screaming. The rest of Sparks’ set was electric enough; the ‘American Idol’  champ included ‘Walking on Snow’  and ‘Battlefield,’  but it was Bieber who was undoubtedly the highlight.

Boston Herald

David Archuleta brings his holiday spirit to the Wellmont

“American Idol” runner-up David Archuleta heads to the Wellmont Theatre on Sunday promoting his Christmas album, “Christmas From The Heart.” The album works to capture both Archuleta’s cheerful personality and undeniable vocal talent. Archuleta has proven himself dedicated to singing, being famed for overcoming vocal paralysis before starting his whirlwind of success on “American Idol.”

His progression would continue after the show with his popular self-titled debut album. The album featured “Crush,” a song that would hit No. 2 on the Billboard charts. Not surprisingly, both of his parents have musical backgrounds and were an inspiration to the young Archuleta, who is now only 18 years of age.

New Jersey

David Archuleta, Thalia Headline “Nuestra Navidad” Special

Miami, FL (CNS) – David Archuleta and Thalia are among the stars headlining the new “Nuestra Navidad” (“Our Christmas”) special on the Univision network. Airing Thursday, December 17th at 10pm/ET, the special features some of the biggest Latin stars in music performing some of their hit songs and Christmas classics.

“Nuestra Navidad” goes coast to coast to feature performances taped on location from various Latin music stars. Archuleta will perform “Ave Maria” from New York, while Banda Limà ³n performs “El Burrito Sabanero” live from California. The special visits Alejandro Fernà ¡ndez in Mexico for his performance. Thalia and Pee Wee also perform.

All Headline

Holiday album fun for Archuleta

David Archuleta recorded his Christmas CD, “Christmas From the Heart,” in the middle of summer while on tour with Demi Lovato.

“Whenever I had a day off I just went and recorded Christmas music,” Archuleta said with a laugh during a phone interview from New York. “So I had to get into the mood going from outside in the sun to inside the studio that was decorated with Christmas lights.”

“It was really interesting to do all that in the middle of July and August,” he said. “(The recording) was spread out, but it was a little difficult while I was on tour because my mind was so wrapped around the tour.”

Deseret News

Vonzell Stars in Oz the Musical

Season 4′s second runner-up, Vonzell Solomon, is currently starring as Glinda/Aunt Em in Oz the Musical. The musical is a contemporary musical twist on L. Frank Baum’s classic, ‘The Wonderful Wizard of OZ.’ 

After stepping away from her job as a mail carrier to be on American Idol, Vonzell has made a living singing and acting and has also launched her own record label, Melodic Records. Vonzell performed as Glinda/Aunt Em in Oz on a tour to Lubbock, Texas, where she joined Idol alumni Rickey Smith (Tinman), Scott Savol (Lion), and Mikalah Gordon (Dorothy). Earlier this year, Season 3 runner-up Diana DeGarmo starred as Dorothy.

AmericanIdol

‘American Idol’ Fantasia Barrino to perform at Muskegon’s Best Talent Competition 2009

MUSKEGON ‘” Muskegon’s Best Talent Competition next week will spotlight gifted local performers and a real pro: ‘American Idol’  competitor and R&B singer Fantasia.

The Dec. 18 talent competition is coordinated by Paul Billings, owner of 103.7-FM the Beat and founder of the West Michigan Community Help Network.

Billings said he nor his nonprofit organization could afford Fantasia’s standard fee, but when he told her manager that the people of the Muskegon area could use a little lift, ‘her manager worked with us to make it possible.’ 

MLive

Forget ‘cute,’ bring on the Uggs

American Idol alum Katharine McPhee visited the nation’s icebox — that would be Michigan — Thursday to promote awareness of the hunger crisis in the United States. The Californian visited a Forgotten Harvest facility in Oak Park and insisted she was ready for the cold, but she wore “cute shoes” — reddish-purple, high-heeled Alexandre Birman shoe boots — that drew appreciative stares, but offered zero protection from the Arctic winds. After the event, a member of her entourage had to rub McPhee’s feet to get her circulation going again.

Detroit News

‘American Idol’ contestant sings to Seton

Seton High School students know how to bring in the big acts.

Grammy-nominated pop star Natasha Bedingfield and “American Idol” runner-up David Archuleta have both performed at the school, and now another rising music star can be added to the list.

Former “American Idol” contestant Jason Castro, who placed third in the reality competition’s seventh season, visited Seton on Thursday, Dec. 10. Castro performed three songs and answered questions from the audience.

Cinncinati.com

Susan Boyle’s Easygoing ‘Dream’ Of A Debut

December 10, 2009 – The rapid rise of Susan Boyle illustrates a pop-culture truism: No piece of popular music stands by itself ‘” we also bring to any judgment of the work the image of the person singing it, and whatever we know about him or her. In Boyle’s case, we had a middle-aged woman whose dowdy, unpolished presentation was belied by the confident power of her voice. Her media breakthrough was at least as important as her ability: Appearing on Britain’s Got Talent before three judges and an audience snickering and ready to jeer, Boyle shamed and cowed her audience with the sheer strength of her vocals.

NPR

TV special on surprise star Susan Boyle debuts

LOS ANGELES – Susan Boyle sings, and Simon Cowell and other celebrities sing her praises in a weekend TV special about the Cinderella story that has made her a best-selling recording artist.

“I Dreamed a Dream: The Susan Boyle Story,” debuting at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on TV Guide Network, details her sudden burst of fame and includes performances by Boyle from her new CD and with Broadway star Elaine Paige, the London West End cast of “Les Miserables” and others.

MSNBC

‘So You Think You Can Dance’ exit interview: Legacy Perez on elimination, technique, and rumored romance

He might not have won the entire competition, but Legacy certainly was the sentimental favorite of SYTYCD’s season 6. How could you not like the b-boy? He was less technically advanced than the other contestants, yet brought us some of the seasons most memorable performances. (The caveman hip-hop, Travis’ Mr. and Mrs. Smith contemporary routine, etc.) And though we were surprised ‘” and sad ‘” to see him go, the b-boy opted to take a zen approach to his ouster. Shortly after being eliminated, Legacy called up EW to talk about why he wasn’t sad to be eliminated, why he missed Mia Michaels and that rumored romance with partner Kathryn.

Entertainment Weekly

‘So You Think You Can Dance’ exit interview: Mollee Gray talks maturity, the Ashleigh situation, and more

The judges loved her. Tweens adored her. But after her best performance night of the season, our perky jazz dancer failed to collect enough votes to move onto the finale and was eliminated before a dancer who didn’t even dance(!) Tuesday night. So how does she feel about it all? Below, Mollee talks to EW about battling critiques about immaturity, meeting her role model, and how it feels to go home before Ashleigh.

Entertainment Weekly

‘So You Think You Can Dance’: Mary J. Blige to perform on finale

“So You Think You Can Dance” is less than a week away from its Season 6 finale, but the festivities are just now coming together.

“We’ve got Adam Lambert, of course, and Mary J. Blige to perform for the finale,” executive producer Nigel Lythgoe said backstage after Wednesday’s (Dec. 9) results hour. “And there are a number of other celebrities that we’re talking to who want to come on as well.”

Lambert’s appearance was announced earlier this week, but Blige signing on seems to be a new development … apparently the first of many.

Zap2it.com

X Factor stars prepare for the final

“It’s been fun, it’s been unpredictable and these guys – well particularly my artist – is a fantastic entertainer,” says Simon Cowell.

The music impresario is, of course, referring to this year’s X Factor, which comes to an end this weekend.

For anyone who has managed to avoid a television, newspaper, billboard, radio show or conversation for the last four months, the X Factor is one of the biggest TV shows in the UK. In the past, it has produced huge stars such as Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke.

The latest winner of the ITV1 singing show will be crowned on Sunday and awarded a sought-after recording contract.

BBC.co.uk

The X factor: Simon Cowell has it, but does anyone else?

They appeared in a parade of hair, heels and expensively veneered teeth. With the final of The X Factor looming on Saturday and Sunday night, the judges and three remaining contestants gathered in central London today to share their thoughts on the four-hour showdown.

Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole wore stunning frocks with bows and glitter, as if for cocktails. Simon Cowell wore jeans and a sweater, as if for gardening. But despite the presence of the finalists ‘“ Olly Murs, favourite Joe McElderry and Stacey Solomon ‘“ it was clear from the start who the real star of the show was.

Guardian.co.uk

Simon Cowell: Rage Against the Machine campaign is ‘stupid’

It takes a lot to get Simon Cowell rattled, but rattled he appears to be. At a press conference today, Cowell acknowledged the Facebook campaign to get Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 song, Killing in the Name, to Christmas No 1, saying it was “dismissive” of the public as it was directed at him.

“If there’s a campaign, and I think the campaign’s aimed directly at me, it’s stupid. Me having a No 1 record at Christmas is not going to change my life particularly,” Cowell said. “I think it’s quite a cynical campaign geared at me that is actually going to spoil the party for these three.”

Guardian.co.uk

Cowell confirms X Factor final duets

“Olly will be duetting with Robbie Williams, Joe will be duetting with George Michael and Stacey will be duetting with Michael Bubl.”

“That is a big deal for these contestants and I think the duet will be a very significant part of the competition.”

rte.ie

X Factor future in doubt as Simon Cowell stalls over money with ITV

Simon Cowell has thrown the future of the X Factor into chaos after admitting he is stalling on a new megabucks deal with ITV.

The music mogul hinted yesterday that unless the channel pays more money he may take his hit series elsewhere in 2010.

Itv pays Cowell’s production company Syco £1.7million for each studio show – but he is said to be after around £2million per programme for next year. He revealed: “Part of the reason the show has been so successful is ITV invested loads of money to make it better.

“The issue now is not about salaries for people on the show, it is about getting more money to invest in production.

Mirror.co.uk

Kris Allen Meets Former ‘Boy Meets World’ Star In An Airport

In his role as the winner of “American Idol” and the man behind an excellent self-titled debut album, Kris Allen has come in contact with a number of huge stars. Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, Miley Cyrus and Stevie Wonder all visited “Idol” during Allen’s season, and he got to work with some of his favorite artists on his debut album. But on Thursday (December 10), Allen encountered a star that made him freak out just a little bit. While in transit for the Z100 Jingle Ball on Friday night at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Allen ran into former “Boy Meets World” star Ben Savage and snagged a picture with the actor.

“Do not freak out Ben Savage. Do not freak out Ben Savage. Do not freak out Ben Savage,” he wrote on his Twitter page.

MTV

Music Review: Ruben Studdard – Love Is

Ruben Studdard is in the mood for love on his latest album, Love Is. This is the 2003 American Idol champ’s fourth album, and his first independent release for Hickory Records. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were enlisted, among others, to produce the silky smooth R&B collection. Studdard’s delivery has grown even more subtle and refined over the years. Though his once widespread audience may have dwindled, his talent remains for those willing to listen.

Blogcritics.org

 
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  • Mrs.P

    “15. Kelly Clarkson

    After taking a much-publicized stand to follow her own creative muse on 2007′s ‘My December’  (which only yielded one Hot 100 hit after her previous album, ‘Breakaway,’  afforded four top 10s), Clarkson returned to her winning chart formula in 2009. ‘My Life Would Suck Without You,’  from ‘All I Ever Wanted,’  became her first Hot 100 No. 1 since ‘A Moment Like This’  in 2002.”

    Actually Kelly is #14 and, just for the record, no other American Idol made the top 20. So regardless of what anyone inside the AI bubble says about sales, etc. the bottom line is that right now Kelly is still at the top of the list as far as Idols are concerned.

  • jersey

    LOL at Kat choosing the cute shoes over the sensible shoes. You go girl! (I probably would have made the same choice – except not to a food bank to feed the hungry. A little too glitzy for the environment).

  • dv

    Billboard released all the Year End and Decade End Charts.

    Heres the Year End charts, i went through them looking for all Idol. Im sorry if missed any.

    Billboard Year End Charts

    Top Female Artists of 2009
    8. Kelly Clarkson

    Artist of the Year
    14 Kelly Clarkson

    The Billboard 200 Artists
    14 David Cook
    20 Daughtry
    21 Carrie Underwood
    35 Kelly Clarkson
    52 David Archuleta
    94 Jennifer Hudson

    The Billboard 200
    13 DAVID COOK David Cook
    33 ALL I EVER WANTED Kelly Clarkson
    37 LEAVE THIS TOWN Daughtry
    59 DAVID ARCHULETA David Archuleta
    60 CARNIVAL RIDE Carrie Underwood
    73 PLAY ON Carrie Underwood
    103 JENNIFER HUDSON Jennifer Hudson
    130 DAUGHTRY Daughtry
    152 KELLIE PICKLER Kellie Pickler

    Top Comprehensive Albums
    14 DAVID COOK David Cook
    37 ALL I EVER WANTED Kelly Clarkson
    41 LEAVE THIS TOWN Daughtry
    62 CARNIVAL RIDE Carrie Underwood
    65 DAVID ARCHULETA David Archuleta
    76 PLAY ON Carrie Underwood
    116 JENNIFER HUDSON Jennifer Hudson
    138 SOME HEARTS Carrie Underwood
    141 DAUGHTRY Daughtry
    196 KELLIE PICKLER Kellie Pickler

    Top Digital Albums
    19 ALL I EVER WANTED Kelly Clarkson
    22 LEAVE THIS TOWN Daughtry

    Top Pop Catalog Albums
    14 SOME HEARTS Carrie Underwood

    Hot 100 Artist
    14 Kelly Clarkson
    50 Carrie Underwood
    56 Daughtry
    57 Jordin Sparks
    66 David Cook
    96 Kellie Pickler

    Hot 100 Songs
    23 MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU Kelly Clarkson
    57 BATTLEFIELD Jordin Sparks
    63 NO SURPRISE Daughtry
    91 I DO NOT HOOK UP Kelly Clarkson
    95 ALREADY GONE Kelly Clarkson

    Hot Digital Artists
    15 Kelly Clarkson

    Hot Digital Songs
    23 MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU Kelly Clarkson
    60 BATTLEFIELD Jordin Sparks

    Hot Pop Artists
    7 Kelly Clarkson

    Hot Radio Songs
    24 MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU Kelly Clarkson
    57 NO SURPRISE Daughtry
    62 BATTLEFIELD Jordin Sparks
    85 I DO NOT HOOK UP Kelly Clarkson

    Hot Mainstream Top 40 Songs
    9 MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU Kelly Clarkson
    29 BATTLEFIELD Jordin Sparks
    40 I DO NOT HOOK UP Kelly Clarkson

    Hot Adult Contemporary Artists
    4 Daughtry
    6 David Cook

    Hot Adult Contemporary Songs
    4 WHAT ABOUT NOW Daughtry
    9 THE TIME OF MY LIFE David Cook
    13 CRUSH David Archuleta
    22 NO SURPRISE Daughtry
    24 LIGHT ON David Cook
    40 MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU Kelly Clarkson
    42 ONE STEP AT A TIME Jordin Sparks

    Hot Adult Top 40 Artists
    5 Daughtry
    6 Kelly Clarkson
    8 David Cook

    Hot Adult Top 40 Songs
    2 NO SURPRISE Daughtry
    10 MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU Kelly Clarkson
    16 COME BACK TO ME David Cook
    18 LIGHT ON David Cook
    25 WHAT ABOUT NOW Daughtry
    36 ALREADY GONE Kelly Clarkson
    43 I DO NOT HOOK UP Kelly Clarkson

    Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Artists
    13 Jennifer Hudson

    Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
    16 IF THIS ISN’T LOVE Jennifer Hudson
    29 SPOTLIGHT Jennifer Hudson

    Hot Country Artists
    18 Carrie Underwood

    Hot Country Songs
    28 I TOLD YOU SO Carrie Underwood Featuring Randy Travis
    37 BEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE Kellie Pickler
    45 COWBOY CASANOVA Carrie Underwood

    Hot Country Album Artists
    5 Carrie Underwood

    Hot Country Albums
    12 CARNIVAL RIDE Carrie Underwood
    15 PLAY ON Carrie Underwood
    29 Kellie Pickler Kellie Pickler

  • Kirsten

    HDD Predictions going into the weekend:

    1. Susan Boyle (Columbia) 625-675k
    2. Andrea Bocelli (Decca) 375-400k
    3. *Glee, Vol. 2 (Columbia) 130-140k
    4. Taylor Swift (Big Machine) 130-140k
    5. * Chris Brown (Jive/JLG) 90-100k
    6. Carrie Underwood (19/Arista Nashville) 85-95k
    7. Lady GaGa, The Fame (Interscope) 80-90k
    8. * Gucci Mane (Warner Bros.) 80-90k
    9. Michael Buble (Reprise) 80-90k
    10. Now 32 (Sony Music) 70-80k
    11. Glee, Vol. 1 (Columbia) 70-80k
    12. Justin Bieber (Island/IDJ) 65-75k
    13. * Thirty Seconds to Mars (Virgin/EMI) 65-75k
    14. Norah Jones (Blue Note/EMI) 65-75k
    15. * Jimmy Buffett (Mailboat) 65-75k
    16. Black Eyed Peas (Interscope) 60-70k
    * Denotes debut

    HDD raises the question if SuBo can top her already impressive first week.

  • jpfan

    Another 600K-675K for SuBo and HDD usually underestimates her….Ugh. If Adam and Kris can keep consistent with their sales from last week, that’s fine. No major % drop though…that would be bad.

  • tierbee

    SuBo is a CD selling machine. Good grief!

  • jersey

    OMG, how many more people can possibly want SuBo’s cd????

  • Kirsten

    A window into how the market is shaping up for next week:

    1. Susan Boyle (Columbia) 625-675k = 19-28% increase
    2. Andrea Bocelli (Decca) 375-400k = 12-7% decrease
    3. Glee, Vol. 2 (Columbia) 130-140k = NEW
    4. Taylor Swift (Big Machine) 130-140k = 3-10% increase
    5. Chris Brown (Jive/JLG) 90-100k = NEW
    6. Carrie Underwood (19/Arista Nashville) 85-95k = 5-17% increase
    7. Lady GaGa, The Fame (Interscope) 80-90k = 5% decrease-7% increase
    8. Gucci Mane (Warner Bros.) 80-90k = NEW
    9. Michael Buble (Reprise) 80-90k = 11-25% increase
    10. Now 32 (Sony Music) 70-80k = 3-18% increase
    11. Glee, Vol. 1 (Columbia) 70-80k = 30-48% increase
    12. Justin Bieber (Island/IDJ) 65-75k = 3% decrease -12% increase
    13. Thirty Seconds to Mars (Virgin/EMI) 65-75k = NEW
    14. Norah Jones (Blue Note/EMI) 65-75k = 19%-6% decrease
    15. Jimmy Buffett (Mailboat) 65-75k = NEW
    16. Black Eyed Peas (Interscope) 60-70k = 20-40% increase

  • Mrs.P

    “Hot Adult Contemporary Artists
    4 Daughtry
    6 David Cook”

    And I thought these two guys were the Rockers who came off of American Idol. Are they listed on the Rock charts at all?

  • 123abc456

    For David Cook Come Back to Me is # 34 on the Hot Adult Contemporary chart I think you missed that one. : )

    You also missed the Rock categories

    David Cook is # 3 for the Hot Rock album artist
    DCTR is # 4 for the Hot Rock Album

    Leave This Town by Daughtry is # 9 for the Hot Rock Album
    Daughtry is # 6 for the Hot Rock Album artists

    David has done pretty well this past year and has managed to get himself onto 10 year end lists. Pretty good if you ask me.

  • merrymary

    I really don’t get SuBo’s sales……. I’m perplexed (probably some gag gifts in there, but she has great numbers).

  • jpfan

    Is SuBo a Sony artist? Because they’ll def be having a Merry Xmas if she is.

  • Kirsten

    And I thought these two guys were the Rockers who came off of American Idol. Are they listed on the Rock charts at all?

    Wasn’t it RollingStone that said Adam is the first rocker to come off of American Idol?

    Daughtry has charted on several rock charts in the past and does get some spins there. Cook has also received spins there, but he’s between albums right now.

  • lucy

    OMG, how many more people can possibly want SuBo’s cd????

    Apparently at least 650,000 more, just in the U.S.! lol.

    And we still have one more *very* major shopping week to go before Christmas!

    …and what do you want to bet that a lot of holiday-present music gift cards will sustain her after Christmas? Because I think it’s pretty clear now that this is *not* just a phenomenon of people buying them for presents when they can’t think of other gifts for the little old ladies they know!

    Oh, and yeah — She’s Sony BMG.

    Maybe that’s good news for Kris, Adam, Allison, etc. … Susan will be propping up the company profits!

  • Trina

    SuBo just might end up selling 3 million by January!

    Hot Adult Contemporary Songs
    4 WHAT ABOUT NOW Daughtry
    9 THE TIME OF MY LIFE David Cook
    13 CRUSH David Archuleta
    22 NO SURPRISE Daughtry
    24 LIGHT ON David Cook
    40 MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU Kelly Clarkson
    42 ONE STEP AT A TIME Jordin Sparks

    Aw look magic rainbow STILL wont die LOL

    How is there difference between Billboard 200 and Billboard 200 artists…? Wouldnt the criteria be the same?

  • anovich

    Wasn’t it RollingStone that said Adam is the first rocker to come off of American Idol?

    Rolling Stone is obsessed with Adam – and the funny thing is I think Cook and Daughtry are both much more rock types compared to Adam.

  • Kirsten

    Is SuBo a Sony artist? Because they’ll def be having a Merry Xmas if she is

    Yep. She’s on Syco (Simon’s label) and Columbia which is a Sony label.

    I saw in yesterday’s thread that Ken Tucker compared SuBu to Bruce Springsteen. It reminds me of how Simon said a few years ago that he was more important to Sony than Bruce. I bet he thinks that even more this year.

    Deep in the office bowels of Simon’s company, he’s trying to think of a new heartwarming story-line so that he can create next year’s SuBo.

  • Truthiness

    Another week, another week of monster and monsterous, sales for SuBo.

    Whatever for her. I’m just…it’s never going to make sense to me and curse it, Simon Cowell wins again.

    If Adam and Kris can keep consistent with their sales from last week, that’s fine. No major % drop though’ ¦that would be bad.

    *fingers crossed* I think Kris won’t see a big drop, he’s has some momentum it seems with some sales spikes due to appearances, so hopefully that will help him out. Plus LLWD is getting out there even more, so that will help him. Adam might be in a stickier wicket for this week, we’ll see.

    This will be Allison’s second week, so her drop will be one to watch as well. Any guesstimates?

  • ladymadonna

    Wasn’t it RollingStone that said Adam is the first rocker to come off of American Idol?

    Yep. And I’m going to go waaaaay out on a limb here and say that Adam Lambert will not be appearing on Billboards end-of-year Rock charts for 2010 like Daughtry and Cook did this year.

  • leome

    dv, thanks for the compilation.

    Another one that I don’t think it’s there:

    Top Artists
    14 – Kelly Clarkson
    33 – David Cook
    35 – Carrie Underwood
    37 – Daughtry

    Wasn’t it RollingStone that said Adam is the first rocker to come off of American Idol?

    Next year I’m sure we’ll see his name appear in all those rock charts… considering all the airplay his music is getting there…

  • lucy

    ‘Hot Adult Contemporary Artists
    4 Daughtry
    6 David Cook’ 

    And I thought these two guys were the Rockers who came off of American Idol. Are they listed on the Rock charts at all?

    This is the “no rock cred” phenomenon….. although there is *some* response to them at rock, the bigger response seems to be on AC and HAC.

    Idols don’t have a huge amount of *pop* cred, either. AC and HAC seem to be the formats that adopt them most strenuously, except for the country and urban artists. I suppose it’s all because they come off such a mainstream show, and because the edge tends to be pretty much filed off of their debut albums, at least. So both their music *and* their tv-game-show reputations put them more into the easy listening category than some of them would want to be, I think…..

  • http://twitter.com/melliesmom Diane

    anovich
    12/11/2009 at 10:39 am
    Wasn’t it RollingStone that said Adam is the first rocker to come off of American Idol?

    Rolling Stone is obsessed with Adam ‘“ and the funny thing is I think Cook and Daughtry are both much more rock types compared to Adam.

    I know, right?!

  • Trina

    And I thought these two guys were the Rockers who came off of American Idol. Are they listed on the Rock charts at all?

    David Cook – Top Rock Album Artists of the Year ‘“ #3

    David Cook – Top Rock Albums of the Year ‘“ #4

    Next year I’m sure we’ll see his name appear in all those rock charts’ ¦ considering all the airplay his music is getting there’ ¦

    *SNORT*!

  • Hazehel

    Tracking David Cook’s album sales -

    2009 WEEK 49
    56 – 445,500 – DAVID COOK – David Cook
    2008 – 811,667

    Total 1,257,167

    Sales of ~1500 for the week.

  • lucy

    *fingers crossed* I think Kris won’t see a big drop, he’s has some momentum it seems with some sales spikes due to appearances, so hopefully that will help him out. Plus LLWD is getting out there even more, so that will help him. Adam might be in a stickier wicket for this week, we’ll see.

    Adam’s certainly going to drop by a bigger percentage than Kris, I expect.

    But while I know that Itunes and Amazon don’t tell you much, in the “bump” days that both have had at the end of this week, their albums are pretty much neck and neck on Itunes, with Adam slightly ahead a lot of the time, I think, and Kris lagging on Amazon. … If that’s similar to the pattern elsewhere, then I’d expect them to end up selling pretty similar numbers next week — but the numbers would represent a quite small drop for Kris but maybe around a 50 percent drop for Adam ….

    I’d call that a wash in the “who’s doing better” department, but it would also obviously be possible to look at ‘stabilizing” versus “big percentage drop” and unambiguously say that Kris is in stronger shape. … They both still have two stronger shopping weeks to go until Christmas, though, so that seems to be good news. Seems like Kris could break 200,000 and Adam 300,000 by New Years, which seems solid enough to me.

    Wonder what’ll happen with Allison, though.

  • dv

    Thanks LadyM and everyone for feeling in a few i missed, there so many charts and the new billboard website is very annoying.

  • ozarka

    NBC Nightly News did a segment on Christmas music last night. Most of it focused on Barry Manilow and Bob Dylan, I think because they are Jewish artists making Christmas music. They thought that was odd, which is the premise for their segment. But David Archuleta and his album did get a very brief mention as well. They flashed a shot of his album cover. So it’s all good. Any bit of buzz is good buzz. His part comes on at the 1:13 mark…
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/ns/nightly_news#34370968

  • sma11ie

    Wow at the BB year end charts and all those Idols. GOOOO IDOLS haha. MJ/Kirsten, can we have a new thread for that discussion? I have many questions. To start: is “Hot Adult Contemporary” HAC or AC? Cuz I think I heard Hot Adult Top 40 is HAC, right?

    Also, Hot 100 Artist– how is that calculated, based on # of Hot 100 songs and their placement? So DC made the list with just LO, CBTM and Permanent somewhere on those charts? Cuz I thought the BB chart year started late Nov, and LO’s #17 peak was in October. Just lots of these questions. Thanks guys!

  • larc

    SuBo just might end up selling 3 million by January!

    In worldwide numbers, that should be complete by the end of this week. Her sales were reported at 1.284m the first week and 1.047m the second. That comes to 2.331m worldwide for the first two weeks.

    http://www.mediatraffic.de/albums.htm

    With sales rates like that, though, it would seem everybody who wants a SuBo album will soon have it. It’s not exactly the kind of thing that stays popular forever, IMHO.

  • anijsch

    OMG, how many more people can possibly want SuBo’s cd????

    Apparently at least 650,000 more, just in the U.S.! lol.

    I think Billboard mentioned two weeks ago that the label would ship 1.8 Million of her album to the USA that should be sold at the end of this week.

    Could there be a shortage of her album next week ?

    This site, which estimate worldwide sales, has her by 2.33 Mil..

  • dv

    Billboard Decade End Lists

    Again sorry if i missed any, theres so many charts

    Artists of the Decade
    14 Kelly Clarkson
    50 Carrie Underwood
    90 Daughtry

    Billboard 200 Artists
    41 Carrie Underwood
    50 Kelly Clarkson
    99 Daughtry
    120 Clay Aiken

    Billboard 200 Albums
    14 SOME HEARTS Carrie Underwood
    29 BREAKAWAY Kelly Clarkson
    48 DAUGHTRY Daughtry
    132 CARNIVAL RIDE Carrie Underwood

    Digital Artists
    9 Daughtry

    Digital Albums
    15 DAUGHTRY Daughtry

    Holiday Albums
    10 MERRY CHRISTMAS WITH LOVE Clay Aiken

    Country Albums
    1 SOME HEARTS Carrie Underwood
    26 CARNIVAL RIDE Carrie Underwood

    Hot 100 Songs
    47 SINCE U BEEN GONE Kelly Clarkson

    Hot 100 Artists
    9 Kelly Clarkson

    Hot 100 Singles Sales
    5 THIS IS THE NIGHT/BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER Clay Aiken
    9 FLYING WITHOUT WINGS/SUPERSTAR Ruben Studdard J
    15 A MOMENT LIKE THIS Kelly Clarkson
    39 DO I MAKE YOU PROUD/TAKIN’ IT TO THE STREETS Taylor Hicks
    42 INSIDE YOUR HEAVEN/INDEPENDENCE DAY Carrie Underwood

    Singles Sales Artists
    7 CLAY AIKEN

    Hot Digital Songs
    33 NO AIR Jordin Sparks Duet With Chris Brown
    64 MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU Kelly Clarkson
    67 BEFORE HE CHEATS Carrie Underwood
    96 TATTOO Jordin Sparks
    99 CRUSH David Archuleta

    Digital Songs Artists
    18 KELLY CLARKSON
    28 CARRIE UNDERWOOD
    35 JORDIN SPARKS
    41 DAUGHTRY

    Hot 100 Airplay Artists
    14 KELLY CLARKSON

    Hot 100 Airplay
    48 BEFORE HE CHEATS Carrie Underwood
    79 BREAKAWAY Kelly Clarkson
    87 SINCE U BEEN GONE Kelly Clarkson
    94 NO AIR Jordin Sparks Duet With Chris Brown

    Pop Artists
    2 Kelly Clarkson

    Pop Songs
    6 SINCE U BEEN GONE Kelly Clarkson
    7 BECAUSE OF YOU Kelly Clarkson
    16 BEHIND THESE HAZEL EYES Kelly Clarkson
    50 NO AIR Jordin Sparks Duet With Chris Brown

    Adult Contemporary Artists
    6 Daughtry

    Adult Contemporary Songs
    23 THE TIME OF MY LIFE David Cook
    24 BREAKAWAY Kelly Clarkson
    26 HOME Daughtry

    Adult Pop Artists
    8 Kelly Clarkson
    9 Daughtry

    Country Artists
    10 Carrie Underwood

    Country Songs
    14 BEFORE HE CHEATS Carrie Underwood
    27 JESUS, TAKE THE WHEEL Carrie Underwood
    99 WASTED Carrie Underwood

    R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
    8 WHEN I SEE U Fantasia J/RMG
    63 TRUTH IS Fantasia J/RMG
    87 FREE YOURSELF Fantasia J/RMG

  • leome

    So many numbers… even Taylor Hicks made a list! You go idol.

  • googletot

    Rolling Stone is obsessed with Adam ‘“ and the funny thing is I think Cook and Daughtry are both much more rock types compared to Adam.

    And IMO Bo Bice is the real rocker out of all of them. Cook and Daughtry are more pop — don’t see much rock with either of them.

  • ggdoorsfan

    David Archuleta in a Live, HD Performance Thursday, December 17 at 8 PM EST / 5 PM PST, Log Onto BillboardLive.com for the Ultimate Concert Experience

    LOS ANGELES, CA–(Marketwire – 12/11/09)

    WHAT: Free HD concert broadcast via BillboardLive.com featuring American Idol finalist and singer-songwriter, David Archuleta live from Mashantucket, CT Thursday, December 17.

    Fans can easily access the series by simply logging onto: BillboardLive.com where they will be able to safely and securely download the Microsoft Silverlight and OWL HD player onto their computer free of charge with a one-time, simple download.

    WHEN: Thursday, December 17 at 8 pm EST / 5 pm PST.

    No ticket required. Go to http://www.BillboardLive.com to see an in-depth video promo featuring David Archuleta as well as upcoming and previous artists.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/David-Archuleta-in-a-Live-HD-iw-138412577.html?x=0&.v=1

  • Truthiness

    Adam’s certainly going to drop by a bigger percentage than Kris, I expect.

    But while I know that Itunes and Amazon don’t tell you much, in the ‘bump’  days that both have had at the end of this week, their albums are pretty much neck and neck on Itunes, with Adam slightly ahead a lot of the time, I think, and Kris lagging on Amazon. ‘ ¦ If that’s similar to the pattern elsewhere, then I’d expect them to end up selling pretty similar numbers next week ‘” but the numbers would represent a quite small drop for Kris but maybe around a 50 percent drop for Adam ‘ ¦.

    I’d call that a wash in the ‘who’s doing better’  department, but it would also obviously be possible to look at ‘stabilizing’  versus ‘big percentage drop’  and unambiguously say that Kris is in stronger shape. ‘ ¦ They both still have two stronger shopping weeks to go until Christmas, though, so that seems to be good news. Seems like Kris could break 200,000 and Adam 300,000 by New Years, which seems solid enough to me.

    Wonder what’ll happen with Allison, though.

    I agree with all of this. So the hope is that Adam will stabilize this week with increasing airplay for WWFM and some performing TV appearances to help him, I would think. We’ll see, but I’m still not sure when his stabilization will occur. Soon I hope :) but we’ll see.

    Allison’s numbers? hmmm. Don’t see a lot of things driving sales for her, not sure where she is on iTunes/Amazon, which I know aren’t big numbers, but seem like overall indicators of sales. So not sure about her percentage drop.

  • Mrs.P

    Well obviously it has been proven that there is world dominance by American Idol performers. I stand corrected!

    So all the hard work and record buying by the American Idol fans has kept their chosen ones front and center. It’s just a shame that they obviously haven’t been able to keep this up as HDD predictions are showing for this week. Looks like the show and it’s ability to create new Artists is pretty much on its last legs. I have the feeling that if not Season 9, but definitely Season 10 will be the last of American Idol.

    But we don’t need to worry because dear old Mr. Cowell is going to inundate the American consciousness with a US version of the X-Factor for all the peeps to enjoy. And considering how well his newest creation Miss Boyle is doing there will be a mad shift in the music buying public. No more new songs, no good vocalists. Just dreary old kareoke covers and easy listening.

  • Kirsten

    Could there be a shortage of her album next week ?

    No. They’ll have already made more. Production is easy. They’ll have sales projections and will be shipping units like crazy.

  • sma11ie

    Adult Contemporary Songs
    23 THE TIME OF MY LIFE David Cook

    OMG, Magic Rainbows made the BB DECADE list? Oh Rainbow…

  • BootStar

    During Jordin Sparks’ set, Bieber reappeared to double as Chris Brown on ‘No Air,’  though his vocals were slightly drowned out due to screaming.

    Yeah, they were screaming in horror at that Bieber kid. Lucky for the reviewer he didn’t hear it!

  • gangreen29

    6. Carrie Underwood (19/Arista Nashville) 85-95k

    Yay, that should put Carrie over 800,000. I am revising my prediction and now I think Carrie will be platinum by Christmas instead of New Years!! That means she will be the only AI artist to release a platinum album this year!

  • Mrs.P

    “Allison’s numbers? hmmm.”

    She has no singles on the I-tunes top 200. Her album is somewhere in the upper 150′s. Like about 170 or so. She doesn’t seem to have much of an active fan base and she gets shoved behind the scenes at the Jingle Balls.

    For some reason the general public just doesn’t seem to like the Idols this year. All four of the top four aren’t meeting expectations. Guess the voters just didn’t get it this year. All of the attention seems to be on Older Idols. Isn’t David Archuleta’s album selling like gang busters and David Cook was on a Christmas special with Carrie.

  • gangreen29

    These twenty stars were the best performers on the Hot 100 and the Billboard 200 over the course of the chart year, from Nov. 2008 through Nov. 2009.

    Why does Billboard measure their year from November to November? That is just idiotic, why not wait until January to make this list. With so many big albums debuting in November this doesn’t really give you the right context of who sold best this year.

  • ggdoorsfan

    what a great designation and honor for ”crush” - to make it in on the billboard decade end list… that song still sounds as fresh today as it did upon release, and when it hits the eventual 2 million [last update by brian at idol chatter had it at 1.9 million and counting] download mark, everyone is invited to celebrate… it ain’t going away any time soon…

    latest itunes ranking…

    658. Crush ‘“ David Archuleta
    Friday, December 11, 2009 10:51 AM

    http://www.vevo.com/watch/david-archuleta/crush/GBE430800063

  • lucy

    And IMO Bo Bice is the real rocker out of all of them. Cook and Daughtry are more pop ‘” don’t see much rock with either of them.

    For me, too.

    Wish he would have gotten to sing on Carrie’s special.

  • lucy

    Could there be a shortage of her album next week?

    Oh, darn.

    Now that’s a tragedy.

  • anovich

    And IMO Bo Bice is the real rocker out of all of them. Cook and Daughtry are more pop ‘” don’t see much rock with either of them.

    I agree – I was merely pointing out the ridiculousness of Rolling Stone calling Adam the first rocker when Cook and Daughtry have had success in rock. Unfortunately, Bo didn’t have as much mainstream success as those that followed him.

  • lucy

    Allison’s numbers? hmmm. Don’t see a lot of things driving sales for her, not sure where she is on iTunes/Amazon, which I know aren’t big numbers, but seem like overall indicators of sales. So not sure about her percentage drop.

    Unfortunately she’s way behind the guys in both those places, at least since Kris and Adam got their nice bumps this week….. Hasn’t really been anything to bump her up, and, of course, she started out lower than they did, as well. I’m just hoping that Jive sees her as a very young, mega-talented performer that they hope to build for several years before she hits her stride, rather than an AI take-the-money-and-run person.

  • larc

    Yeah, they were screaming in horror at that Bieber kid. Lucky for the reviewer he didn’t hear it!

    Justin Bieber needs to stick to the studio and Auto-Tune and leave the live performances to others. Won’t be long before he’s Justin Who? anyway.

  • lucy

    Could there be a shortage of her album next week ?

    No. They’ll have already made more. Production is easy. They’ll have sales projections and will be shipping units like crazy.

    I’m so relieved!

  • Seeker

    “Former ‘American Idol’  contestant Jason Castro, who placed third in the reality competition’s seventh season”
    LOL! Poor Seyisha Mercado!!! Castro was fourth (“Jingle Jangle Morning” fiasco!!!) Simillarly, this season Kradison ends up being the “top 3″, Danny sometimes gets scorned!

  • girlygirl

    Forget Susan Boyle, I wanna know who is still buying Justin Bieber’s album. I would’ve thought all the screaming tween fangirls would have snatched it up already

  • lucy

    Yeah, they were screaming in horror at that Bieber kid. Lucky for the reviewer he didn’t hear it!

    Justin Bieber needs to stick to the studio and Auto-Tune and leave the live performances to others. Won’t be long before he’s Justin Who? anyway.

    I don’t know about that. He’s got that cute-safe-boy thing going.

    Of course, a voice change will alter that persona a bit, but as long as it doesn’t go too low, and it probably won’t, I would bet he’s still got a generation or two of pre-teen girls to load onto his bandwagon before he becomes a nostalgia artist for all the pre-teen girls he’s roped in so far!

  • Trina

    Don’t underestimate Justin Bieber’s popularity..I have a 13 year old and he’s the current object of SQUEE for her and many of her friends, lots of tweens asking for his CD for Xmas. IMO his sales are just going to get higher.

  • larc

    No. They’ll have already made more. Production is easy. They’ll have sales projections and will be shipping units like crazy.

    They’ll need to make sure there’s enough product to fill the $1 bins later. ;)

  • girlygirl

    Hi there! Morning iTunes update for Kris, Adam and Allison:

    Songs (overall)

    #31 LLWD
    #96 FYE
    #104 WWFM

    according to my feed, Allison has fallen out of the Top 1000 entirely

    Albums (overall)

    #63/#89 FYE
    #85/#649 Kris Allen
    #194/#363 Just Like You

    David A.
    #18 Christmas from the Heart

  • ozarka

    From the New Jersey article…

    DILLON: I recently read a review of a show from this tour in which the reporter wrote that your rendition of “Ave Maria” moved them and everyone else in the audience to tears. That’s quite a compliment!

    DAVID: That has just been a really special song to sing and I feel like it’s a really reverent one. It is about someone who was really special. You know, the Virgin Mother, Mary. It’s interesting because I wasn’t even going to keep it in the show. I almost didn’t put it in the show because it was so hard to sing and I didn’t want it to be a letdown every night. I would feel horrible doing that. I told myself I was going to try it for the first two shows in Utah and then just drop it from there. But I just enjoyed singing it so much and felt that it was such a special song. I knew it was a hard song to sing but told myself I was going to try and go for it anyway. And I am really happy about that. I am happy that people have appreciated it, too. It’s been so fun to have in the show. It is still not an easy song to sing, but it is worth trying, because it is such a great, meaningful song.

    That was such a great interview. I’m so glad David chose to keep this song in his tour sets. I feel he draws inspiration from singing it. It’s my favorite on his album.

  • anovich

    Songs (overall)

    #31 LLWD
    #96 FYE
    #104 WWFM

    according to my feed, Allison has fallen out of the Top 1000 entirely

    Albums (overall)

    #63/#89 FYE
    #85/#649 Kris Allen
    #194/#363 Just Like You

    Interesting that LLWD is doing so well compared to FYE and WWFM but FYE (album) is doing so much better then Kris Allen (album). Makes me think that Kris really might end up like Jordin in terms of huge singles success whereas the album will have more difficulty.

  • BootStar

    Wasn’t it RollingStone that said Adam is the first rocker to come off of American Idol?

    Was that what they said? I thought he was Idol’s first Certified Rock Gawd (TM).

    I’m convinced Justin Bieber is taking Lupron to delay puberty. And he may be popular with a lot of tween/teen girls, but my son (who’s 14) and his friends think that kid is the most hilarious thing on YouTube since Weird Al Yancovic.

  • JudyL

    My take on the SuBo sales……..brilliant move releasing this cd right before Christmas. Thousands of people looking for inexpensive gifts for stocking stuffers, work gift- exchanges, obligatory thank-you, aunt millie who I really have no idea what to buy for, etc. Some of these buyers have no idea about the music on the cd, but the name and picture ring a bell and it is prominently display. Lump these buyers in with the people who bought into her story and you have a lot of buyers. Many of these cds will never get played.

  • girlygirl

    iTunes morning update Part II:

    songs (pop chart – Top 500 only)

    #15/#160/#416 LLWD
    #32 FYE
    #36/#446 WWFM
    #247 Heartless
    #271 FIBOU
    #355/#376 TFM
    #375 Scars
    #463 If I Had You

    albums (pop chart – Top 200 only)

    #12/#15 FYE
    #14/#83 Kris Allen
    #28/#55 Just Like You

  • agathe.hb

    BootStar, I don’t want to sound naive or something, but what is Lupron and why on Earth would somebody do this to his/her own body?

  • Truthiness

    I haven’t been watching, just my guess based on what I see on the webb, I think barring a disasterous night next week, that Russell will win. Jakob is definitely a possibility, but I see a lot of people just not connecting to him. Just my totally unscientific guess.

    As for X-Factor, yeah, I think Joe will win and yaawwwwn. Boring result and boring winner, though vocally Joe does deserve it. I will be interested to see how Simon markets him. I don’t see what genre he will be popular in.

    Interesting that LLWD is doing so well compared to FYE and WWFM but FYE (album) is doing so much better then Kris Allen (album). Makes me think that Kris really might end up like Jordin in terms of huge singles success whereas the album will have more difficulty.

    Well I hope for singles success for Kris, and yeah, think AWM will be the next one, btw. I think it’s early days yet for WWFM. There is xmas and it’s freeze and xmas music to get through, but it might build over the long term the way that LWWD had to. We’ll see.

  • Mrs.P

    Considering Susan Boyle’s enormous success with her album of covers and the fact that she is rather homely and introverted and that the American public has decided to buy a couple of million of her album, doesn’t that just say a ton about the musical sesitivity of the US.

    New and interesting music is no longer the focus of the music buying public. Radio is more about conservative talk, there are no continuous musical shows on network TV that play original stuff, shows that are music oriented like Glee play music that is oftentimes 40 years old, all hail to Barbra Streisand and Funny Girl, MTV no longer shows video, American Idol is a kareoke show. Damn, music is dead, dead, dead. And this Christmas season has proven it beyond measure.

  • lucy

    Interesting that LLWD is doing so well compared to FYE and WWFM but FYE (album) is doing so much better then Kris Allen (album). Makes me think that Kris really might end up like Jordin in terms of huge singles success whereas the album will have more difficulty.

    That’s possible, but I kind of think it’s more a matter of where both Kris and Adam are historically in their releases. …

    With the singles, LLWD has been out a *lot* longer than Adam’s singles. WWFM only has a few weeks of radio play and is on a bit fewer than a third of the stations LLWD is on. Its radio-station history and sales pattern seems pretty similar to me to the one I remember LLWD having a month or so ago. The Christmas blank period will slow it down, but it’s high enough now so that it’ll probably pick up after Christmas. I really expect WWFM and LLWD to sell and chart about equally well.

    Then, as for the albums, — Well, Adam got an initial boost, I guess from having a somewhat more committed fan base …. But the thing with album sales is that it seems like for many people they are driven way more by a second single than by the first single. So I figure Kris’s album will get more of a boost when a second song comes out next year. (Adam may have a slight advantage here, I suppose, since FYE is also floating around out there — so in essence he kind of has two singles visible already …)

    Honestly, I still think both of these guys are album artists, and that if one is more a singles artist than the other it’ll turn out to be Adam rather than Kris.

    To my mind, Jordin is more of a singles artist because she’s so young and, to me anyway, doesn’t have a formulated artistic persona yet that people are going to latch onto. What she has had are some hot radio songs that fit in great with other typical radio songs, and so people buy them … but they may not follow that up with an album purchase since there’s not all that much of a true, distinctive “Jordin vibe” that you’d be wanting from that album. To me, anyway.

    Kris and Adam, however, *do* each have their own distinctive vibes and personas. They’re older and have had more time to develop into their own people. Plus, they both have a bit of specific, niche-y appeal to their pop songs, rather than just having pop songs that are exactly in the popular vein of this moment. … When I buy an album, I’m kind of buying the artist as a whole artist, and I want a bunch of songs that reflect that. I think both these guys are likely to be bought this way, in the long run.

    For me the really good news in that is that because I see each of them as being pretty distinctive and niche-y, if they don’t make it really big, then they still could have strong careers with a small, loyal following … I think Jordin, at this point, would have a lot more trouble sustaining something like that. Although I do think she has the talent to grow into it.

  • wellhesback

    I am ridiculously thrilled to see David Cook’s name on so many of those Billboard lists!

    As for AI rockers, Bo & Daughtry certainly came before him. And if you see Cookie in concert you will be seeing a rock show, most definitely. So no way is Lambert the first rocker AI has produced.

  • lucy

    according to my feed, Allison has fallen out of the Top 1000 entirely

    Crap. Poor Allison.

  • ohnonotagain

    WTG Cookie, we are proud of you. Album # 2 should exceed all of these.

  • ozarka

    From the Cincinnati.com article…

    Seton High School students know how to bring in the big acts.

    Grammy-nominated pop star Natasha Bedingfield and “American Idol” runner-up David Archuleta have both performed at the school, and now another rising music star can be added to the list.

    Former “American Idol” contestant Jason Castro, who placed third in the reality competition’s seventh season, visited Seton on Thursday, Dec. 10. Castro performed three songs and answered questions from the audience.

    It’s sad that the author of that article didn’t even mention Kris Allen. It would have supported his thesis even better.

  • ggdoorsfan

    i wouldn’t sound the death knell so soon mrs. p…..:D…

    musical taste is highly subjective, and there really is no barometer to measure what is ever going to resonate or hit with the public, at any given time… have never been persuaded by anything other than what is pleasing to my ears in determining the music i like and buy… i don’t care so much about with what is supposed to be the so called hot trends or flavors of the month in music, as ascribed by billboard, rollingstone or top 40 radio et al… if i like it, i like it, and there are no apologies to be made for it… there are large segments of music buyers that just want to hear songs, that sound good to them, sung by people with good voices, with no autotune and other flashy gimmicks foisted upon them… the desire for music straight up, w/no chasers…

    perhaps the suebo phenomenom is tapping into that kind of underserved and overlooked music buyer…

  • Mark

    Former ‘American Idol’  contestant Jason Castro, who placed third in the reality competition’s seventh season, visited Seton on Thursday, Dec. 10. Castro performed three songs and answered questions from the audience.

    Poor Syesha! Unlike other certain third place finishers I like to forget about as much as possible, I’d like to at least see her get that credit…

    And boo to forgetting about Kris in that article. I mean… really? Oh, well.

  • ozarka

    BootStar, I don’t want to sound naive or something, but what is Lupron and why on Earth would somebody do this to his/her own body?

    Lupron is used for the treatment of prostate cancer. BootStar, of course, was being cheeky, suggesting that Justin is using it to delay the development of his prostate glands. :lol:

    http://www.rxlist.com/lupron-drug.htm

  • ggdoorsfan

    congrats to fantasia for representing on the billboard r/b decade chart – just saw that!

  • lucy

    From Cincinnati.com article’ ¦

    Seton High School students know how to bring in the big acts.

    Grammy-nominated pop star Natasha Bedingfield and ‘American Idol’  runner-up David Archuleta have both performed at the school, and now another rising music star can be added to the list.

    Former ‘American Idol’  contestant Jason Castro, who placed third in the reality competition’s seventh season, visited Seton on Thursday, Dec. 10. Castro performed three songs and answered questions from the audience.

    It’s sad that the author of that article didn’t even mention Kris Allen. It would have supported his thesis even better.

    Good grief, they got Natasha Bedingfield, too!

    Maybe they failed to mention Kris only because the list was so long that they left off about 98 percent of the artists these girls have corralled. Kinda sounds like that might be it.

    They must enter and win every contest that’s out there. I wonder whether they’re really that great at fundraising or the rest of Cincinnati is apathetic. …

  • Eileen99

    Kirsten:

    Would you please post that link again to the Pulse LLWD thread? I don’t have it here – and I’d like to take another look at the new Jive LLWD radio banner they’ve placed. TY!

  • Mark

    Honestly, I still think both of these guys are album artists, and that if one is more a singles artist than the other it’ll turn out to be Adam rather than Kris.

    Eh… maybe? Intuitively, I can kind of see it going both ways. Adam is more in a genre (straight up electronic-influenced pop, really) that would float singles into Top 40 with ease, and his tendency in making albums seems to be toward that end; he’s also the kind of performer (particularly live) who would draw into a rather devoted crowd, perhaps over an extremely broad crowd, which one would think floats album more than singles. Kris, I think, might be inclined personally to make a more cohesive album in the future, and his sound, while it has its diversities, has more editing attached (IMO); on the flip side, a lot on that album fits well into AC radio, and he meshes well with that kind of performer.

    *shrugs* Either way, they’re more of album artists than I say Jordin is, for sure.

  • May

    And IMO Bo Bice is the real rocker out of all of them. Cook and Daughtry are more pop ‘” don’t see much rock with either of them.

    I really don’t think it’s a complement to be called a “real rocker” in this decade. While I think that Cook and Daughtry definitly do fit into the category of rock, I rather that they get thrown into that category of all the “not real rockers” like Vampire Weekend or AAR, since those are the only people who are actually contributing to a rock signature for this decade. All of he “real rockers” have sadly not demonstrated much progression in the past decade.

  • Mrs.P

    “perhaps the suebo phenomenom is tapping into that kind of underserved and overlooked music buyer’ ¦”

    Oh absolutely. Music is now taking major steps backwards and we will again be blessed with the great music of the 50′s when Frank Sinatra was king and it was all about melody and lyrics. Nothing wrong with that and it will help all of the singer’s singers who just sing straight up. And this phenomenon just proves the point that all things just go around and that was what was old and dated is now hip and with it.

    Or does it just prove that younger music lovers who are into the new sounds and new artists and new stuff are just stealing their music. Why buy anything when you can duplicate the CD your friend has, or download illegally from your computer. I think mature people with old fashioned taste in music buy it legally and kids just steal it. My take on who sells what these days.

  • seriously

    Or does it just prove that younger music lovers who are into the new sounds and new artists and new stuff are just stealing their music. Why buy anything when you can duplicate the CD your friend has, or download illegally from your computer. I think mature people with old fashioned taste in music buy it legally and kids just steal it. My take on who sells what these days.

    Sadly, that’s what I think it proves. Someone needs to find out a way to stop it. It’s happening probably way more then anyone suspects.

  • aga

    So happy to see David Cook is on so many categories of BB top chart of 2009.

  • fusion8

    if kids just steal their music, then mature people w/ old fashioned taste in music, and buy it legally, bought alot of Taylor Swift’s Fearless.

    hmm, imagine that.

  • cookcricket

    Interesting that LLWD is doing so well compared to FYE and WWFM but FYE (album) is doing so much better then Kris Allen (album). Makes me think that Kris really might end up like Jordin in terms of huge singles success whereas the album will have more difficulty.

    Actually anovich, I’m impressed that Kris Allen the album is doing as well as it is because we have to remember that the album was not even mentioned on SYTYCD, all he did was sing. No interview, no album promo, just LLWD. I’m pleased! :D

  • Mrs.P

    At my work one person buys an album and downloads it to the main system for everyone’s listening pleasure. And then everyone just downloads that to their Ipods or a CD for their listening pleasure and then that CD is copied by their kids and their kids friends.

    Only music really selling is to old people and to parents who are kind enough to buy their kids the music they want, like Miley and Taylor and Justin and the Jonas Brothers. You know parents have to do the right thing around their kids and so will buy those albums but they will download all the other stuff free of charge.

    If you don’t believe me just look at the who is selling CDs. Where are the big numbers for any current and contemporary artist. They just don’t exist. This is Christmas time. In years gone by a new album could easily sell a million records between black Friday and Christmas. Now it is a bunch of kids, a few easy listening albums, and a heartwarming lady who sang to her cats.

  • http://twitter.com/melliesmom Diane

    girlygirl
    12/11/2009 at 11:21 am
    Forget Susan Boyle, I wanna know who is still buying Justin Bieber’s album. I would’ve thought all the screaming tween fangirls would have snatched it up already

    I don’t think it’s his fans…listen to them screaming for Kris Allen on this video from Sacramento…it’s nuts! :grin:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrJJXMEsBnQ

  • May

    Lupron is used for the treatment of prostate cancer. BootStar, of course, was being cheeky, suggesting that Justin is using it to delay the development of his prostate glands.

    I think Lupron acts on the brain to inhibit the hormones that ultimately result in release of testosterone and estrogen. It’s used to treat precocious puberty, fibroids and antything else that might be caused by too much estrogen or testosterone (it supposedly treats prostate cancer by decreasing testosterone levels). I think Bootstar might have been referring to the precocious puberty functon not the prostate issue, but your comment made me smile….little Justin probably won’t be thinking of his prostate till he hits his 50s!.

  • anijsch

    perhaps the suebo phenomenom is tapping into that kind of underserved and overlooked music buyer’ ¦

    I wouldn’t be surprised if for a lot of people, who buy the album it isn’t even about the music. It wouldn’t matter if it is book or something else.
    I think it is more about the hype and falls in the same pattern as there seems to be every Christmas season a toy that the children must have.

  • ggdoorsfan

    the solution may be for artists to begin producing suebo style music to rack up big numbers in cd sales, hahahah… who knows what the answer is… the suebo thing doesn’t influence me one way or the other about the state of the industry… if an artist, any artist, produces a song or cd that i like, i buy it… illegal downloading isn’t new, the labels have had years to try and stem the bloodletting, but so far all efforts have proven futile… i have no beef with artists like suebo, or older music lovers and buyers who buy her music in droves, while holding fast to their old school ways in purchasing music… maybe a courting or reaching out to attract the ”mature” fan will be the way to go for some new artists, as a means of survival – if they want to rack up large sales, hee hee… i’d think at this point in the game, everything is on the table :D

  • LaurelG

    I wouldn’t be surprised if for a lot of people, who buy the album it isn’t even about the music. It wouldn’t matter if it is book or something else.

    Exactly. I don’t understand the shock and awe at her album sales frankly. There are 246 million people in this country over the age of 15. I’m sure a huge percentage of the people buying this album haven’t made a music purchase in years. The music is only a small part of it. They’re jumping on the bandwagon. It’s a fad, a shared experience. The pet rock lasted 6 months.

  • jersey

    I think the music industry has to come up with a new way to generate profits. I know my 18 year old son still prefers hard copy cd’s which he then loads onto his ipod. He would much rather have the hard copy for Christmas, then say, an itunes gift card. He and his friends do exchange music with each other but in their case, it’s more the exception than the rule. I do think my son comes from a different perspective, though, since he wants to be in the music industry. I’m sure that the majority of his friends probably get most of their music from their friends. So, long term, something has to change.

  • http://twitter.com/melliesmom Diane

    My 19-y-o daughter buys most of her music. Occasionally a friend will loan her a CD, but she usually buys from itunes.

  • BootStar

    And IMO Bo Bice is the real rocker out of all of them. Cook and Daughtry are more pop ‘” don’t see much rock with either of them.

    I love Bo, but how is he more of a “rocker” than Cook or Daughtry? I mean if you’re going to judge the latter two by their debut albums, then I’d hardly call The Real Thing rawk.

    They’re all rockers as far as I’m concerned. Daughtry, and to a lesser extent Cook, have just been fortunate to have had a few of their poppier rock tunes do well on the charts, but they all had rock bands before they auditioned for Idol and they all rock out with their bands in concert. I think you have to compare like to like.

  • sunchick

    Congrats Cookie (and other Idols!) So many lists. My favorite I think is this one…

    Top 10 Rock Album Artists:
    1. Nickelback
    2. Kings of Leon
    3. David Cook
    4. U2
    5. Dave Mathews Band
    6. Daughtry
    7. Green Day
    8. Jason Mraz
    9. Cold Play
    10. The Fray

    …because I would totally go see at least 8 of those acts in concert. Good company.

    Aint gonna lie, though, that it’s kinda bittersweet seeing him ranked above of all these acts that got a BNA nod. *shakes fist at Grammies*

    Adult Contemporary Songs
    23 THE TIME OF MY LIFE David Cook

    OMG, Magic Rainbows made the BB DECADE list? Oh Rainbow’ ¦

    Priceless! I like you Moment Like This and Ima let you be first, but Magic Rainbowz is the greatest coronation song of all time. OF ALL TIME.

  • Mrs.P

    “maybe a courting or reaching out to attract the ‘ mature’  fan will be the way to go for some new artists, as a means of survival ”

    And I would gather that based on the Avatar that goes with this comment that this is the philosophy that David Archuleta is persuing. Isn’t his Christmas album geared towards traditional music and not to Christmas fluff songs.

    Artists shouldn’t have to fit their styles into the music buying habits of the few in order to sell. Something needs to be done within the market place to allow Singers to sing what they want not what a few mature fans want to hear. That is exactly what I am afraid of. That only those singers targeting an old audience will survive and all the gifted young singers that have something new and fresh to bring to the table will fall to the wayside.

    American Idol has lost their young audience. The show is no longer relative based on what has happened in the real market since season 8 ended. And I find it sad that the older generation is overjoyed at this. It is like they are saying to those between the ages of 20 to 40 that what they enjoy and like doesn’t count anymore.

  • ggdoorsfan

    David A will be on Regis and Kelly: 2009 Holiday Special on Dec. 22… sweet.

    http://twitter.com/Regis_and_Kelly

    Yes, David Archuleta!
    RT @GLOCHY: OH MY GOSH…DAVID will be on Regis and Kelly: 2009 Holiday Special DEC 22 oh man i have class that day :/

    20 minutes ago from TweetDeck

  • LaurelG

    Bootstar: I’m convinced Justin Bieber is taking Lupron to delay puberty. And he may be popular with a lot of tween/teen girls, but my son (who’s 14) and his friends think that kid is the most hilarious thing on YouTube since Weird Al Yancovic.

    I’m not a doctor (maybe you are) but, honestly, Bieber looks like a typical 15 yo kid to me. Half of the kids I know who are his age have hit puberty and half of them haven’t. And I think it’s also fairly typical to have the tween/teen girl fan love and the tween/teen boy derision. Just ask Zac and Robert Pattinson. Most of the tween/teen boys I know are too busy trying to stylize themselves as faux rappers or skater dudes – which is equally hilarious in its own way.

  • Keel

    I think the SuBo phenomenon taps into the lazy music listener who is generally out of it musically and generally thinks the only good music out there is the music they grew up listening to. And who, not coincidentally, is a sucker for the frumpy old maid backstory. So an album full of covers (i.e., familiar music) by a homely old lady with a great, heartwarming backstory is these type of people’s way of feeling they are getting back into the music and that they are somehow at the forefront of something — even it’s only an internet phenomenon.

  • ljsmack

    SuBo ?? Personally as a dog person I blame the sales on cat people–talk about fan wars- dog vs cats … Also “all the lonely people” who want her to win the lottery since they won’t.

  • seriously

    They’re all rockers as far as I’m concerned. Daughtry, and to a lesser extent Cook, have just been fortunate to have had a few of their poppier rock tunes do well on the charts, but they all had rock bands before they auditioned for Idol and they all rock out with their bands in concert. I think you have to compare like to like.

    Yah and if Axium’s Feed Your Ego isn’t rock then I don’t know what is. Or Bar-ba-sol for that matter.

  • jersey

    I don’t think you can base Archie’s philosophy off of a Christmas album. I just downloaded Weezer’s Christmas EP that they put out last year. The First Noel, O Come All Ye Faithful, Silent Night, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, We Wish You a Merry Christmas and O Holy Night. Pretty much as traditional as you can get. Yet I see no evidence that that’s the way Weezer is heading on their next non-holiday album.

  • agathe.hb

    ozarka, thank you, I hope it is not true, but I have heard so many stories about parents of child stars who tried to stop their growth…. so sad :(

  • lucy

    At my work one person buys an album and downloads it to the main system for everyone’s listening pleasure. And then everyone just downloads that to their Ipods or a CD for their listening pleasure and then that CD is copied by their kids and their kids friends.

    Only music really selling is to old people and to parents who are kind enough to buy their kids the music they want, like Miley and Taylor and Justin and the Jonas Brothers.

    And people like me, who know a lot of musicians and cringe when I think of people stealing the music that they’ve poured their hearts’ blood and sweat into, most often while struggling to make a decent living for years and years, perhaps always, as they create their stuff.

    Or maybe it’s only because, as a journalist, I know that people take exactly the same attitude toward my hard work — Hey, it oughta be free! Why do we have to pay for this stuff when there’s information on the Internet?!….

  • BootStar

    BootStar, I don’t want to sound naive or something, but what is Lupron and why on Earth would somebody do this to his/her own body?

    Lupron is an infertlitly drug that’s sometimes used to delay puberty in children who have growth issues, so they can be treated with human growth hormone or whatever and catch up in height. A child typically stops growing within a year or two of reaching puberty, so the goal is to delay puberty by a few years so that the child gets those extra years of growth before they reach puberty and the clock starts counting down.

    Obviously, I’m just joking with regard to that Bieber kid, but my son (the 14-year-old) is convinced Justin is either really a girl or a castrato. I mean they did used to castrate young boys to keep their voices from changing, so Lupron seem like a minor thing to do in comparison, no? ;-)

  • ozarka

    David Archuleta is one of USA Network’s Characters of the Month, aka “Carol-ebrities.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5utjNawh30

  • lucy

    I love Bo, but how is he more of a ‘rocker’  than Cook or Daughtry? I mean if you’re going to judge the latter two by their debut albums, then I’d hardly call The Real Thing rawk.

    Well, to be fair, The Real Thing was made back in the days when Clive ordered all post-Idol people except Carrie to put out a pop album. No niches allowed in those days.

    But in the kind of southern-rock and jamming stuff that seems to be Bo’s real musical interest, some of us old people feel more rocking from that than we do from Daughtry’s albums, for example, I think. (Or from David Cook’s album, either, although in concert, David definitely rocks, from my perspective! — Daughtry not so much, though …. His stuff is more an elevator-music form of rock, to me…)….

    I doubt that anybody was implying much more than this. All three guys, and others from the show, have definitely pursued lengthy attempts at rock careers of various kinds before coming on Idol, and try to rock afterward, too. Absolutely.

  • sma11ie

    Top 10 Rock Album Artists:
    1. Nickelback
    2. Kings of Leon
    3. David Cook
    4. U2
    5. Dave Mathews Band
    6. Daughtry
    7. Green Day
    8. Jason Mraz
    9. Cold Play
    10. The Fray

    ‘ ¦because I would totally go see at least 8 of those acts in concert. Good company.

    Cool, I’ve seen seven of these acts live, and love all 7! I haven’t seen Nickleback (no desire, EVER), Daughtry (if cheap, I would), and The Fray (sorry, too whiny for me, so little desire unless very cheap)!

  • jumpstart

    Congrats Cookie (and other Idols!) So many lists. My favorite I think is this one’ ¦

    Top 10 Rock Album Artists:
    1. Nickelback
    2. Kings of Leon
    3. David Cook
    4. U2
    5. Dave Mathews Band
    6. Daughtry
    7. Green Day
    8. Jason Mraz
    9. Cold Play
    10. The Fray

    ‘ ¦because I would totally go see at least 8 of those acts in concert. Good company.

    I’m with you SunChick. Quite excellent company indeed.

  • SarahP

    Top 10 Rock Album Artists:
    1. Nickelback
    2. Kings of Leon
    3. David Cook
    4. U2
    5. Dave Mathews Band
    6. Daughtry
    7. Green Day
    8. Jason Mraz
    9. Cold Play
    10. The Fray

    congrats cookie! beating u2, coldplay and davematthews band is no small feat

  • Mrs.P

    “Top 10 Rock Album Artists:
    1. Nickelback
    2. Kings of Leon
    3. David Cook
    4. U2
    5. Dave Mathews Band
    6. Daughtry
    7. Green Day
    8. Jason Mraz
    9. Cold Play
    10. The Fray”

    Somebody is really pulling our leg here, right. I might consider giving a rock nod to U2 and Green Day…but hell no to the others.

  • Trina

    Priceless! I like you Moment Like This and Ima let you be first, but Magic Rainbowz is the greatest coronation song of all time. OF ALL TIME.

    Bwhahahaha! I have this vision of several years of Idol and lots more coronation songs and magic rainbow will still PWN them all LOL

  • ggdoorsfan

    au contraire mrs. p – david didn’t have to do much to attract the adult and older fans in his fanbase, except open his mouth, hahaha… no philosophy or strategizing was needed on his part – it all happened very early on, and organically.…

    i think for many of his adult fans, the deal was sealed after his vocally stunning rendition of ”imagine” in top 24 week on idol… he got my attention the week b4 imagine, when he blew me away singing ”shop around”… i heard him b4 i saw him, as i was in another room in my house when he began singing.. i heard a really nice voice really getting down on that smokey robinson tune, and went to see who was singing it, and the rest is history… knew really from ”shop around” on that he was going to have both major appeal for teens and older fans… he has held both factions together rather well in his base since idol, they continue to grow, so in this sense, he is ahead of many artists in enjoying appeal and support in both a younger and adult demographic... he’s all about the music, which adults like me appreciate, and the younger ones have their heartthrob… win/win. :D

    shop around
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBwZt_WCXkY

    imagine
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn0WqfK3NIc&feature=related

  • seriously

    I wonder how close David Cook was to passing KOL on that list. Does anyone have any idea of how many copies of OBTN that KOL have sold?

  • lucy

    Top 10 Rock Album Artists:
    1. Nickelback
    2. Kings of Leon
    3. David Cook
    4. U2
    5. Dave Mathews Band
    6. Daughtry
    7. Green Day
    8. Jason Mraz
    9. Cold Play
    10. The Fray

    These are the rock artists????

    Wow. Rock has sure changed. … and gotten, you know, kinda limp and soft, hasn’t it?

    Yikes.

    Green Day, okay. Cookie in concert, yeah. Sorta kinda U2 at *times.* … Kings of Leon, sorta kinda. … But Wow, Jason Mraz?? Really? And Nickelback is at the *top* of this rock list? They are such a snooze to me.

    Yikes. No wonder some people are saying Bo is more, you know, rock-y. Some of us are just obviously operating off of a way outdated view of rock! Now I guess it doesn’t mean anything except that you have guitars, a guys-only band, and the beat is in four?

  • ladymadonna

    I wonder how close David Cook was to passing KOL on that list. Does anyone have any idea of how many copies of OBTN that KOL have sold?

    At chart-year cut-off, OBTN had sold 1,336,449 to DCTR’s 1,233,398. The total for Cook only includes sales during the 44 weeks he remained on the BB200. His current total is estimated at 1,257,167, with KOL sitting on 1,585,881 total right now.

    Here are the Top 20 bestselling albums of 2009, with chart-year totals. Only 19 albums sold more than 1 million copies last year:

    1 FEARLESS TAYLOR SWIFT 3,709,310
    2 I AM’ ¦SASHA FIERCE BEYONCE 2,491,277
    3 DARK HORSE NICKELBACK 2,392,434
    4 TWILIGHT SOUNDTRACK 2,028,652
    5 HANNAH MONTANA: THE MOVIE SOUNDTRACK 1,647,177
    6 CIRCUS BRITNEY SPEARS 1,604,648
    7 808S & HEARTBREAK KANYE WEST 1,590,916
    8 THE FAME LADY GAGA 1,584,064
    9 RELAPSE EMINEM 1,514,427
    10 THE E.N.D. (THE ENERGY NEVER DOES) BLACK EYED PEAS 1,356,211
    11 ONLY BY THE NIGHT KINGS OF LEON 1,336,449
    12 THE BLUEPRINT 3 JAY-Z 1,271,189
    13 DAVID COOK DAVID COOK 1,233,398
    14 THE FOUNDATION ZAC BROWN BAND 1,191,719
    15 NOW 29 VARIOUS ARTISTS 1,098,427
    16 FUNHOUSE PINK 1,075,905
    17 INTUITION JAMIE FOXX 1,040,396
    18 NO LINE ON THE HORIZON U2 1,032,944
    19 UNSTOPPABLE RASCAL FLATTS 1,030,796
    20 A DIFFERENT ME KEYSHIA COLE 941,203

  • seriously

    At chart-year cut-off, OBTN had sold 1,336,449 to DCTR’s 1,233,398. The total for Cook only includes sales during the 44 weeks he remained on the BB200. His current total is estimated at 1,257,167, with KOL sitting on 1,585,881 total right now.

    Man, DC fans are number nerds too. Thanks bunches.

  • sma11ie

    Somebody is really pulling our leg here, right. I might consider giving a rock nod to U2 and Green Day’ ¦but hell no to the others.

    Wow. Rock has sure changed. ‘ ¦ and gotten, you know, kinda limp and soft, hasn’t it?

    See, now I TOTALLY understand where you guys are coming from with the opinion that DC’s not rock. Cuz whether or not I like those artists on the list (and actually I love 7 of the 10), most of the people I know my age (20s) who listen to popular music would agree that those are rock artists. It may not be rock music they like, but they’re rock. I think there are really many types of rock, and I don’t understand when people want to keep it is so narrowly defined. There’s punk-, indie-, glam-, aggro/prog-, southern-, pop-, heavy/death metal-, alternative-, mainstream/anthemic-, etc… Does “rock” have to mean “hard rock”? Or should the music have no pop sound to constitute rock? Just asking.

  • BootStar

    You know parents have to do the right thing around their kids and so will buy those albums but they will download all the other stuff free of charge.

    Uh, I never steal music *anywhere* and both my kinds know I’ll kick their sorry arses if I find out they’re STEALING music. They get this lecture from me all the time.

    Wow, I’m finding out about all kinds of uses for Lupron I never knew about. Thanks, guys (and J. Bieber!)! ;-)

    I like you Moment Like This and Ima let you be first, but Magic Rainbowz is the greatest coronation song of all time. OF ALL TIME.

    LOLOLOL. That joke will never get old, will it?

    [I sorely wish mj could get this site to go back to the single page formatting option. By the time I comment on one thing, I've missed pages of others.]

  • smartcookie

    I’m with ya, lucy, on the general moral issue underlying copyrights. It’s supposed to protect people’s intellectual property so they can continue to make music or write books or whatever, because if their profits are getting stolen and they can’t make a living, they won’t be able to create that art anymore. The ol’ “chilling effect” and all. Garth Brooks was warning people about that at least 15 years ago. And it only gets worse…

    As for the boil that is SuBo:

    They’re jumping on the bandwagon. It’s a fad, a shared experience.

    That’s what I think. I know this is apochryphal, but it still strikes me as reflecting a kernel of truth. The only person I know who bought SuBo’s cd is always desperate to be at the front of every new wave. She always buys the newest thing, the latest thing, the hip thing, even though she’s 60 and should not be wearing skinny jeans and has no reason to want a Zhu Zhu pet. But she loves to feel current and trendy, and she had that SuBo cd in her hands the very first day. She loves AI, btw, but didn’t get attached to anybody this year. Her fave at the beginning was Lil, but that kind of petered out. Loved her some Archie the previous year, though, and she scooped up his cd (although that kind of pop is nothing like anything else she listens to) at the first possible moment. I asked her if she’d bought his Christmas cd, and she kind of shrugged and said she’s not that into him anymore. Yesterday’s news, I guess. I don’t think it has to do with her taste in music at all — just what she thinks is the latest trend she wants to be a part of.

  • jersey

    I think rock is a broad category. Just look at the inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Heck, look at the 2010 nominees. They include ABBA and LL Cool J. If LL Cool J can be inducted into the RnR HOF, I think even Jason Mraz classifies as rock!

  • aga

    Here were the Top 20 bestselling albums of the year, with chart-year totals. Only 19 albums sold more than 1 million copies last year:

    1 FEARLESS TAYLOR SWIFT 3,709,310
    2 I AM’ ¦SASHA FIERCE BEYONCE 2,491,277
    3 DARK HORSE NICKELBACK 2,392,434
    4 TWILIGHT SOUNDTRACK 2,028,652
    5 HANNAH MONTANA: THE MOVIE SOUNDTRACK 1,647,177
    6 CIRCUS BRITNEY SPEARS 1,604,648
    7 808S & HEARTBREAK KANYE WEST 1,590,916
    8 THE FAME LADY GAGA 1,584,064
    9 RELAPSE EMINEM 1,514,427
    10 THE E.N.D. (THE ENERGY NEVER DOES) BLACK EYED PEAS 1,356,211
    11 ONLY BY THE NIGHT KINGS OF LEON 1,336,449
    12 THE BLUEPRINT 3 JAY-Z 1,271,189
    13 DAVID COOK DAVID COOK 1,233,398
    14 THE FOUNDATION ZAC BROWN BAND 1,191,719
    15 NOW 29 VARIOUS ARTISTS 1,098,427
    16 FUNHOUSE PINK 1,075,905
    17 INTUITION JAMIE FOXX 1,040,396
    18 NO LINE ON THE HORIZON U2 1,032,944
    19 UNSTOPPABLE RASCAL FLATTS 1,030,796
    20 A DIFFERENT ME KEYSHIA COLE 941,203

    OMA, so proud of David Cook. *tears*.

  • leome

    Cuz whether or not I like those artists on the list (and actually I love 7 of the 10), most of the people I know my age (20s) who listen to popular music would agree that those are rock artists. It may not be rock music they like, but they’re rock

    Yeah, It seems like there’s a myth around rock, and what’s rock or what’s not. I’m sure I never see these discussions about other genres.
    To me, all those 10 acts are rock. I don’t even question it. They can be different types of rock, and they sure are, which is cool, but they’re definitely not pop, or country, or dance, or R&B… It’s rock, just that simple.

  • revcat

    Yikes. No wonder some people are saying Bo is more, you know, rock-y. Some of us are just obviously operating off of a way outdated view of rock! Now I guess it doesn’t mean anything except that you have guitars, a guys-only band, and the beat is in four?

    There is soft rock, hard rock, country rock and more. Maybe it’s just me but I think Bo Bice could have been pretty popular if he had gotten better breaks after Idol – I see him as kind of a Kid Rock kind of guy and the Kid hasn’t done too badly!

  • ggdoorsfan

    the old trying to ”keep up with the joneses” routine, huh smartcookie… to each their own, i guess, hee hee… it’s people like her that keep a lot of industries going – the impulse buyer/shopper… the music buying audience is fickle, peoples tastes shift and migrate all the time… american idol wouldn’t survive if they didn’t, because many folks just get caught up in the competitive aspects of the show, and have no real appreciation for the music… their attention shifts as each new season begins… happened this year with the migration of many cook and castro fans over to the allen/lambert camps, and elsewhere… and the cycle will repeat for the season 9 idols… lather, rinse, repeat ;-)

  • wellhesback

    sunchick

    Congrats Cookie …
    Top 10 Rock Album Artists:
    1. Nickelback
    2. Kings of Leon
    3. David Cook
    …Aint gonna lie, though, that it’s kinda bittersweet seeing him ranked above of all these acts that got a BNA nod. *shakes fist at Grammies*

    Adult Contemporary Songs
    23 THE TIME OF MY LIFE David Cook

    OMG, Magic Rainbows made the BB DECADE list? Oh Rainbow’ ¦

    Priceless! I like you Moment Like This and Ima let you be first, but Magic Rainbowz is the greatest coronation song of all time. OF ALL TIME.

    I so agree with all of this! Onward and Upward next year! Progression

  • BootStar

    American Idol has lost their young audience. The show is no longer relative based on what has happened in the real market since season 8 ended. And I find it sad that the older generation is overjoyed at this. It is like they are saying to those between the ages of 20 to 40 that what they enjoy and like doesn’t count anymore.

    I’m sorry, I’m just not following this at all. Are folks between 20 and 40 not buying music because “what they enjoy and like doesn’t count anymore” or because they’re stealing music? Which is it? And how can you make any determination about the “real market” based on six months of sales following the end of a reality show?

    Susan Boyle is an outlier, pure and simple. Her sales are so extraordinary that they must be the result of a combination of many different kinds of customers buying her album. I would hardly draw conclusions about the overall state of the music industry based on Susan Boyle. The one thing that is for certain, however, is that there’s a HUGE untapped market of potential customers out there who will pay for music if you give them something they want.

  • Mrs.P

    So the current definition of rock is a singer, a bass, a lead guitar, and a set of drums. Interesting.

  • ggdoorsfan

    well said bootstar - your response has covered everything i was thinking when i read the initial comment…

  • jersey

    How would you define it, Mrs. P? Just curious.

  • May

    Priceless! I like you Moment Like This and Ima let you be first, but Magic Rainbowz is the greatest coronation song of all time. OF ALL TIME.

    HAHA! I don’t think that joke will never get old.

    That’s not a bad list for Cook to be on. I love most of the goups there except the first two. I don’t see how Jason Mraz classifies as rock and he certainly has shown no desire to be called a rocker. I have a hard time fitting groups like U2 into a category because they are so multifaceted, which is a great thing. I think Cook is sort of heading in that direction. Even his last album hinted at that. Coldplay is another group that’s hard to classify, unless there is a genre for “musical genius” (OK, I’m biased but I’m biased because they are genius!!!!).

    Somebody is really pulling our leg here, right. I might consider giving a rock nod to U2 and Green Day’ ¦but hell no to the others.

    U2 is definitely not more rock than most of the groups on the list (including Nickelback). Rock is a genre, not a standard of music. So anyone who classifies as rock (i.e. Nickelback) gets the “rock nod”, whether they suck or not IMO.

  • lucy

    Does ‘rock’  have to mean ‘hard rock’ ? Or should the music have no pop sound to constitute rock? Just asking.

    … As you say, it kinda depends on your era. For me, once it gets a certain amount of pop in it, it’s rock-y pop, not actual rock….. And once it gets a certain amount of singer-songwriter in it, it’s rock-y singer songwriter. … But obviously, times have changed.

    For the record, in the past, with this attitude, I have always maintained that I was *not* a rock snob because I was perfectly open to calling a lot of those things you mentioned “rock.” …. Now I know that I am. …. But, frankly, I eliminate Nickelback and company because of their snooze factor for me!

    So my definition of rock incorporates lots of kinds — so long as they aren’t just singer-songwriters who use guitars and a four beat, or have a big snooze factor!

  • Keel

    Cuz whether or not I like those artists on the list (and actually I love 7 of the 10), most of the people I know my age (20s) who listen to popular music would agree that those are rock artists. It may not be rock music they like, but they’re rock,

    Yup. I think some people’s perceptions about what constitutes rock calcified many, many, many years ago. Very, very narrow definitions and it’s their loss.

    Wow, smallie, that’s cool that you’ve seen 7 of 10 live. I’ve only seen 5 of 10. I know Nickelback gets all sorts of hateration in this bloc, but I enjoy some of their songs and think they’re fun. I also really enjoy KOL and would want to see what they’ve got to offer live. Not really a fan of the Fray (zzzz), Mraz (too poppy though I heard he’s entertaining in concert) or Daughtry (in concert — based on reviews I’ve read), but will probably see them if cheap because they are more my husband’s speed.

  • ghl

    And I would gather that based on the Avatar that goes with this comment that this is the philosophy that David Archuleta is persuing. Isn’t his Christmas album geared towards traditional music and not to Christmas fluff songs.

    His philosophy of music is to spread the positive impact of music for every individual’s life. He said from the get-go that he always wanted to produce a heartfelt Christmas album with many familiar traditional songs that everyone grew up with. These songs should be known to everyone from little kids to older generations. There is no targeting audience for this kind of music. It is his ability to be able to deliver these songs with his talent from his heart.

  • sma11ie

    Yeah, It seems like there’s a myth around rock, and what’s rock or what’s not. I’m sure I never see these discussions about other genres.

    I don’t really listen to Country enough to be sure, but I get the impression from my friends who do, that similar discussions take place with Country music. Like, new country versus old country, and how the pop-country cross-overs (like Taylor, Shania) are not real country, etc. But yeah, I guess we don’t see these discussions with pop, rap, R&B.

  • tierbee

    Adult Contemporary Songs
    23 THE TIME OF MY LIFE David Cook

    OMG, Magic Rainbows made the BB DECADE list? Oh Rainbow’ ¦

    Hahahaha! Oh, Magic Rainbow. You will never, never die. Never.

    And yeah, if you have been to one of David Cook’s shows… he rocks out… you can kinda tell the folks who only know him as Always Be My Baby/Billie Jean David because they are astonished when those guys get up there and start rocking out. Had a lady in front of me at one show plug her ears, I about died laughing :)

  • standtotheright

    Total guess, but I think this whole “definition of rock” thing is very generational. People who grew up in the AOR era, when DJs had more local control, could get “rock” that maybe occasionally stretched a boundary.

    Those of us under 35 have dealt with centralization of playlists for years, and are left wondering why the hell 90 percent of the new interesting bands that come out don’t get played on rock radio in favor of acts that are 15-20 years old.

    We’ve developed broader definitions of rock in part because we dislike the roped-off formatting and good-old-boys-clubbing that is rock radio.

    And yes, I think pretty much all the bands on that list are rock. I may not LIKE all of them, but I consider them rock bands.

  • tierbee

    Like, new country versus old country, and how the pop-country cross-overs (like Taylor, Shania) are not real country, etc.

    George Jones whines about that stuff all the time :) .

  • BootStar

    Were the Beatles rock? The Rolling Stones? Bob Dylan?

    Really, What is Rock? belongs right up there with Is there a God? Genuinely unknowable!

  • snlw

    SarahP
    12/11/2009 at 1:12 pm
    Top 10 Rock Album Artists:
    1. Nickelback
    2. Kings of Leon
    3. David Cook
    4. U2
    5. Dave Mathews Band
    6. Daughtry
    7. Green Day
    8. Jason Mraz
    9. Cold Play
    10. The Fray

    congrats cookie! beating u2, coldplay and davematthews band is no small feat

    That’s awesome for David C! Great for Daughtry too!

  • Tamarynd
  • LaurelG

    Wasn’t it RollingStone that said Adam is the first rocker to come off of American Idol?

    I don’t have the exact quote at my fingertips, but I believe you are correct. And this seems to be a comment that really grates.

    To be fair, I think Rolling Stone was alluding to Adam’s voice more than anything else (and maybe a little bit of his bad boy sensibility), not any “rocker credibility” or “rocker aspirations” Adam might have (and I’m not sure he has any except maybe to be a “glam rocker”). But on a purely technical level, Adam’s voice and training have caused him to be rated highly as a technically skilled rock vocalist, i.e. someone who can sing the genre, even if he’s not currently part of the genre.

    What are the criteria used to determine a rock vocalist’s level of skill? Well, the folks at the DDD Music Forum who spend way more time than any of us studying and debating this subject look to: breath support, register switching, register blending, pitch, vocal runs, consistency throughout registers, volume control, vibrato control, sustain and diction. On a separate level they also look at projection, resonance, range and versatility. On the most recent list of the 100 Most Technically Skilled Rock Vocalists, compiled as of 8/1/09, Adam was ranked #2 behind Jackie Wilson and ahead of such legends as Freddie Mercury (#3), Geoff Tate (#4), and Steve Perry (#5).

    The thing to keep in mind is that this ranking is based on technical skill only; an individual’s influence and impact in the field of rock music has no bearing whatsoever. Perhaps what Rolling Stone should have said is that Adam is the first “rock voice” to come off of American Idol, because this is what I think they meant.

  • Keel

    Had a lady in front of me at one show plug her ears, I about died laughing.

    Just like the recap of the nice old couple that left a show because the music was making their teeth rattle. And then there are the people who jeer and throw things at the people who stand up — at a rock concert. *shakes head*

  • leome

    I don’t really listen to Country enough to be sure, but I get the impression from my friends who do, that similar discussions take place with Country music. Like, new country versus old country, and how the pop-country cross-overs (like Taylor, Shania) are not real country, etc.

    Lol You’re probably right. . I’m not from US, I really don’t know much about country music. When Shania used to play all over the radio here we considered it pop though. lol

    Music, like everything else in the world evolves, and so does rock. I think it’s fantastic that today’s rock doesn’t sound exactly like the rock that was being made 20 years ago. I understand it’s probably difficult for some older people to get into new music (I see it with my father lol ), but good thing that people have been able to create new things. The awesome guitar riffs and the fantastic voices still exist.

  • sunchick

    I think rock is a broad category. Just look at the inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

    Word. I sat and watched that whole marathon RnR HOF concert on HBO recently, and it ran the gamut from Springsteen to Simon & Garfunkel to Ozzy to Sting to BB King to U2. And it was glorious. Long live RnR.

    Cool, I’ve seen seven of these acts live, and love all 7!

    Jealous! I’ve seen Green Day with MCR (best concert of my life), Cookie twice (also up there), U2 (also up there) and Jason Mraz (way fun live.)

  • ladymadonna

    But yeah, I guess we don’t see these discussions with pop, rap, R&B.

    Sure we do. Is Lady Gaga Pop or Dance? Is Beyonce R&B or Pop? What about traditional R&B vs. hip-hop? Check out the AMA nominations – the nominees in the various Pop categories this year included Eminem, Michael Jackson, T.I., Beyonc, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Black Eyed Peas, Kings of Leon and Nickelback. Genre classifications are largely arbitrary and vary widely by source and perspective. Cook’s album is classified as Pop at iTunes but Billboard charts it on Rock. Shrug.

  • May

    So the current definition of rock is a singer, a bass, a lead guitar, and a set of drums. Interesting.

    Oooh don’t say it too loudly or the Jo Bros might get on that list and kick off the Fray (who might respond by writing another whiney song……).

  • Keel

    To be fair though, I find it incredibly sexist that someone like Pink isn’t on the rock charts but someone like Mraz is. Just sayin. Sales-wise she’s over 1M sold so she would beat Daughtry on that list.

    Fray (who might respond by writing another whiney song’ ¦’ ¦)

    Seriously. There’s emo (Death Cab for Cutie) and then there’s just whiney (the Fray). Their lead singer’s voice makes me want to kick him in the nuts! Repeatedly.

  • Trina

    Ahahaha I was at a show once and met this really nice couple, I’d say they were in there early 20′s and they mainly came to Davids show because TOML was their wedding song. They did have the CD but you had to see their faces though watching him sing some Alice In Chains. It was amusing. I don’t think they were anticipating that. And yep I’ve watched numerous times people covering their ears because of the music being too lous. Really bizarre.

  • seriously

    To be fair though, I find it incredibly sexist that someone like Pink isn’t on the rock charts but someone like Mraz is. Just sayin. Sales-wise she’s over 1M sold so she would beat Daughtry on that list.

    That’s a great point. Females can rock too. For Pete’s sake.

  • leome

    Genre classifications are largely arbitrary and vary widely by source and perspective.

    I don’t disagree with that and it’s not easy to classificate.
    But that’s not exactly what I was talking about. I was refering more to the whole “cred” thing. A “real rocker” or a “poseur” discussions. Like there’s a club that you can’t get in because you are not making real rock music.
    I just never see the word cred when talking about pop, or the word “poseur”.

    Cook’s album is classified as Pop at iTunes but Billboard charts it on Rock.

    At USA Itunes. In other itunes stores it’s classified rock btw.

  • Hazehel

    Yikes. No wonder some people are saying Bo is more, you know, rock-y. Some of us are just obviously operating off of a way outdated view of rock! Now I guess it doesn’t mean anything except that you have guitars, a guys-only band, and the beat is in four?

    I’m not really sure what you think rock is. The only person in the list that may be (arguably) out of place is Jason Mraz. If you think you have an outdated view of what rock is, then what exactly are The Byrds’ Mr Tamborine Man, Eagles’ Desperado, Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams, David Bowie’s Ashes To Ashes, so on and so forth. From what little I’ve heard of Bo, he isn’t any more or any less rock than David Cook – Bo’s style seems to hark back more to a few genres of rock of the 70s and 80s, while David Cook is more to the 80s and 90s.

  • sma11ie

    Sure we do. Is Lady Gaga Pop or Dance? Is Beyonce R&B or Pop? What about traditional R&B vs. hip-hop? Check out the AMA nominations

    But do these discussions revolve around “cred” the way they seem to in rock and country? I agree that genre classifications are largely arbitrary, and a lot of good music blends genres, but I think the confusion with those awards show categories is an entirely different issue from what we’re talking about here.

  • ladymadonna

    But do these discussions revolve around ‘cred’  the way they seem to in rock and country? I agree that genre classifications are largely arbitrary, and a lot of good music blends genres, but I think the confusion with those awards show categories is an entirely different issue from what we’re talking about here.

    Sorry, I must have missed the point of the post I was quoting. I thought the issue was whether the artists on that Top 10 Rock list should rightfully be classified as “Rock,” and whether similar discussions happen in other genres. I didn’t realize it was an issue of who has “cred”. Mea Culpa.

  • sunchick

    And once it gets a certain amount of singer-songwriter in it, it’s rock-y singer songwriter. ‘ ¦

    See, now this is my pet peeve. When the hell did singer-songwriter become a genre and not an occupation? I think Mraz is a soft-rock or folk rock singer songwriter.

  • sma11ie

    There’s emo (Death Cab for Cutie) and then there’s just whiney (the Fray). Their lead singer’s voice makes me want to kick him in the nuts! Repeatedly.

    Keel, are you me? Haha. I don’t mind some of The Fray’s songs, but I need someone else with a less nasal voice to sing them. I actually like Death Cab for Cutie, and you know, the lead singer in Bowling For Soup has an incredibly whiny voice, but I dig it because it jives with the cheeky music/lyrics, whereas a whiny voice + overly earnest/emo lyrics and music leads to the STFU/let’s kick him in the nuts reaction from me, lol.

  • May

    To be fair though, I find it incredibly sexist that someone like Pink isn’t on the rock charts but someone like Mraz is. Just sayin.

    Yes seriously…How is Jason Mraz in his bermuda shorts strumming his guitar to the sounds of a “Don’t-worry-be-happy-type song more rocking than Pink’s angry, headbanging, chainsaw-wielding “So What”? I love Jason Mraz but even Miley is more rocking than him.

  • standtotheright

    To be fair though, I find it incredibly sexist that someone like Pink isn’t on the rock charts but someone like Mraz is.

    So true. A gender-switched “So What” or “Sober” wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow being classified as rock.

    (This is perhaps the only point on which I have ever entirely agreed with Ann Powers. Heh.)

  • jersey

    Yeah, I’m with sunchick. How is singer-songwriter a genre? Bruce Springsteen is a singer-songwriter, does that mean he’s not rock? I think a singer songwriter is just the person who writes and performs their own songs, regardless of genre.

  • leome

    See, now this is my pet peeve. When the hell did singer-songwriter become a genre and not an occupation?

    LOL Mine too. I can’t believe the term singer-sonwriter is used to describe music instead of the artist. I’d think the word Folk is probably the best to label that style of music, no? Singer-songwriters you find in any genre, they’re the person, not the song.

  • lucy

    To be fair though, I find it incredibly sexist that someone like Pink isn’t on the rock charts but someone like Mraz is. Just sayin.

    yes yes and yes

    Pink can actually be on my “has to have kind of a hard edge” rock list!

  • Keel

    Keel, are you me? Haha. I don’t mind some of The Fray’s songs, but I need someone else with a less nasal voice to sing them. I actually like Death Cab for Cutie.

    That would be cool if I was you because then I’d have gone to all your concerts! :)

    And yes, I’m a fan of of Death Cab for Cutie as well. Ben Gibbard is cool!

    ETA: Bzuh? Ben Gibbard is married to Zooey Deschanel? I just saw this on the all-knowing, but only sometimes true, Wiki.

  • Mrs.P

    Once upon a time in a land far far away it was pretty easy to define a type of music. The music was defined but the artist wasn’t. An artist could switch back and forth and nobody cared. I think Elvis recorded everything from gospel and soul to easy listening and poppy poppy.

    But now an Artist has to be classified and now there are tons of categories. Before you had country western but now you have country rock and country pop and country soul. What the f?

    For some reason everything now has to fit in a nice little box with nothing hanging over the sides. And so I’ll just follow along with the dictates that others have made. I would classify some of David Cook’s stuff as rock but because I am forced to categorize him instead of his music I just can’t put him in the same category with people who have a proven history of rock cred.

    It’s a very slippery slope and until the musicians themselves stop trying to define themselves and just sing the debate will continue.

  • lucy

    I understand it’s probably difficult for some older people to get into new music (I see it with my father lol ), but good thing that people have been able to create new things. The awesome guitar riffs and the fantastic voices still exist.

    I like lots of new music. … But I just happen to think that the top-selling rock acts are mostly very soft-edged and a snooze to me. ….

    On the singer-songwriter thing — I know that’s not a “genre” but at the moment I couldn’t think of another way to describe Mraz, who, to me, is just a kind of a solo singer who uses rock-derived beats and rock-derived instrumentation to sing pop songs. … I just can’t see him as “rock” at all. Sorry.

    And Springsteen being a “singer-songwriter” because “he writes his own music?” …. Can’t imagine that I ever implied that….. Most rock bands do write their own music, you know! And, yes, Springsteen rocks quite enough for me to consider him rock…..

    There’s also quite a bit of *very* hard-edged contemporary music out there in the world, you know, and a lot of it uses a rock beat and rock instrumentation. …. That list of the top sellers is just that — the top sellers. … And the top sellers in any era and any genre often are the middle-of-the-road, less hard-edged stuff.

    I guess what’s happened is, in my olden days, rock hadn’t infiltrated the pop scene all that much, so the middle-of-the-road, easy-listening stuff more often came from other traditions … In my mind, anything that was kinda soft and snooze-y was unlikely to be rock.

    Now, rock’s been around so long that it’s totally infiltrated the world of pop music, and you have people playing in the rock tradition who are completely solo artists and very low-key middle-of-the-road easy-listening type artists as I consider Nickelback, for example.

    I completely see what you mean when you say that, yes, these folks are rock. But it’s still true that, as rock has grown older, its definition has way broadened, and way changed.

  • lucy

    Word. I sat and watched that whole marathon RnR HOF concert on HBO recently, and it ran the gamut from Springsteen to Simon & Garfunkel to Ozzy to Sting to BB King to U2. And it was glorious. Long live RnR.

    Yeah, see, a lot of that clearly means, to me, that they probably ought to call it the “Pop Hall of Fame,” because they take in a very large spectrum of pop people, since there’s no other place to memorialize all those folks. But I know that “Pop Hall of Fame” sounds too wussy to be interesting.

    I mean — Simon and Garfunkel???? WTF???? I do think it’s appropriate to honor them in some way as stars in the history of popular music. But I was a kid when they were kids, and I sure didn’t consider them rock. I considered them folkies. I still consider them folkies…. They *are* folkies!

  • standtotheright

    And yes, I’m a fan of of Death Cab for Cutie as well. Ben Gibbard is cool!

    ETA: Bzuh? Ben Gibbard is married to Zooey Deschanel? I just saw this on the all-knowing, but only sometimes true, Wiki.

    It’s absolutely true. Idolator has made many jokes about it. (Oh, and she was kind of awesome on Bones last night, as stunty as that was.)

    On that note, I’ve never understood the shock and awe over Owl City’s success. To me, the sound is totally “digestible Death Cab/Postal Service,” meaning a smattering of the indie kids would listen, and yet unthreatening enough to go for pop. You chart on three formats, you sell big.

  • anemicandholding

    So unless one sounds like Freddy Mercury, they are not really rock? What about people who have been making it in that genre for that past 30 years? Do they not count at all?

    And if it’s just about the music, why do you even have to “earn” rock cred? Why can’t you just focus on the music?

  • BootStar

    I would classify some of David Cook’s stuff as rock but because I am forced to categorize him instead of his music I just can’t put him in the same category with people who have a proven history of rock cred.

    So now there’s “rock” AND “rock cred.” DC gets into the first club, but not the second. I think I follow.

    “Rock” must be like “obscenity” as the Supreme Court defined it:

    I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I (hear) it . . . :-)

  • maturin

    I just never see the word cred when talking about pop, or the word ‘poseur’ .

    Here’s a thing that makes me LOL.

    I have never, ever seen the term “cred,” “rock cred” or worst of all “street cred,” used seriously in a pop cultural discussion, other then in American Idol discussions.

    Sure, the concept as such is talked about all the time.

    But “cred” as shorthand sounds like something your middle-aged high school teacher or the local used car salesman would say in an attempt to sound cool.

    In a music discussion? Yeah, deployed by someone maintaining that that one pop album they bought last year is better the other girl’s favorite pop album. “Yeah, that Rob Thomas –he’s way more down with the street then the Counting Crows –for reals!”

  • lucy

    I’m not really sure what you think rock is. The only person in the list that may be (arguably) out of place is Jason Mraz. If you think you have an outdated view of what rock is, then what exactly are The Byrds’ Mr Tamborine Man, Eagles’ Desperado, Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams, David Bowie’s Ashes To Ashes, so on and so forth. From what little I’ve heard of Bo, he isn’t any more or any less rock than David Cook ‘“ Bo’s style seems to hark back more to a few genres of rock of the 70s and 80s, while David Cook is more to the 80s and 90s.

    I never said at all that Cook didn’t belong on it!! I completely agree that Cook belongs on it.

    I think it was Jason Mraz that set me off. Jason Mraz??? Seriously?
    And then there’s Nickelback? I know they look like they’re set up as a rock band but, wow, to me they’re elevator music — and they’re the *top* sellers!!! That is also what got me going, along with Mraz. … I guess I never thought that I’d look at a list of the top rockers and find out that most of the list puts me right to sleep.

    And honestly, I never *did* mean to say (and actually, I don’t think I even *said*) that this stuff was *not* rock…. What I thought I said, what I *meant* to say, is that rock has really really changed from what I envision as rock. It now obviously encompasses a heck of a lot of really soft stuff that just never would hvae occurred to me as *being* rock in the past. …

    Oh, and Fleetwood Mac? I’ve always thought of them as pure pop … Well, pop based on a rock-ish approach. But pure pop, nevertheless!

    The irony here is that I listen to tons of kinds of music, old and new, and I’m absolutely the last person to choose music at *all* based on what genre or category it falls into. …. Chalk it up to shock that a list called “top rock acts” contains so many people that bore me. Apparently I just no longer like rock as much as I thought I did! …or at least I don’t like the most popular rock as much as I would hvae thought I did!

  • sma11ie

    On that note, I’ve never understood the shock and awe over Owl City’s success. To me, the sound is totally ‘digestible Death Cab/Postal Service,’  meaning a smattering of the indie kids would listen, and yet unthreatening enough to go for pop.

    Omg, standtotheright, you’re also me! I’ve been complaining for a while now that Owl City is a total rip off the indie rock sound of Death Cab/Postal Service, and I’ll throw in Snow Patrol as well. Thing is, I love Death Cab/Postal Service/Snow Patrol but cannot stand Owl City because it’s like a diluted/bastardized/more annoying/teeny boppier version of the sound that I like! Grrr…

  • jersey

    OMG my 18 year old son HATES Owl City. He is a Postal Service fan and considers Owl City to be a complete rip-off of the Postal Service. He said the sound is similar but they sing about fireflies instead of something more “meaty”. LOL. He points to the UPS whiteboard commercial as an example of why it makes him upset. The music on the UPS commercial is the Postal Service but he’s heard several people wonder if it’s Owl City.

  • maturin

    To me, the sound is totally ‘digestible Death Cab/Postal Service,’  meaning a smattering of the indie kids would listen, and yet unthreatening enough to go for pop. You chart on three formats, you sell big.

    OMG that is so right. My teenage niece first played Owl City for me and I said, that sounds just like Death Cab for Cutie, if Death Cab were ever not depressing.”

    Wait, this is on topic because . . . something genre is just attitude, too. Death Cab = unrelenting melancholy = Alternative; Owl City = hugs from fireflies = Pop.

  • ggdoorsfan

    rock and roll is the umbrella, or catch all term for the music from which all the branches of popular, or ”pop” music originates… i don’t get too deep with all these crazy genres and subgenres and sub-sub genres that folks attempt to shoehorn the music in… all this great music we debate about and derive pleasure from – pop, rock, etc. – has it’s roots in the blues coming out of the grinding poverty of poor blacks in the mississippi delta, by way of adoption and re-introduction [ain't that a kicker] to america by prescient british artists who had deep love and respect for what they termed ”blues” and ”rock and roll”… it’s just music for me – though you can label or call it whatcha wanna…

  • sma11ie

    LOL, standtotheright, you got 3 successive “OMG” responses to your post about Owl City– you hit a nerve!

    genre is just attitude, too. Death Cab = unrelenting melancholy = Alternative; Owl City = hugs from fireflies = Pop.

    Interesting perspective! On that note, does rock have to be angry/angsty? Does pop have to be happy/fluffy? Hmm… I’ve heard plenty of upbeat/inspirational rock songs, like U2 songs, for example), and sad/creepy pop songs, like Hello by Lionel Richie (although, maybe that’s why it made for a cool rock cover?)

  • Mrs.P

    “‘I Dreamed a Dream: The Susan Boyle Story,’  debuting at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on TV Guide Network, details her sudden burst of fame and includes performances by Boyle from her new CD and with Broadway star Elaine Paige, the London West End cast of ‘Les Miserables’  and others.”

    Back to the headlines. Now this should be interesting. Does this mean we are going to see clips of SuBo performing with Elaine Paige and the London cast of Les Mis, or is this false reporting and we are going to see clips of Ms. Paige and Les Mis because they impact SuBo’s dramatic story. And since we have only seen her sing a couple of songs will we see something else besides her ‘Dream’ song, or is that the only one she really knows well enough to sing in concert.

    I don’t mean to pick on her, but everything about this is so horribly gucky. It just makes me almost sick to my stomach. But based on 2 million in sales this special should be the number 1 show ever on television. I’m kidding but it just seems so way over the top. And wouldn’t you think a TV station that doesn’t roll other TV programs over the program would have been a better idea.

  • sunchick

    Hello=stalkers anthem. And add me to the OMGs re:Owl City/DC4C.

  • seriously

    Hello=stalkers anthem.

    Yes. Hello makes a great stalker anthem. So does “Every Breath You Take”. I’ll be watching you….

  • wellhesback

    would classify some of David Cook’s stuff as rock but because I am forced to categorize him instead of his music I just can’t put him in the same category with people who have a proven history of rock cred.

    No offense to the writer, but this kind of statement is so frustrating, it’s infuriating. Exactly Why Doesn’t David Cook have ‘proven rock cred’?, whatever that is. He’s been playing in rock bands since he was 15; supported himself with part-time jobs while trying to make a living as musician; traveled with a local rock band all over the Midwest, and just finished a high-profile rock tour of over 150 shows. Is it because he comes across as a nice guy? Because he performed in musicals? Because he went on AI? What would he need to do? Wear more makeup? Bite off the head of a bat? Actually make out with Neal or Andy on stage? Does he need piercings as well as tattoos, or to cultivate more rocker friends?? Geesh.

  • seriously

    What would he need to do? Wear more makeup? Bite off the head of a bat? Actually make out with Neal or Andy on stage? Does he need piercings as well as tattoos, or to cultivate more rocker friends?? Geesh.

    Omgeeee. I just pictured all of that. Hillarious. Although I need to wash my brain out after picturing him making out with Neal f’ing Tiemann.

  • jms

    Is it because he comes across as a nice guy? Yes.
    Because he performed in musicals? YES
    Because he went on AI? OMG YES!!!
    What would he need to do? Wear more makeup? Couldn’t hurt but won’t help on it’s own
    Bite off the head of a bat? No!!! With the changing times most rock audiences are loaded with animal rights activists.
    Actually make out with Neal or Andy on stage? This would help
    Does he need piercings as well as tattoos, or to cultivate more rocker friends?? And this would help too.

    He needs to erase his squeaky clean image. Rock radio is a VERY snobbish entity.

  • ozarka

    girlygirl
    12/11/2009 at 11:29 am
    Hi there! Morning iTunes update for Kris, Adam and Allison:

    Songs (overall)
    #31 LLWD
    #96 FYE
    #104 WWFM
    according to my feed, Allison has fallen out of the Top 1000 entirely

    Albums (overall)
    #63/#89 FYE
    #85/#649 Kris Allen
    #194/#363 Just Like You

    David A.
    #18 Christmas from the Heart

    Your afternoon iTunes update (overall):

    Songs
    32. Live Like We’re Dying – Kris Allen (and 806)
    93. For Your Entertainment – Adam Lambert
    105. Whataya Want from Me – Adam Lambert
    ??? Allison Iraheta

    Albums
    68. For Your Entertainment – Adam Lambert (and 94)
    81. Kris Allen – Kris Allen (and 667)
    206. Just Like You (Deluxe Version) – Allison Iraheta (and 354)

    David A.
    17. Christmas from the Heart – David Archuleta

  • Sassycatz

    He needs to erase his squeaky clean image. Rock radio is a VERY snobbish entity.

    Didn’t Cook say that in a recent interview? He said he was going to have to do something shocking. Of course, he was joking….

  • wellhesback

    Well then, don’t appease the snobs, David Cook. Just be yourself.

  • seriously

    Didn’t Cook say that in a recent interview? He said he was going to have to do something shocking. Of course, he was joking’ ¦.

    We think he was joking… The truth is right now he’s in his basement dying his hair green and planning to walk through downtown LA in the nude.

  • jms

    Well then, don’t appease the snobs, David Cook. Just be yourself.

    The best of all worlds would be if he could find something shocking to do that fits his personality and sensibilities. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with him going forward.

    We think he was joking’ ¦ The truth is right now he’s in his basement dying his hair green and planning to walk through downtown LA in the nude.

    I’m pretty sure that this would just get him arrested for public indecency and labeled as crazy. No rock cred unless it was recreational drug induced.

  • Trina

    David’s official site has all the Billboard listings on the front page under news. Color me shocked they were so on the ball with that.

    Eh if David has to change who he is as person to gain ‘rock cred’ I say screw rock cred then.

    “Fireflies” is like crack for me!

  • unidentified

    My brother has been playing in rock bands for 20+ years. He says rock to him will have either a guitar or drum solo, and absolutely no synthetic sound.

  • Hazehel

    Oh, and Fleetwood Mac? I’ve always thought of them as pure pop ‘ ¦ Well, pop based on a rock-ish approach. But pure pop, nevertheless!

    Well, Fleetwood Mac have always been classified as rock, whether it’s the early Peter Green bluesy sound to the later more pop-rock Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks era. The point wasn’t so much whether they are pop or not, but that rock has always been very diverse from the 60s onwards. The only difference I can now is that the harder rock genres are no longer that prominent in the mainstream music scene (perhaps because of rap, although rap looks to me to be also starting to decline), and now are more niche.

  • Sassycatz

    The best of all worlds would be if he could find something shocking to do that fits his personality and sensibilities. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with him going forward.

    It wasn’t too shocking, but I did love him going down on his knees, doing backbends and climbing on the metal rafters on the sides of the stage and hanging off like he was a trapeze act. Or, he could always spit water up in the air and fall on his a$$. ;-)

  • seriously

    I’m pretty sure that this would just get him arrested for public indecency and labeled as crazy. No rock cred unless it was recreational drug induced.

    Aaah, but it is shocking isn’t it? And who said he isn’t high in his basement? Mwahaha.

  • BootStar

    all this great music we debate about and derive pleasure from ‘“ pop, rock, etc. ‘“ has it’s roots in the blues coming out of the grinding poverty of poor blacks in the mississippi delta, by way of adoption and re-introduction [ain't that a kicker] to america by prescient british artists who had deep love and respect for what they termed ‘ blues’  and ‘ rock and roll’ ’ ¦ it’s just music for me

    Amen, ggdoorsfan, amen!

    He needs to erase his squeaky clean image. Rock radio is a VERY snobbish entity.

    Well, hopefully, he’ll flip America the bird after liplocking with Neal and forcing Andy to simulate a blowjob on him when he performs on Idol Gives Back this spring. That should take care of it!

    “Rock radio” is pretty much a misogynist dinosaur that plays nothing but old rock hits from the 70s and 80s. They’re so “exclusive,” they’re going to be out of business pretty soon.

    David Cook Makes Billboard’s ‘Best of 2009′

    It’s been an amazing year for David Cook and now the proof is in the numbers! David Cook’s self-titled release makes it to #13 on The Billboard 200 Best of 2009 and makes it to #4 on The Billboard Top Rock Albums of 2009. Congratulations to David!

    And that’s just the beginning…take a look at the full list of honors David Cook received from Billboard here.

    And f*ck you, Mr. Grammy. Snubbed by The Man. Now that’s rock and roll! ;-)

  • lucy

    Well, Fleetwood Mac have always been classified as rock, whether it’s the early Peter Green bluesy sound to the later more pop Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks era. The point wasn’t so much whether they are pop or not, but that rock always has a very diverse sound from the 60s onwards. The only difference I can now is that the harder rock genres are no longer that prominent in the mainstream music scene (perhaps because of rap, although rap looks to me to be also starting to decline), and now are more niche.

    Yeah, you’re right. They have always been classified as rock. … To me, they were a band that started out as rock and moved into pop, basically! …. And I’m still working getting my head around Simon and Garfunkel as rock — I always thought of them as folkie pop!

    What you’re saying about how the mainstream of rock has shifted away from the hard stuff is what I’m reacting to, clearly!

    This happened when I wasn’t looking, which isn’t surprising since, before American Idol, I *never* looked at what the hot sellers of any kind were. I just listened around and bought what I liked —

    Thus, it never occurred to me to think that Nickelback would be at the top of *any* genre, let alone the rock genre.. To me, they were just a group that bored me — I thought of them as the Lawrence Welk’s of this era, honestly …. So when I focus on the idea that people I’ve thought of as Lawrence-Welkian are actually the country’s top rock group — Well, I’m not surprised that I’m surprised, based on my outdated definitions and the fact that I never ever looked at who were the top sellers in anything before I became obsessed with this silly music game show!

  • girlygirl

    Does David Cook have a squeaky clean image? I don’t think so — I’ve seen lots of stuff about him and women and him and drinking, etc. He hasn’t done anything scandalous, but that doesn’t make him “squeaky clean”.

    David Archuleta, on the other hand, is about as squeaky clean as one can possibly get.

  • seriously

    Does David Cook have a squeaky clean image? I don’t think so ‘” I’ve seen lots of stuff about him and women and him and drinking, etc. He hasn’t done anything scandalous, but that doesn’t make him ‘squeaky clean’ .

    Lana Jade comes to mind. haha But if he wants to have a one night stand who am I to judge? lol

    David Archuleta, on the other hand, is about as squeaky clean as one can possibly get.

    Yes. If he was my child I would let him do whatever he wanted. lol No worries with him.

  • sma11ie

    Or, he could always spit water up in the air and fall on his a$$.

    LOL, that’s one of my favorite moments EVER. But of course, he had that adorably self-deprecating banter afterwards about his confidence going to negative 1000 or whatever, and we know a “real” rockstar would’ve toughed it out and never make fun of himself like that (/sarcasm).

  • Sassycatz

    Does David Cook have a squeaky clean image? I don’t think so ‘” I’ve seen lots of stuff about him and women and him and drinking, etc. He hasn’t done anything scandalous, but that doesn’t make him ‘squeaky clean’ .

    I’m talking more public image than private stuff. There are rock stars who have had pretty stable relationships and at home lifestyles … though we rarely hear about these aspects.

  • standtotheright

    I thought of them as the Lawrence Welk’s of this era, honestly

    I am now envisioning the Lennon Sisters doing “How You Remind Me” and am both deeply horrified and somewhat amused.

  • jms

    Well, hopefully, he’ll flip America the bird after liplocking with Neal and forcing Andy to simulate a blowjob on him when he performs on Idol Gives Back this spring. That should take care of it!

    Too late. That’s shtick’s already been taken. :)

    ‘Rock radio’  is pretty much a misogynist dinosaur that plays nothing but old rock hits from the 70s and 80s. They’re so ‘exclusive,’  they’re going to be out of business pretty soon.

    Yep. And good riddance. I’m actually expecting there to be some genre splits on the radio sometime in the next 5 years. The Pop (Top 40) stations have already had a split with some stations playing lots of Urban Pop (has a more urban rhythm flavor) and some going more classic pop with light rock sounds (Daughtry, Owl City, etc). I expect that divide to get stronger and think that the classic pop type stations will also absorb the synth rock groups that are being rejected by rock radio (right now this type of music while popular with the fans that find it, is having a hard time locating a home on radio).

  • May

    He needs to erase his squeaky clean image. Rock radio is a VERY snobbish entity.

    Which is the true irony indeed. For a format that has the biggest so-called musical critics, they actually are incredibly superficial and nearsighted.

    ‘Rock radio’  is pretty much a misogynist dinosaur that plays nothing but old rock hits from the 70s and 80s. They’re so ‘exclusive,’  they’re going to be out of business pretty soon.

    I wonder what happened to make a genre that was so progressive and adventurous in the 70s 80s and 90s reach such stagnation. Maybe there comes a point when it’s hard to improve on what one has already been done and people become content listening to the old stuff and dismissing a lot of the new stuff that just seems derivative. There are definitely some good new rock bands with unique sounds but they don’t come along as frequently as they did in the past, so the industry loses it’s momentum. I’m sure that at some point, this happened to a lot of musical genres that we now consider traditional (like classical music).

  • Mrs.P

    Maybe in order to be considered a real rock act Daughtry and David Cook and the Anthemics need to get more 20 to 30 year old male fans, to leave American Idol behind, and for all the Cougars to stop chasing them around the country. Sorry. Same can be said about Kris and Adam.

    The minute these guys stepped on the American Idol stage they gave up something to get something. And whether anyone wants to believe it or not that is the cross they will bear.

    Why do you think Adam did what he did on the AMAs? It isn’t rocket science. American Idol has given all of these guys some measure of fame but it has come with a pretty big price, and that price is credibility.

    Until David Cook does something to piss off his loyal American Idol fan base and make the rest of the music world sit up and take notice he will always have a cross to bear. The Idol girls and guys like David Archuleta are luckier. They don’t have to prove to the real world that they fit in with the big boys. But Adam and Kris and Cook and Daughtry do.

  • sma11ie

    I’m talking more public image than private stuff. There are rock stars who have had pretty stable relationships and at home lifestyles ‘ ¦ though we rarely hear about these aspects.

    True. I heard a Joe Perry interview where he talked extensively about his wife and kids, but when talking about music, he turned on this distinct rock snob vibe. Ditto Chris Cornell– he tweets sweet things about his wife and kids, but if you hear him talk music, he suddenly sounds like an asshole. I love Chris Cornell, by the way, but it’s true. Are there that many HUGE rockstars with “cred” that have “nice guy” personas?

  • breakdown

    It’s true that rock is the snobbiest of genres. And if one’s label is not inclined to push singles to rock there’s not much the artist can do.

  • TreeFrog

    I don’t really listen to Country enough to be sure, but I get the impression from my friends who do, that similar discussions take place with Country music. Like, new country versus old country, and how the pop-country cross-overs (like Taylor, Shania) are not real country, etc. But yeah, I guess we don’t see these discussions with pop, rap, R&B.

    Discussions about what’s “real” country have been going on for decades as other genre influences filter in and out. It’s a fairly predictable cycle of harder country giving way to pop influenced country which then cycles back to harder country. This last poppy cycle has been around since the 1990s and has been so financially successful that I’m starting to doubt it will ever swing back. As a fan of the harder stuff I gave up on country radio years ago. Sorry, Carrie, but I’m totally with George Jones on the current state of things.

    I always thought “rock cred” was just a euphemism for “rehab’s in your future”.

  • Hazehel

    And I’m still working getting my head around Simon and Garfunkel as rock ‘” I always thought of them as folkie pop!

    Simon and Garfunkel were a folk duo, but they did do many songs that may be considered rock or folk-rock. E.g. A Simple Desultory Philippic (folk-rock à   la Bob Dylan), Patterns, Mrs Robinson, Cecilia, The Boxer, Bridge Over Troubled Water (I’m not sure how to classify this, it’s hardly folk anymore). It should be pointed out that very early Simon and Garfunkel weren’t folk at all, this is one of their very early songs as the duo Tom and Jerry, singing doo-wop style –
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0vjHnDGUzw

  • standtotheright

    Are there that many HUGE rockstars with ‘cred’  that have ‘nice guy’  personas?

    Tom Petty?

    I’m sure there are more, but that’s the first that leaps to mind.

    (And now someone will surely step in and explain why Tom Petty isn’t really rock. Heh.)

  • sma11ie

    Until David Cook does something to piss off his loyal American Idol fan base and make the rest of the music world sit up and take notice he will always have a cross to bear.

    Actually, I think there’s a better way for for DC to “make the rest of the music world sit up and take notice” than by doing something shocking that would “piss off his loyal American Idol fan base”– he just needs to he puts out great enough music that hits the public conscious in a big way. Still hoping that’ll happen with record #2, but we’ll see :)

  • auntieaimee

    Rock radio is dead in my area, sadly. We have a classic rock station and HAC, but that’s pretty much it. I mainly listen to college radio now.

  • fadetowhite

    Until David Cook does something to piss off his loyal American Idol fan base

    That, of course, assumes that his AI fanbase wants him to be all puppies and rainbows. Possibly true for some, but plenty would be quite happy to see the other sides to his personality emerge more fully.

    The problem for Cook is that the media doesn’t give him an inch, as soon as he puts even the slightest step outside the box. Some of his fans have seen and heard pre-Idol Cook and know that, nice guy he might be, but he’s not all sweetness and light. I think he’s also become gradually looser whilst on tour with the tour audience and that seems to have received a positive reaction.

    But if the media is going to lay into him every time he goes off Idol message more publically, he runs the risk of losing potential new audiences just as much as he might gain them.

    I hope he’s granted more room for manouever as the second album comes out and I hope it really hits big so that these issues become less important.

    Either way, so far as I can see, he plays his music as rock music when he has full control of how it sounds and he definitely has a rock voice: therefore he is a rock singer, cred or no cred.

  • lucy

    I wonder what happened to make a genre that was so progressive and adventurous in the 70s 80s and 90s reach such stagnation. Maybe there comes a point when it’s hard to improve on what one has already been done and people become content listening to the old stuff and dismissing a lot of the new stuff that just seems derivative. There are definitely some good new rock bands with unique sounds but they don’t come along as frequently as they did in the past, so the industry loses it’s momentum.

    Yeah, I think that’s it.

    Eventually you suck most of the available juice out of a certain sound and all of its close derivatives, so it becomes hard to get much that’s exciting any more without creating something quite different.

    Crap. This is a real downside of American Idol for me. Before this show I never thought about sales figures or what radio genre somebody might fit into. I just tried to find stuff I liked and didn’t care whether it sold or where it turned up or what anybody called it. …

    Then I got all stupidly invested in people’s recording careers and started to notice who was topping the charts and who wasn’t and who could get played where. Big downside of being interest in Idol, to me, because that kind of conversation just seems to always come up. Previously, I never would have known or cared that Lawrence-Welky Nickelback were the country’s top rock group.

  • Sydia

    I haven’t read all the posts. I know I should. However, I think that any kind of star may or may not recieve cred during their lifetime as an artist, but as long as the artists themselves believes in their art then that is what should matter. As far as Cook, he is who he is, and that is why he is my one and only American Idol “ROCK STAR!! Back to work. I will read posts, and may come back to edit…

  • May

    LOL, that’s one of my favorite moments EVER. But of course, he had that adorably self-deprecating banter afterwards about his confidence going to negative 1000 or whatever, and we know a ‘real’  rockstar would’ve toughed it out and never make fun of himself like that

    I found it funny too. Now in retrospect, I think it marked the beginning and end of a more uninhibited Cook. That H4T performance was the most dancing (or bouncing) I’ve ever seen from him (at least when out of costume!).

  • seriously

    I found it funny too. Now in retrospect, I think it marked the beginning and end of a more uninhibited Cook. That H4T performance was the most dancing (or bouncing) I’ve ever seen from him (at least when out of costume!).

    Yep. He never went there again. Sadly, it was entertaining although even I got secondhand embarassment for that fall thing.
    For those who haven’t seen it.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtQFX17qvF0

    ETA: And the banter about it.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY-FLudT_9g&feature=related

  • Keel

    Maybe in order to be considered a real rock act Daughtry and David Cook and the Anthemics need to get more 20 to 30 year old male fans, to leave American Idol behind, and for all the Cougars to stop chasing them around the country. Sorry. Same can be said about Kris and Adam.

    Dude, even the freaking Kings of Leon are trying to run away from the cougars. But that’s really ntohing more than good old fashioned misogyny anyway. Somehow the 20-30 yo guys are the “desirable” demo to be rock fans because . . . those stupid rock stations and their misogynistic websites and DJs are a perfect fit for them? And their dying, soon-to-be out-of-business asses?

    Believe it or not, cougars (who seem to be any women over the age of 35 — none of whom can apparently be fans of a male singer without there being something sexually predatory going on) are just part of the natural audience for rock fans because that’s the music they grew up with and having babies and many more birthdays didn’t make them incapable of appreciating rock. Unfortunately, women of a certain age can’t seem to attend a concert without being lumped into a popular and sexist stereotype.

  • Keel

    Maybe there comes a point when it’s hard to improve on what one has already been done and people become content listening to the old stuff and dismissing a lot of the new stuff that just seems derivative. There are definitely some good new rock bands with unique sounds but they don’t come along as frequently as they did in the past, so the industry loses it’s momentum.

    I happen to think that there’s a lot of great rock music out there right now and it’s not been all done — or close to it. But then again, I’m more of an alt-rock fan.

  • https://twitter.com/pmhowden undercooked

    Until David Cook does something to piss off his loyal American Idol fan base and make the rest of the music world sit up and take notice he will always have a cross to bear. The Idol girls and guys like David Archuleta are luckier. They don’t have to prove to the real world that they fit in with the big boys. But Adam and Kris and Cook and Daughtry do.

    ITA- the girls and Archie (because he is so young) don’t have the same cred issues as the men. I think Cook is trying to break the bonds, in some ways, with AI fans. I think that is why he did the college tours. Winning AI is a double edged sword. It gets you the recording contract you want, and usually sales to get a second album, but it does come at a price. I agree with the poster (Mrs. P?) that said what Adam did at the AMA was equivilant to using a scorched earth tactic on break his AI connection. I believe the NY Post, or one of the NY papers, also stated that Adam’s AMA “kiss” was a kiss off to AI.

  • Mrs.P

    “Unfortunately, women of a certain age can’t seem to attend a concert without being lumped into a popular and sexist stereotype.”

    Attending concerts is one thing but making sure the press and media is aware of your obsession is totally different. Sometimes women need to take a step back and stop acting with the pack mentality that is born during the high school days. You know, the more girls that get together in a group the louder and obnoxious they become. So if you want to go to a Cook concert invite some guy to go along with you, not 15 of your nearest and dearest girlfriends. And don’t wear bunny ears, and hog the first 30 rows of the SRO sections. And don’t stand out by the buses and scream like tweens, act your friggin age and treat Cook with some respect. He’ll fill those seats, eventually, when the guys finally figure out that the hall isn’t filled with screaming bitches.

  • seriously

    David has said he doesn’t want to cut off ties with AI. He said stuff to the tune of “not biting the hand that feeds you”. So he probably doesn’t want to anger his AI fan base.

  • https://twitter.com/pmhowden undercooked

    David has said he doesn’t want to cut off ties with AI. He said stuff to the tune of ‘not biting the hand that feeds you’ . So he probably doesn’t want to anger his AI fan base.

    He is kind of in a tough bind. If this next album is great, perhaps he can shake off those AI shackles without really having to distance himself from those fans.

  • wellhesback

    I don’t think Cookie wants to give the finger to AI.

    I think he knows that without Idol he could still be pushing copies of do-it-yourself album all on his own, and trying to find gigs for him & his friends to travel to in a tiny mini-van. So yeah, I think he’s grateful & gracious for what he’s gotten – in part because of AI (in large part because of his own hard work, talent, etc).

    and I still don’t see why that should hurt his ‘rock cred’

  • jersey

    Wow, Mrs. P, I’m beginning to think your user name may be misleading! LOL.

    Good luck to the musicians that try to make it in the industry without the support of women over a certain age – apparently the 20 – 30 year old male audience doesn’t buy enough music to allow the artists a good living.

  • Sassycatz

    I thought the days that a woman had to wait for a man to go with her before she could go out herself were way, way over.

    And when I see a bunch of OTT male sports fans, I know just what I’m going to call them: screaming bastards. (They should probably take a nice young lady along so they don’t seem like such losers. ;-) )

  • Mrs.P

    “David has said he doesn’t want to cut off ties with AI. He said stuff to the tune of ‘not biting the hand that feeds you’ . So he probably doesn’t want to anger his AI fan base.”

    David is a very nice young man who is trying to be politically correct. Adam and Kris and Daughtry all say the same thing. Do they mean it. Probably not. Of course you don’t want to piss off a fan base that helped you sell a million albums. But I am sure that Cook would also like to have a more diverse fan base and would like to have the kind of audience he had when he was playing in neighborhood clubs. People need to be realistic. Having adult women fans is nice but it isn’t the kind of fanbase that gives you status. Being appealing to your peers is what it should be about.

  • Sydia

    So… I hate to admit it, but I am from the time of the hair bands when the rock starts were all bunch of druggies, and man-hoes, and rude a$%es, and that was the way it was. However, now my 22 year old, who is into alt-rock, and indie bands finds my account of how things were fascinating, and even though she is aware of stuff going on with the bands it is not what gives them cred anymore. Yes, Cook can show a more edgy, raunchy, raw side to him as long as it is HIM. Anything else would not be believable, and he wouldn’t be pissing off AI fans, he would be turning them off…and any other new fans as well. This is what used to bug me about Adam. He has this vulgar, trashy, crude, very sexual side to him, yet he came on to AI, a family show, which he chose not to show this, and now claims he is not a babysitter…blah, blah, blah…ya shoulda kept your hide of that cheesy show dude! Ok…got a little off the subject sorry.

  • Mrs.P

    “I thought the days that a woman had to wait for a man to go with her before she could go out herself were way, way over.”

    I was in no way insinuating that a woman or two woman can’t go to a concert. I was trying to be nice and say that it would be nice if the Cougars that follow Cook around could introduce him to some of their male friends so that Cook could develop a more diverse fan base.

  • jms

    Yeah, I think that’s it.

    Eventually you suck most of the available juice out of a certain sound and all of its close derivatives, so it becomes hard to get much that’s exciting any more without creating something quite different.

    This is it exactly.
    Rock is dying out because of it’s refusal to permit any new sounds. Every genre of music changes with time and instruments available, those changes are periodically magnified and create new subgenres. Unfortunately, the rock peeps in charge of the radio waves have somehow convinced themselves and others that if you have a song with major guitar sounds and fabulous drumming, it still isn’t rock if there are any synth sounds added. It’s stupid because they’re preventing rock from growing and changing. The only reason synth sounds weren’t heavily used in great rock music of the 70′s was because synthesizer sounds weren’t as varied and capable as they are today.

  • windmills

    Sorry, Carrie, but I’m totally with George Jones on the current state of things.

    Treefrog: Considering that George Jones tried to apologize to Carrie and Carrie told him that he had nothing to apologize for, I don’t think you need to apologize to Carrie ;) Brad Paisley told country radio that George Jones loves Carrie too.

    I’d guess he does like Carrie personally and, like Patty Loveless, wishes she would do more traditional country. I wish Carrie would too because IMO it’s what’s most natural to her and I love it when she sings the real country western stuff. George Jones has said he understands today’s young country artists are just doing what they need to do. Patty Loveless said the same thing about Carrie – she’s under pressure to be current but she’s got that real country voice. I think Carrie’s got a great classic country album in her and I hope she releases one one day.

    As far as rock – I think what Nickelback, Daughtry, David, and a lot of the post-grunge acts run up against is that they’re aimed at the regular man and woman when rock’s mythos is supposed to be all anti-establishment and outside of society. For people like Daughtry and David the “cred” issue’s worse because they came from such a mainstream show. But even without AI the cred issue would be there because it is for non AI acts that have the same sound.

    I don’t think they need to do anything about it. It is what it is. There’s nothing wrong with making music for everyday Joes and Janes – as a country music fan I applaud that and think it can make for great music. I’m not a fan of the post-grunge style myself but I don’t think Chris Daughtry or David Cook should be trying to suddenly act like they’re misunderstood freaks in society for the sake of rock cred. It wouldn’t work anyway. The most credible thing they can do is be themselves, make mainstream music with the rock sound they favor, and let the chips fall where they may.

  • Trina

    David is a very nice young man who is trying to be politically correct. Adam and Kris and Daughtry all say the same thing. Do they mean it. Probably not. Of course you don’t want to piss off a fan base that helped you sell a million albums. But I am sure that Cook would also like to have a more diverse fan base and would like to have the kind of audience he had when he was playing in neighborhood clubs. People need to be realistic. Having adult women fans is nice but it isn’t the kind of fanbase that gives you status. Being appealing to your peers is what it should be about.

    There’s a difference between saying and ones actions, and from day one David has been the perfect spokesperson for Idol never knocking Idol, supporting the show, supporting the brand, supporting the contestants, he was one of the first to speak out defending Ellen when she came on as the next judge. While I have no doubt he wishes he had more ‘cred’ and a more diverse fanbase, when he said “some choose to bite the hand that feeds them, I choose not to” I believe him. For whatever reason he’s chosen to embrace the Idol stuff. That said, I think if he had the choice between the audience he had before Idol where he struggled to sell 1,000 CD’s and was playing bars and what he has now, I have a hunch he would choose the latter.

  • Mrs.P

    The Cook that people think they know from American Idol is probably not the real Cook and He used American Idol in exactly the same way Adam did. The only difference is that Cook wasn’t living in LA and it is taking him a little bit longer to work up the courage to completely show who he is. Each one of his concerts gets a little more out there, his language gets a little more lewd. As a non-Cook fan who has caught the occasional tour video I can see it, fans who have watched every video can’t see the progression.

    Maybe I am too worldly but I think that American Idol fans who become fans of an Idol just see things through their own filtered lenses and will never admit that the real world may not think like they do. I’m sad for David because I think he could really go far if he was given the clear path to do it. But as long as his AI fans hold him back (not his true fans but those that think he needs to represent all things American Idol) he is stuck.

  • Chicagolaw

    Just because I have to say it—am I the only one that can’t stand Cook’s HFT? I think I am, lol. Heck, I could never stand Van Halen doing it. Maybe it is just the song; but I just find it so OTT/80′s rockstar cringeworthy. It is probably the only cover Cook has done that I can’t watch.

  • ozarka

    Christmas options for your CD shelf or playlist

    If you fell in love with David Archuleta’s teddy bear appeal and creamy vocals on ‘American Idol’  last year, you probably raced to purchase ‘Christmas From the Heart’  when it arrived in October.

    No doubt the kid’s soothing pipes are perfectly suited to the traditional arrangements of these traditional songs (‘Joy to the World,” ‘Angels We Have Heard On High’ ).

    ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’  is particularly affecting coming from the soon-to-turn-19 singer, whose life these past 18 months probably makes it easy for him to relate to the song’s sentiment.

    The one new song, ‘Melodies of Christmas,’ co-written by Archuleta, doesn’t stray from his comfort zone of midrange vocals and sweet harmonies.

    The News & Advance

  • Sassycatz

    As far as rock ‘“ I think what Nickelback, Daughtry, David, and a lot of the post-grunge acts run up against is that they’re aimed at the regular man and woman when rock’s mythos is supposed to be all anti-establishment and outside of society. For people like Daughtry and David the ‘cred’  issue’s worse because they came from such a mainstream show. But even without AI the cred issue would be there because it is for non AI acts that have the same sound.

    I think you have a point there. Rock grew out of a time when society was making great leaps and bounds and there was a lot of rebellion. The women’s movement (post 50′s June Cleaver/Father Knows Best), civil rights, anti Vietnam, anti-Watergate. Pre-health movement and Pre AIDS. It was a reaction to and reflection of the culture. We’re just not in that type of situation now. So, acting like you can’t accept any new music in your genre unless it reflects back on the way things were 30 years ago is pretty ridiculous if not a complete head scratcher. In fact, it’s the opposite of rebellious. It’s reactionary.

    I’m not a fan of the post-grunge style myself but I don’t think Chris Daughtry or David Cook should be trying to suddenly act like they’re misunderstood freaks in society for the sake of rock cred.

    Exactly, because they don’t face the same issues as their fathers did. What are they supposed to be rebelling against? AI as opposed to Vietnam?

    Each one of his concerts gets a little more out there, his language gets a little more lewd. As a non-Cook fan who has caught the occasional tour video I can see it, fans who have watched every video can’t see the progression.

    I think you’re underestimating the majority of his AI fans. They are getting a kick out of this “new” Cook because it was they who discovered the “old” Cook through videos and old albums. They *want* him to rock out more. They want him to stay away from the pop, but apparently that’s what gets one in the top 40 and so RCA has hooked him up with that Claude Kelly guy. Whattaya gonna do?

  • jms

    Exactly, because they don’t face the same issues as their fathers did. What are they supposed to be rebelling against? AI as opposed to Vietnam?

    Exactly. Pop music is much more about rebellion and pushing boundaries than rock music is. Rock is no longer about being anti-establishment, it’s only about a specific sound. Pop started to take over the anti-establishment, pushing boundaries roll in the 80′s.

  • progression

    But I am sure that Cook would also like to have a more diverse fan base

    Interestingly enough, I was at a Wolfmother concert with my teenage son and his pals not too long ago, where the audience was made up almost entirely of teenage and 20 something guys, and not one person commented on the lack of “diversity” or the fact that a good portion of the guys in attendance were drunk off their asses and misbehaving to the point where security was earning it’s pay throughout the entire show. IMO, “diversity” and “fans misbehaving” is a complete smoke screen for the real *issue* of women over 30 being a visible component of the audience, which is apparently the uncoolest thing in the entire universe. I have found it fascinating over the past two years I’ve been involved in the AI internet phenomenon to see how prevalent this attitude is (even among the women being discriminated against) and how comfortable people are in voicing opinions based on age and gender that they would think several times about voicing based on race, religion or, god forbid, sexual orientation

  • Mrs.P

    I’m out of this discussion but I would like to say that somewhere somehow a total misconception has seemed to arisen, at least in my very small mind, about what American Idol is. And I guess that the name of the show is what has caused all of the confusion, in my mind.

    American Idol is nothing more than a TV show to find a recording Artist. It isn’t about finding a perfect representative of what the American public thinks a singer should be. It isn’t about finding the next saviour of music, or finding a representative of the great American family value system. It is none of those things and people that give it that kind of credibility and insist that people coming off of the show are indebted to that erroneous ideal are only fooling themselves and making it really difficult for these young kids to move forward in an industry that is dog eat dog and nice guys finish last.

  • saga

    Exactly. Pop music is much more about rebellion and pushing boundaries than rock music is. Rock is no longer about being anti-establishment, it’s only about a specific sound. Pop started to take over the anti-establishment, pushing boundaries roll in the 80′s.

    Interesting. I guess that is much due to Madonna, Prince and MJ.

  • Keel

    Pop music is much more about rebellion and pushing boundaries than rock music is. Rock is no longer about being anti-establishment, it’s only about a specific sound. Pop started to take over the anti-establishment, pushing boundaries roll in the 80′s.

    I think this is more about the individual artist in the genre than the genre itself. There are rock acts, pop acts, country acts, hip hop acts, rhythmic acts, etc. who are pushing boundaries and being political (not necessarily the super popular ones, mind you), just as there are rock acts, pop acts, country acts, hip hop acts, rhythmic acts who are appealing to the average Joe and Jane 6-pack out there.

  • Junior

    So’ ¦ I hate to admit it, but I am from the time of the hair bands when the rock starts were all bunch of druggies, and man-hoes, and rude a$%es, and that was the way it was. However, now my 22 year old, who is into alt-rock, and indie bands finds my account of how things were fascinating, and even though she is aware of stuff going on with the bands it is not what gives them cred anymore. Yes, Cook can show a more edgy, raunchy, raw side to him as long as it is HIM. Anything else would not be believable, and he wouldn’t be pissing off AI fans, he would be turning them off’ ¦and any other new fans as well. This is what used to bug me about Adam. He has this vulgar, trashy, crude, very sexual side to him, yet he came on to AI, a family show, which he chose not to show this, and now claims he is not a babysitter’ ¦blah, blah, blah’ ¦ya shoulda kept your hide of that cheesy show dude! Ok’ ¦got a little off the subject sorry.

    This is an excellent point. Being authentic is what gives people cred now. And I think that’s where the problem lies for the idols. They’re considered “manufactured” acts, ie: not authentic. This has always been my problem with Adam, and someone hit upon it up thread. He was a chameleon on the show, and he still alters himself to the arena he’s presenting himself to in kind of a big way, it makes me think that he’s not being authentic, and kind of a poser. I’m not saying he is, just makes me think that.

    But I do think this batch of idols from season 8 may actually have a shot at getting some cred this time, as I see this batch as being allowed the most opportunity to stay true to themselves and they type of music they want to put out on their respective albums/album covers/etc. You really get a sense of who each of them are as an artist they don’t seem to be much different from the way they presented themselves on the show. (most of them anyway)

  • jms

    IMO, ‘diversity’  and ‘fans misbehaving’  is a completely smoke screen for the real *issue* of women over 30 being a visible component of the audience, which is apparently the uncoolest thing in the entire universe. I have found it fascinating over the past two years I’ve been involved in the AI internet phenomenon to see how prevalent this attitude is (even among the women being discriminated against) and how comfortable people are in voicing opinions based on age and gender that they would think several times about voicing based on race, religion or, god forbid, sexual orientation

    AMEN.

  • sleepinin

    Much Music’s MOD’s video request today was for FYE. (It’s made the top 5 a lot this week on MOD) When they play the video’s they always have a small window on the screen where they show the studio audience during the video. Today there was a choir in the audience and the girls were having a lot of fun dancing to it. It was really cute to see.

  • Keel

    I guess that is much due to Madonna, Prince and MJ.

    MJ, really? I’m inclined to say yes to Madonna and Prince, but not so much MJ. But then again, I’m one of the weird ones who was never a fan. And nothing about the frenzy since his death has changed that one iota.

  • saga

    MJ, really? I’m inclined to say yes to Madonna and Prince, but not so much MJ. But then again, I’m one of the weird ones who was never a fan. And nothing about the frenzy since his death has changed that one iota.

    Not a fan of MJ but he was pushing a lot of the development in the music scene in the beginning of his career. I mean Thriller got the whole music video thing started.

  • girlygirl

    Here’s link of list of tweeters to follow tonight at the Z-100 JingleBall

    http://twitter.com/dy7764/jingle-ball

  • suenigma

    Wow. I just had to interject to comment on the excellent discussion this afternoon. Very thought provoking.

  • jms

    He was a chameleon on the show, and he still alters himself to the arena he’s presenting himself to in kind of a big way, it makes me think that he’s not being authentic, and kind of a poser. I’m not saying he is, just makes me think that.

    But, see, that IS what is AUTHENTIC about Adam. He himself is a chameleon. He subtly alters his exterior personality and language for everyone he speaks to. You can see this in the different interviews he has done. He mirrors people, reflecting themselves back at them. It’s a built-in instinct that some people have. I doubt he could have a conversation if he tried to stop. On AI, he just did the same thing with a larger audience. Yes, he has a preferred way he’d like to be perceived as a performer. But the idol performances are just as true as any other he has done. Even on idol when they did that one Ford commercial and asked all the idols what their first album title should be, he replied, “Chameleon”. It’s what he is. He never hid it, but people that don’t have experience with people like that have a really hard time understanding it.

  • suenigma

    Just because I have to say it’”am I the only one that can’t stand Cook’s HFT? I think I am, lol. Heck, I could never stand Van Halen doing it. Maybe it is just the song; but I just find it so OTT/80′s rockstar cringeworthy. It is probably the only cover Cook has done that I can’t watch.

    LOL. Yeah it’s a pretty shitty song (sorry iluvai) but the dudes seem to love it, and it has a wicked guitar solo in it.

  • girlygirl

    Kris up on the big screen at MSG

    Mozgurl OMG! I’m here! @krisallen at the big screen!!! :D http://twitpic.com/t446x 14 minutes ago from Echofon

  • wellhesback

    Yeah – audience seemed to love “Hot for Teacher” when I saw Cookie and the guys do it. To each their own, I say.

    anyway – one more cool photo of Cookie from NY, now that he’s back home in Missouri
    http://tweetphoto.com/6248259

  • girlygirl

    myang007

    ## FIBOU music video on MSG screens! 7 minutes ago from txt

  • TreeFrog

    George Jones has said he understands today’s young country artists are just doing what they need to do. Patty Loveless said the same thing about Carrie ‘“ she’s under pressure to be current but she’s got that real country voice. I think Carrie’s got a great classic country album in her and I hope she releases one one day.

    Ah, windmills… You mention the magnificent Patty Loveless and now I get all happy about being a country fan again. I hope Carrie does cut a traditional album in the future. I’d buy that puppy in a heatbeat.

  • csprof

    Exciting tweet from @ImMattGiraud. Can he put out an EP on his own? Or does this mean he’s close to a deal with someone? Either way, it will be nice to have an opportunity to buy his new music.

    @ImMattGiraud:
    I can’t wait to tour again and travel. I’m working on putting together an EP to get the songs out to you guys. Exciting news coming up!! about 1 hour ago from Echofon

  • revcat

    Yeah, the age discrimination thing is alive and well, but there are a lot of cool old people (like me, ha ha!). I would like to go to an Adam Lambert concert without being labeled a Sparkle Cow. I almost feel like I have to go with a younger person to make it look okay, but that’s silly. I’ll just wear my cow bell and rock out!

    “Exactly, because they don’t face the same issues as their fathers did. What are they supposed to be rebelling against?”

    Our country has just as many problems now as it did then, but the draft is no longer in effect so most young people are apathetic. I guess Green Day is an exception, as from what I have heard from them they appear to be making a statement against the status quo.

  • Keel

    This is what used to bug me about Adam. He has this vulgar, trashy, crude, very sexual side to him, yet he came on to AI, a family show, which he chose not to show this, and now claims he is not a babysitter’ ¦blah, blah, blah’ ¦ya shoulda kept your hide of that cheesy show dude!

    Eh, who cares, I say. Everyone on Idol who thinks the ‘good guy’ contestants never uttered an f-bomb or ever had sex or are all born again Christians are just deluding themselves and deserve to be fooled IMO.

  • Keel

    I almost feel like I have to go with a younger person to make it look okay, but that’s silly.

    In the Cook fandom, they are referred to as the teenage beards! Heh.

  • girlygirl

    Jambajim

    Jambajim

    ## Allison Iraheta’s dress is probably the best thing ever. OMG she’s introducing someone awesome. *lips are sealed* 6 minutes ago from UberTwitter

    JaredEng

    Here’s the sched for tonight’s Jingle Ball at MSG. Enjoy!!! @taylorswift13 performs with @johncmayer and BLG! http://mypict.me/224gv

    10 minute set for Kris (he’s the 4th act). 15 minutes for Jordin

  • oceana

    The Cook that people think they know from American Idol is probably not the real Cook and He used American Idol in exactly the same way Adam did.

    Is any celebrity exactly the same person in public as in private life? Is any celebrity really “known” to strangers who see them on a stage or listen to them on a cd? Is that even a reasonable expectation?

    Every contestant uses Idol, and Idol uses them too, if one wants to put it in such cold terms. But such stark language ignores that there are many aspects to Idol, and “using” is only one part of it. There are relationships involved, feelings, dreams, and hopes. It’s not all about cold-hearted using.

    Of course one conforms somewhat in any career or any endeavor. Life is full of compromises, and we all must get along with the people we work with. To expect anyone to be totally real at all times in all situations is the way a teenager thinks, or a naive person.

    Past rock stars who let it all hang out were often guilty of enormous excesses and basic unreality. John Phillips anyone? Drugs, sex, lewdness, that was part of the rock scene once, but if that’s what rock “cred” is all about, who needs it? I’m glad that rock has grown up and moved past childish notions of what it means to be free and real.

    The only difference is that Cook wasn’t living in LA and it is taking him a little bit longer to work up the courage to completely show who he is.

    DC and Adam are entirely different people, I don’t think they are that much alike, it seems simplistic to me to try to lump them together.

    Each one of his concerts gets a little more out there, his language gets a little more lewd.

    Lewd defined:

    1. inclined to, characterized by, or inciting to lust or lechery; lascivious.
    2. obscene or indecent, as language or songs; salacious.
    3. Obsolete. a. low, ignorant, or vulgar.
    b. base, vile, or wicked, esp. of a person.
    c. bad, worthless, or poor, esp. of a thing.

    I really don’t see that DC has become increasingly lewd. Sure he can be sexual, mischievous, fun, but lewd, that word doesn’t work for me. I think of men who expose themselves as lewd, not normal young men with healthy sexual sides.

    Maybe I am too worldly but I think that American Idol fans who become fans of an Idol just see things through their own filtered lenses and will never admit that the real world may not think like they do.

    Can anyone actually characterize the 35 million people who watch AI, sum them up and conclude that they all have filtered lenses? I disagree. All kinds of people watch Idol, you can’t lump them (us) all together. In fact, everyone on this board watches Idol to some extent, and we are all different here, not the same at all. Just for starters.

    I’m sad for David because I think he could really go far if he was given the clear path to do it. But as long as his AI fans hold him back (not his true fans but those that think he needs to represent all things American Idol) he is stuck.

    Anyone who spent time on DC’s official board, DCO, would know that most of the fans there discovered him on AI, thus would qualify as “AI fans,” yet they mostly want him to be himself and certainly don’t want him to represent “all things American Idol.” Generalizing can lead one to questionable conclusions.

    There’s no reason to feel sad for DC as he is doing well and loving what he’s doing, and seems energized to be working on his next cd. But if anyone has “held him back” it’s not fans, but perhaps what his label thought his fans wanted, or what they think is most commercial, while actually his fans mostly want him to be edgier, not safer.

  • tierbee

    Each one of his concerts gets a little more out there, his language gets a little more lewd.

    Yeah, I have to comment on that one having gone to one show in April and then four others across the next several months (last one in – early Nov?)… I don’t see lewd. And honestly, rarely saw him say so much as a curse word, lol. Those were the cleanest rock shows ever. Well, Ryan Star is a bit naughty :) but Cookie was more flirty and charming, never lewd (never).

  • wellhesback

    tierbee – I agree with you but have to add that the three Cook shows I saw were indeed clean. But they were far from dull. Unfortunately there are indeed people who don’t believe you can have a non-lewd show that is actually fun and rocking.

    The flirtiness, charm, and charisma does ooze all the stage however.

  • Aileen

    I agree, Cookie in concert is never ever lewd. I may have wanted to see some lewd, or a at least a curse word here or there, but I got nothing. I was even at the 2 shows which had the 21 and over age restriction, and still not one curse word uttered. Completely disappointed me. ;)

  • revcat

    Good luck to the musicians that try to make it in the industry without the support of women over a certain age ‘“ apparently the 20 ‘“ 30 year old male audience doesn’t buy enough music to allow the artists a good living.

    Yup, unfortunately that is true. Not all, but a big percentage of them rip it off. They don’t understand economics and how the music could just die…

    as in Bye Bye American Pie

  • Curlin

    If I remember correctly, Cook dropped the F-bomb at his first tour concert in front of Simon Fuller and then laughed and commented on it! However, I don’t remember hearing any at any of my three shows and they were still rocking! lol

  • Trina

    Oh he’s definitely cursed at quite a few shows and flipped the bird several times but even that I don’t see as ‘lewd’ or something that progressed as the tour went on. Hell he was dropping F bombs at the very first show of the tour. Anyone who followed him from early on or just anyone who looked up any old pre-Idol stuff heard all that then so it was nothing new.

  • tierbee

    I agree with you but have to add that the three Cook shows I saw were indeed clean. But they were far from dull.

    Oh, the shows aren’t dull. My biggest complaint was that they weren’t longer. I could’ve rocked out with Cookie for three hours, noooo problem. I love the music, I love the personality. But it makes me laugh to get no curse words after managing an indie rapper for a couple years… it’s different. I’m sure he’d like to be a *little* more loose with stuff like that but I think he’s done a tremendous job of trying to bridge from Idol to post-Idol without straying from who he is. Definitely are rock shows, and you could sorta see exactly who didn’t know that was coming before the show ever started. vascot, are you around here somewhere? Was it Charlottesville, though, where there was an elderly woman (I’d say she was a good 70) and I thought she’d be upset with the rock show… and that lady was having a blast and rocking out, too. Heh! I loved her!

    And I’m over 30 (36) and am no cougar, lol. (Rawr)

  • seriously

    Oh he’s definitely cursed at quite a few shows and flipped the bird several times but even that I don’t see as ‘lewd’ or something that progressed as the tour went on.

    Yah he flips the bird alot before KOTN. So he’s not perfect but far from lewd.

  • oceana

    As far as rock ‘“ I think what Nickelback, Daughtry, David, and a lot of the post-grunge acts run up against is that they’re aimed at the regular man and woman when rock’s mythos is supposed to be all anti-establishment and outside of society.

    That anti-establishment is only one aspect of rock, not true of all rock, not then, not ever. The Beatles were rock, and weren’t very revolutionary really. The Stones were the ones who pushed the envelope in most ways, and people tended to prefer one or the other (I preferred the Beatles, the Stones were okay but I never actually bought an album).

    Mellow groups like Mamas and Papas, were rock. Bob Dylan was revolutionary but also mellowed with time. He was folk/rock and his early stuff was political. Jim Morrison pushed the boundaries in sexuality (now there’s someone who was lewd on stage). Hendrix was revolutionary when it came to music and guitar work, not in a political sense. That is just the tip of the iceburg, one could write books and books about rock, but bottom line, it wasn’t all revoluationary.

    Things are different today, as corporations have co-opted rebellion and made it all about fashion and pop culture. Today there is less to rebel against, at least it seems that way superficially, because the bad things are more hidden and harder to see, and we are more docile because we have more luxuries, we have dvds and dvrs to seduce and distract us, we have all kinds of music to choose from, and personal ipods to get lost in our own little worlds.

    Today tptb do not institute the draft because that is what really politicized people. Instead, they force enlisted men/women to serve several tours of duty, and even if that leads many of them to commit suicide, people say “well they volunteered” and then forget about it. The draft was a whole other story, young men were forced overseas to their deaths *against their will* and also, they were dying by the thousands.

    I think tptb have gotten craftier and have learned how to make us think we are free … I’m not sure but today when there are less rules, less structure, less conformity, young people are less inclined to rebel in any serious way that threatens the establishment. But the one thing to remember is that it was the draft that sent people into the streets to demonstrate. That was the crucial issue that got people moving.

  • Keel

    Oh he’s definitely cursed at quite a few shows and flipped the bird several times but even that I don’t see as ‘lewd’ or something that progressed as the tour went on. Hell he was dropping F bombs at the very first show of the tour. Anyone who followed him from early on or just anyone who looked up any old pre-Idol stuff heard all that then so it was nothing new.

    So true. He’s got an adult sense of humor and, if that’s lewd to you, then I suppose he is lewd. But if you appreciate that he’s doing a freaking rock show, then his demeanor is entirely appropriate and actually really, really tame compared to other rock shows. (Best use of the f-bomb by a rock act in 2009 (Green Day): “Get up off your fucking asses. This is NOT fucking Coldplay!”) He’s flipped the bird so many times (both pre and post Idol) you could do a 5 minute slide show on the evolution of the Cook bird. He was using the ‘hearthands converted to double birdie’ gesture to introduce Kiss On The Neck for a string of shows there for a while and then it seemed to disappear as the tour went on.

  • Chicagolaw

    Weren’t they all on their best behavior for Idol, I mean really. I think Adam called it, “his best self.” It isn’t fake. Don’t we all do this in the professional world? I know that when I am in my work environment I act a bit differently than when I am out with friends.

    In terms of Cook, he seems to be slowly letting the pre-idol Dave emerge. I have seen some of the early videos, and he was definitely not Disney. I think he has played it smart.

  • tierbee

    Hell he was dropping F bombs at the very first show of the tour.

    Haha, but didn’t he ask Simon Fuller if it was ok? He was there, right? It was too funny.

  • wellhesback

    Here’s a new Cookie fan vid. It really shows the guys rockin out. Just turn down the dopey Britney song that it is set to.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ksDA7tBW0c&feature=player_embedded#

  • Aileen

    Yeah, I saw all the videos of DC flipping the bird and cursing a few times. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see it in person and all of my shows were completely clean. LOL I think he’s extremely entertaining at his shows. His banter and different set lists make each show unique and I haven’t seen that with many other artists. This is what made me want to got to more than one show and I’ve never gone to more than 1 show for any other artist.

  • Keel

    Haha, but didn’t he ask Simon Fuller if it was ok? He was there, right? It was too funny.

    I think he said: “Oh my god, I just said fuck in front of Simon Fuller!”

  • tierbee

    In terms of Cook, he seems to be slowly letting the pre-idol Dave emerge. I have seen some of the early videos, and he was definitely not Disney. I think he has played it smart.

    I agree with this completely. I think he’s well aware of walking the bridge between Idol and post-Idol and I think he’s done a great job of it. I’m looking forward to more of the progression.

  • tierbee

    Hee, here’s the banter… Neal effing Tiemann :)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAB7K3ko4dY

  • Trina

    I think he said: ‘Oh my god, I just said fuck in front of Simon Fuller!’ 

    ROTFL yep he blurted the word ‘fuck’ out in his banter then with this oops look said ‘oh god I just said fuck in front of Simon Fuller’. And FWIW Simon was cracking up so he obviously didnt mind.

    One thing I’ve noticed though is I dont believe hes ever really talked about sex at least not in a graphic manner I can recall. There was that Q&A where he was asked if he had to live without one thing and had to choose between music, beer, sex and something else I cant remember but he chose beer. LOL the next day I was on line waiting to get in for a show and some girl was PISSED about that. She was all “UGH he let the world know he likes SEX!!!!111″ *facepalm*

  • seriously

    There was that Q&A where he was asked if he had to live without one thing and had to choose between music, beer, sex and something else I cant remember but he chose beer.

    I saw that. I think the other option was family. I knew he would pick beer. I would’ve bet my house. I mean he is human…lol So who in their right mind would expect him to live without sex?

  • tierbee

    One thing I’ve noticed though is I dont believe hes ever really talked about sex at least not in a graphic manner I can recall.

    No, he really hasn’t – he is a huge flirt, but nothing overtly sexual. I mean, he’s *sexy* as hell but it’s more teasing and flirting. (Which makes me think of his Union Jacks pants and his “did you come here for this?… or this…)

  • Junior

    jms (I’m on my blackberry so I can’t quote)
    My point about adam being a chameleon was not the main point I was tryng to make. Its about the need nowadays to be authentic, no longer a druggie/rocker party animal/ but that the younger generation needs to know you are who you portay yourself to be. And this extends beyond the music world as well. I think now, more than ever before, and if you appear unauthentic ( a wanna be or a poser) they’ll sniff you out in a minute and dismiss you.

  • Sydia

    Cook is sexual, and can be raunchy I am sure. However it is not part of his onstage persona. The F – bombs, and flipping the middle finger has been part of his banter, and not part of his act. Adam ,on the other hand, has expressed his sexuality, and raunchiness as part of his act. Nothing wrong with that, he can be an R rated kind of act, cool, but once you go AI, you go PG. Rebelling about it now is just plain silly. Any way, Cook did great on the Billboard chart for the year! Ya go Cook!

  • tierbee

    Cook is sexual, and can be raunchy I am sure. However it is not part of his onstage persona.

    Oh, he strikes me as quite sexual – but there’s nothing raunchy or explicit about on-stage Cookie right now. Sexual, sexy, he’s that. Just doesn’t talk about it explicitly :) . I have three brothers and I know how *they* are (all single), so I imagine Cookie is not so different. Just famous-er. Ha!

  • tierbee

    Any way, Cool did great on the Billboard chart for the year! Ya go Cook!

    And yes, I finally got a chance to look at all those Billboard charts – that’s awesome! What a year, Mr. Cook!

  • May

    One thing I’ve noticed though is I dont believe he’s ever really talked about sex at least not in a graphic manner I can recall.

    I can vaguely recall that Tenacious D “F… Her Gently” song he performed for the troops in Iraq. That’s about as graphic as he’s gotten, but it’s a funny song IMO. I can’t find a video though. All I can find is some video of when he performed it pre-idol for a friend of his

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJWJp2yyjl0&feature=related

    There was also a pre-idol interview when he jokingly made referrences to making the camera cloudy after getting er..excited and er..doing something to himself. LOL. He sounded like a typical young guy trying to be funny. I think he’s grown up a bit since

    So that’s “graphic Dave” in a nutshell! The boy does need some male fans. LOL.

  • FolkFan

    Awesome Billboard stats. Great to see so many Idols doing well, and yeah, it’s awesome that Magic Rainbow managed to finagle himself onto a “top of the decade” list.

    I’ve long loved music, and go to a good number of live concerts. It was only in starting to follow an Idol contestant that I realized how much misogyny and ageism there was out there in relation to music fans, and just how free people feel to express it—so free that it’s almost casual, “How are you? That woman going to that concert must be a cougar, how hilarious is that? Have a nice day!”

    Rock credibility is a unicorn, a myth, and acting some way in order to try to achieve it strikes me as kind of contrary to the very concept of rock. Rock is supposed to be about experimentation and taking whatever path you think is valid, not about “connect-the-dots” rules of “rock credibility.” I don’t know that DC or Daughtry will ever be truly accepted by the rock community. If it’s because of not liking their music or whatever, hey, I may agree or disagree, but that’s a matter of taste, right? But if it’s because they chose to take the off-the-beaten-path of Idol, or because they don’t go around pretending to be all “rawk asshole” to get credibility, then that’s a stupid reason, and I say f*ck the rock community. Not that the rock community isn’t already doing a fine job f*cking itself by refusing to consider newer and broader kinds of rock.

  • jms

    Nothing wrong with that, he can be an R rated kind of act, cool, but once you go AI, you go PG. Rebelling about it now is just plain silly.

    LOL No. That’s like saying if I went to a Catholic girls school I always have to act like a Catholic school girl. AI is a television show. It’s ridiculous that peeps expect these guys who are required to be on their best behavior during AI (and which FOX edits so that nothing else is shown), for them to continue to act in the way FOX chose to portray them during the course of the show. It’s real life now.

  • wellhesback

    Yeah to your post, jms. Cook has changed things up since Idol, but most imp. he’s staying true to himself (as far as his fans can tell).

  • seriously

    There was also a pre-idol interview when he jokingly made referrences to making the camera cloudy after getting er..excited and er..doing something to himself. LOL. He sounded like a typical young guy trying to be funny. I think he’s grown up a bit since

    Do you mean this from his old MySpace blog?

    November 17, 2005
    I posed in my sexiest pair of lace undergarments for some promotional photography earlier this week, under the watchful “eye” of Ms. Randi Kampeter. It was entirely too much fun and I can’t wait to show you the results. We just have to find a way to wash seminal fluid out of an aperture lens (that was a joke.)

  • Sydia

    “LOL No. That’s like saying if I went to a Catholic girls school I always have to act like a Catholic school girl. AI is a television show. It’s ridiculous that peeps expect these guys who are required to be on their best behavior during AI (and which FOX edits so that nothing else is shown), for them to continue to act in the way FOX chose to portray them during the course of the show. It’s real life now.”

    Well, I went to a catholic school because I was a lil’tyke and had no say so in where I could go to school, sooo…Anyway, not everyone expects their idols to be perfect. My point is that talking smack, and acting like you a bad m$#@ F%$@# with the title of former american idol next to your name is just silly. I mean how bad ass can you be if you not only watched AI, but you also decided to try out. C’mon…

  • frogcooke

    Soooooo according to tivos schedule and some dvr’s Archie is going to be on the CBS Early Show this monday…. but this is the first we’ve heard of it… lol nice notice there..

  • revcat

    LOL No. That’s like saying if I went to a Catholic girls school I always have to act like a Catholic school girl

    I second the LOL – Lady Gaga was a Catholic school girl. And AI isn’t even a religion, contrary to some peep’s opinions!

  • Sassycatz

    Our country has just as many problems now as it did then, but the draft is no longer in effect so most young people are apathetic.

    Speaking of this, I remember being in graduate school in the 80′s and bemoaning the lack of social consciousness of the undergrads. Those I ran across seemed to be all about themselves and making money — you know the big movie was Wall Street with Michael Douglas playing Gordon Gekko. “Greed is good!” Only the few seemed to be interested in divesting from South Africa or getting the U.S. out of El Salvador. I was very disappointed in them.

    I would like to go to an Adam Lambert concert without being labeled a Sparkle Cow. I almost feel like I have to go with a younger person to make it look okay, but that’s silly. I’ll just wear my cow bell and rock out!

    I am not an Aam fan and will never go to his concerts, but as a Cook fan I say, dress in your best rock girl, concert outfit as you did when you were younger and have a great time.

    In the Cook fandom, they are referred to as the teenage beards! Heh.

    I have a better ear for rock than a teenager. They’d have to be baby sat. No thank you!

    But if anyone has ‘held him back’  it’s not fans, but perhaps what his label thought his fans wanted, or what they think is most commercial, while actually his fans mostly want him to be edgier, not safer.

    The label thinks, with the help of 19E/M.

    They think we’re all Susan Boyles when we’re actually Susan Sarandons. Even Susan Boyle is hipper than they think we are … gosh, golly gee.

    Those were the cleanest rock shows ever. Well, Ryan Star is a bit naughty but Cookie was more flirty and charming, never lewd (never).

    I’ve been to a few DC shows and never felt embarrassed or uncomfortable. He’s NOT Disney. He’s on par with any rock show I saw in the 70′s – 80′s and I saw everyone from Paul McCartney to KISS to Fleetwood Mac to Elton John to Aerosmith to Tina Turner.

    In terms of Cook, he seems to be slowly letting the pre-idol Dave emerge. I have seen some of the early videos, and he was definitely not Disney. I think he has played it smart.

    He definitely knew what was the right place and right time to ramp it up, which, to me, made him mature.

  • revcat

    Today tptb do not institute the draft because that is what really politicized people. Instead, they force enlisted men/women to serve several tours of duty, and even if that leads many of them to commit suicide, people say ‘well they volunteered’  and then forget about it. The draft was a whole other story, young men were forced overseas to their deaths *against their will* and also, they were dying by the thousands.

    ^^^ Yup, ITA, good post oceana! I hate what is happening to the military guys and gals. It’s like they are our sacrificial lambs and we really aren’t even sure what we are fighting for. We just got stuck over there and are afraid to make a bad situation worse. I miss the days of protest when the college kids flocked to the streets! But as far as music goes, the rebels today are mostly rappers. Yes?

  • Reflections On Life

    Cowell confirms X Factor final duets

    ‘Olly will be duetting with Robbie Williams, Joe will be duetting with George Michael and Stacey will be duetting with Michael Bubl.’ 

    Super LOL! I’ve been saying all season how much Joe reminds me of a young George Michael (if you remove Joe’s goat-vibrato), esp on all of GM’s ballads (Careless Whisper, etc).

    Wonder if Simon’s been monitoring this blog for finale-pairing ideas???

  • http://mjsbigblog.com/voronas-ontario-american-idol-tour-recap.htm vorona

    I got tickets for the SYTYCD finale — get to choose between performance night and results night.

    (Quick break to somersault around the room with joy)

    They don’t mention a thing about a different location for results night. Will it not be at the Kodak as in years past? Looks like it will be in the small studio at CBS. In which case, going the night Adam Lambert performs becomes much more interesting.

  • Sassycatz

    Super LOL! I’ve been saying all season how much Joe reminds me of a young George Michael (if you remove Joe’s goat-vibrato), esp on all of GM’s ballads (Careless Whisper, etc).

    I hope George Michael takes off his sunglasses.

  • wellhesback

    FYI – 12/19 (Sat) 9ET NBC “WWE: Tribute to the Troops” track list incl: David Cook’s The Time Of My Life http://bit.ly/8zrA9C

  • May

    FYI ‘“ 12/19 (Sat) 9ET NBC ‘WWE: Tribute to the Troops’  track list incl: David Cook’s The Time Of My Life http://bit.ly/8zrA9C

    That’s fantastic Wellhesback! I remember how NBC played a big role in promoting Time of My Life during the Olympics. I think they like that song! I’m hoping that one day they’ll use A Daily Anthem in a montage.

    I also noticed that Ryan Star’s Breathe is on the list which is cool. I love that song (especially when he and David perform it together). Those two need to co-write something together.

  • tierbee

    ‘WWE: Tribute to the Troops’  track list incl: David Cook’s The Time Of My Life http://bit.ly/8zrA9C

    WWE + Magic Rainbows? That song, I tell ya.

  • aga

    I love that song (especially when he and David perform it together).

    I love David and Ryan duet on that song too. Again, I miss the tour so bad. Life seems so quiet now.

  • skat-girl@allycatlover

    on daughtry and cooks rock cred, IMO rock cred comes from performing in half empty bars for a number of years until you get discovered, having a voice born for it, and not looking like your trying too hard.

    IMO Daughtry and Nickleback are to generic to be rockers. When I think of them I think pop. With cook however I think the guy could actually get some rock cred if he does more stuff like “bar ba sol” which IMO is actual rock and less stuff like “light on” which is pure pop. I think the dudes got a hell of a voice that was born for rock and it looks like he did even pay some of the dues before AI. Cook also has a good repetition for live performances which is important for rock cred.

  • cmom

    I just don’t understand all this “rock cred” stuff. In the past, people didn’t think to themself “I’m going to be a rocker” or I am going to be known as a “rocker”. They just were a rocker. Think Jim Morrison of the Doors – that was not a fake persona, it was him being who he was doing music that he connected with. Same with the Stones (or even the Beatles who fit into multiple “personas” of music without even trying to be anything other than who they were at any given moment in their musically creative lives. Cook (who I like) just needs to go do whatever music he likes and he will be called whatever he is called and it should not matter. If these guys are real musicians they they will be recognized for their craft. Just like Archuleta will be recognized for whatever it is that he does. Just like Adam should be recognized for whatever he does…rock out, musical theater, whatever he feels inside. I say be yourself and do whatever your creative side tells you and who cares what people call you. If it is “cool” to be a rocker, that becomes just another affectation – a fake rocker is nothing. A real rocker or real musician regardless of the type of music is true to him/herself and becomes respected within the industry for it.

  • May

    With cook however I think the guy could actually get some rock cred if he does more stuff like ‘bar ba sol’  which IMO is actual rock and less stuff like ‘light on’  which is pure pop. I think the dudes got a hell of a voice that was born for rock and it looks like he did even pay some of the dues before AI.

    While I would agree that Barbasol was one of the harder rock songs on his album, it wasn’t the best song on the album in my opinion and it was somewhat overrated. Reviewers gave it points just on the basis of it being more “authentic” hard rock. Permanent, Lie, Life On the Moon and A Daily Anthem, though less rocking, were better songs IMO. If getting rock cred means sticking only to songs of the Barbasol persuasion, then my advice to Mr. Cook would be to strive for “music cred”. Screw rock cred.

  • fadetowhite

    Cook (who I like) just needs to go do whatever music he likes and he will be called whatever he is called and it should not matter.

    IMO, this is what Cook does do and has been doing – based on his albums – for the past 10 or so years.

    That is why, to me, he is a rocker (or musician with a rock leaning to be more accurate). Everything else is baloney.

    And, whilst I think it will take time, I think his approach to music – collaborate, but write your own stuff too; tour anywhere and everywhere; have a clear knowledge of and love for music from other artists; support your peers – will pay off on some level.

    One of the things that I admire the most about Cook is that he seems to be 100% true to himself – his music; his style; his friends – whilst knowing how to play the game when needed, without really compromising that.

  • standtotheright

    Reviewers gave it points just on the basis of it being more ‘authentic’  hard rock.

    I think they gave it points on the basis of it recasting SRV-style chord progressions in a modern-rock idiom and having kick-ass lyrics.

    And I would definitely pick it over LOTM (which is still pretty high-tier for me) or ADAM (which isn’t). So, you know, subjectivity.

    He seems to love playing it. He’s called it a good insight into where he is musically (although, granted, that was months ago). If he makes more songs like it, I’m going to assume that it’s because he wants to, not because he’s chasing cred.

  • oceana

    Some great quotes here:

    – They think we’re all Susan Boyles when we’re actually Susan Sarandons.

    – That is why, to me, he is a rocker (or musician with a rock leaning to be more accurate). Everything else is baloney.

    – If getting rock cred means sticking only to songs of the Barbasol persuasion, then my advice to Mr. Cook would be to strive for ‘music cred’ . Screw rock cred.

    – Cook (who I like) just needs to go do whatever music he likes and he will be called whatever he is called and it should not matter. If these guys are real musicians they they will be recognized for their craft.