idk if I’ll buy it .album are expensive and on my mom’s account.hmm if I buy it it’ll be after fye..,

but CONGRATULATIONS KRIS!!!

Looks like a good source for a nice unbiased review!

ETA: Hee, Jasper said it too.

@Starr: Interesting…. Went back and heard the song again. Is It really sitar? It sounds most like it in the end. I’d noticed the end earlier but couldn’t figure the instrument. That little piece in the end has a little Asian/Indian feel to it.
But rest of the song, if it is sitar, then he’s used it so smartly, instead of giving the song an “exotic” feel, which most sitar based international pop collabs endup having, he’s blended the instrument in such a contemporary manner, just letting it stand out right at the end…

Holy Crap, Starr, if it is sitar, then well spotted babe. I’m a little ashamed RN, for not picking it up earlier!

If you didn’t set up your account to automatically download the pass when it was available, you need to go to your email account and look for an email from iTunes which has a link to download all the album stuff cuz you should have already received the videos if you bought the pass earlier this summer.

I got mine last night at 11pm and I’m on the west coast!!

I was thrilled to see Kris shoot up to the top of the pop charts! Right now, both of his albums, the pre-order ($10.99) and the Pass ($16.99) are at #8 and #18, respectively. LLWD is at #21 on pop and #44 on top 100. YAYAYAYAYAY!!!

ETA: the American Songwriter review looks like it is a 3- out of 5-star rating because the other review they did for Dave Rawlings Machine got 4 1/2 stars.

The revelation here on this, the debut of American Idol champion Kris Allen, is not that he’s a great vocalist’”the world already knows that’”but that he’s also a gifted songwriter. Many of the songs here are co-written by Allen and one or two other writers, but ‘Red Guitar’  is the one song here he wrote entirely alone, and it’s the stand-out track of the album. It’s a power ballad, but a poignant one, and suggests that if Allen could be freed from the gaggle of producers who produced this, and allowed to write his own songs, he could be a serious contender. With AI’s Simon Fuller at the helm, however, expectations for mass success are so vast that liberating Allen to realize his own musical vision is not in the cards. The first single, ‘Live Like We’re Dying’ ’”which was already a hit for the Irish band The Script’”seems aimed much more for the charts than for hearts, and despite Allen’s impassioned singing, it sounds like the finale of a Broadway musical. But if ‘Red Guitar’  is any indication of what Allen can do on his own, perhaps someone in his camp will realize that this Johnny Cougar’s got Mellencamp potential, and can be more than an Idol, he can be an artist.

They gave his album 3 stars (out of 5?)

http://www.americansongwriter.com/2009/11/kris-allen-kris-allen/

I never bought any of Kris’s Idol songs, so I guess he has me about 15-20% converted. It’s a start!

“From the Ashes” is so amazing. I’m so glad it’s a bonus track. It’s really a much more experimental Kris, and I’m digging it! By the way, I believe Kris mentioned in an interview recently that he was able to experiment with different instruments for this record, and one of those instruments was a sitar – the sitar is in “From the Ashes”. This song KICKS ASS.

I want the other bonus tracks but I don’t wanna have to get another album to do it >_>. Despite having just thought that I’d buy this album a million times because it’s so good.

Alright With Me
From The Ashes
Red Guitar
Before We Come Undone
Written All Over My Face
Bring It Back

Alright With Me (It sounds a little country dance in the beginning, then pop rock, love it. I don’t even like country, and I’m sure Kris didn’t intend for a song to sound country, but it kinda does and I like it).
From The Ashes (That was Jim’s favorite, right? Jim has good taste. This song should be in Rock Band. I think it’s one of the most).
Red Guitar (It seems like a BNS song and I kinda don’t like how there are a few gaps of no singing kinda like some of the songs in BNS, but overall I like it)
Before We Come Undone (Whoo! Love this one)
The Truth (For some reason it reminds me of both No Surprise by Daughtry and Do You Know by Enrique Iglesias, the second of which is a LOL-worthy song, but I like this one).
Written All Over My Face (The beginning sounds very Adam Lambert >_>. It sounds electronic and I swear it sounds like there’s a couple making out, lol! Please tell me I’m not the only one who hears kissy sounds in the background. But I love this song so much.)
Bring It Back is a very nice song.

Okay, I seriously love these songs. I even LOVE the version of Heartless that’s apparently not very popular (HUGE WTF @ the note on “You’ll never find nobody better than MEEEE!” though, that’s kinda scary and tbh it sounds like Kris got stabbed in the ass with a fork ala Tom and Jerry. I kinda lol at it and O_O @ the same time. I’m confused. It’s not a terrible moment in the song, but it catches me off guard every time. .)

Lifetime is already weird to me (“I wake up, put my poker face on”. Made me roll my eyes.) I like the guitar, but the melody is pretty weird. Yeah, it’s probably on the bottom tier of songs on here. Not to say it’s bad.

I Need To Know is amazing. It starts off a bit too sleepy for me (Now I know what some critics of Kris meant when they said “inarticulate”, but maybe that’s just because I’m deaf). It sounds kinda movie-esque. Very beautiful, but not perfect

I would recommend this album so hard. Even I like it more than I expected (Coming from a Kris fan who kinda got bored of almost all the BNS songs). Exceeding my expectations is almost always a good thing, and in this case, it IS.

In celebration for this album, I also preordered Adam’s yesterday >_>.

Also, that PDF makes me really jealous. Kris is a really good looking guy. I’m definitely not.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SO GOOD

I’m not sure I’ll buy the album but I’ll probably get at least 3 songs. I’m a bit disappointed. I think it’s an ok album considering everything, but after Live Like We’re Dying I was quite excited and the rest of the album just isn’t as strong as that one. It’s also a lot more pop than I expected, I wish that pop beat would disappear, and they kinda of ruined Heartless, imo.
The standouts? Besides the single, Written All Over My Face and Bring It Back, I also like I Need To Know, the vocals kinda of remind me of Damien Rice, and the vocals are what’s great about that song, the melody could be better, but it works. I think this is the kind of slow song I like Kris doing.

Red Guitar and Lifetime are a bit dull. Those are really poor written songs and very amateurish.
The rest is fine, good background music.
Oh, and Can’t Stay Away is really overproduced. I enjoyed the live version, but listening to the studio verion was a big let down.
It’s a bit clear why LLWD is the single. I think it is by far the strongest radio song there.

Well, he should be proud. The cover is still very awesome and I believe this is representative of his sound. It will only get better.
Go Kris!

Oh, and by the way, I did get the pass. Are others having trouble getting it?

Yes, I’m having trouble getting the pass. I think others have gotten it though.

I know no one here can do anything, but I was wondering if others were having the same problem and it seems they are. I did try logging out of my itunes account as others suggested, and that didn’t work either.