David Archuleta – David Archuleta

It was considered something of an upset when David Cook beat David Archuleta to win the 7th season of American Idol. Throughout the season, it seemed like the sweet kid from Utah could do no wrong. Boasting a strong voice and a boy-next door personality, he nonetheless found himself in the runner-up spot when all the dust cleared.

I personally didn’t think too much of Archuleta (although to be fair, I didn’t think too much of David Cook either), and a cursory listen to his eponymous debut album points out explicitly why he never impressed me-the kid has no soul. It’s one thing to sing perfectly. David has a nice tenor voice, but it’s completely anonymous and devoid of personality. However, singing pretty is only part of the equation. In order to make a truly good record, you have to sell yourself as the person behind the lyrics, whether you wrote them or not. Archuleta could be reading the lyrics of this album off of cue cards, for all I know. That’s the type of bland we’re looking at, boys and girls.

It’s really hard to write about this album, because just about every song on it sounds alike. Most of the songs are midtempo, with acoustic guitars over digitized handclaps (there is one odious piano ballad called To Be With You). All of the songs have easily identifiable big pop hooks. Some songs have a faint rock edge (A Little Too Not Over You, one of the better songs on the album), while some songs have the slightest tinge of “urban” sounds (Touch My Hands, which has that Ne-Yo/Stargate perfected vibe that just about every pop song these days bites). First single Crush is easily the best song on the album-and that’s due more to the lonely sounding piano riff and the monster hook than it is to David’s actual singing. The album’s one other highlight is the anthemic Desperate, which sounds like a Daughtry song minus the live percussion. No surprise that this song was written by arena-rock king Desmond Child.

David Archuleta ends with a cover of Robbie Williams’ hit song Angels, last heard being massacred by Jessica Simpson. Archuleta, again, sings the song perfectly from a technical standpoint. But unlike Williams’ version-and I’m sure Robbie would himself admit that he’s not the best singer in the world-Archuleta’s rendition is completely bland and soulless. I suppose it could be worse-I could be listening to Jessica singing this song again.

Granted, I’m not a 16-year old girl (although it could be argued that I occasionally have the musical tastes of one), so I definitely don’t fit into David Archuleta’s target demographic. But I can’t even imagine how the average teenage girl can find anything remotely interesting here with the exception of the pinup poster that the CD booklet folds out into (OMGOMGHESSOCUUUUUTE!!!!). There’s nothing particularly danceable, and the songwriting (from a smorgasbord of hired guns, including new AI judge Kara Dioguardi) is the epitome of hackwork. While this album is already a success-closing in on Gold status after not even a month in stores-it’s hard to imagine Archuleta having any sort of career after Idol fans’ memories have faded, unless he gets caught speeding with meth in his car and turns into an angst-ridden rocker (you know that somebody that innocent-seeming is f*cked up in the head…come on, admit it). As for this album, here’s what I’d imagine the three current judges saying.

Randy: “It was just ai-ight for me, dawg”.
Paula: “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the Frosted Lucky Charms, they’re magically delicious!” (delivered in a slur, after which she falls out of her chair, crawls to the stage and kisses David full on the lips)
Simon: “That was completely and utterly boring. A waste of 45 minutes of my time”.

This time, I agree with Simon.