Label: RCA Sound/Style: Earnestly sung, rock-centered but pop-informed American hybrid
By Steve Morley
The terms “pop music” and “rock music” sometimes overlap—hence the hyphenated term pop-rock—but the two categories belong to separate schools of thought. Pop, generally speaking, is vocal-driven and designed for maximum appeal, usually wielding fewer rough edges or experimental features than rock, which traditionally has thrived on guitars, drums and attitude. This makes pop a more suitable companion for network television, which still pays the bills by appealing to the largest audience possible.
Case in point: The first six winners on TVs popular talent competition, American Idol, have all pursued careers in the fields of pop or pop-country. David Cook, the show’s 2008 champion, is the first rock singer to walk away with first place. But even Cook isn’t immune to the show’s predominant pop influence. His major-label debut, while brimming with bristling guitars, also includes his Idol-spawned adult contemporary chart-topper, “The Time of My Life.” The swaying track boasts one of the stronger melodies to be heard on the self-titled album, but its presence here also represents the compromise between pop and rock that prevents the disc from being a standout example of either.
Tracks like “Light On” take a cue from the soft verse/loud chorus formula of late 1990s alternative rock, a style suited to Cook’s grainy and dynamic vocals. The heavy-footed swagger of “Bar-Ba-Sol” provides the album’s only shot of 100-proof rock, though “Mr. Sensitive” runs a close second. Peddling a turn-the-other-cheek sentiment, it ultimately betrays its title, ramping up from a subdued intro to a climax pulsing with chunky guitar figures. (“I would like to introduce Mr. Sensitive/ The one who never let the worst/ Get the best of him.”) It’s elsewhere, on flimsier fare like “Come Back to Me,” that Cook most awkwardly straddles heart-on-sleeve emotions with rock aspirations. Here, Cook displays the most significant disconnect between the anti-mainstream Seattle-based “grunge” sound that his music draws from and the pop sensibilities that ironically allow it to still remain commercially viable today.
Cook’s versatility proves especially effective, though, on “Permanent,” an unapologetic ballad about Cook’s younger brother, whose battle with cancer added drama to the elder Cook’s title-winning Idol campaign. (“Will you think that you're all alone when no one's there to hold your hand?/ When all you know seems so far away and everything is temporary, rest your head/ I'm permanent…”) The promise of strength and compassion heard in “Permanent” briefly calls the spiritual to mind, as does “Heroes,” which evokes images of intimacy with a higher power, however undefined. (“I'm not going to come down/ Down off of these clouds/ All these heroes come and go/ But you're still standing/You teach me to rise up/ To open my eyes up/ All these heroes come and go/ But you're still standing.”) While Cook draws from the wells of both pop and rock, he resists the sexual clichés common to both. He often favors words and ideas that elicit power, but he’s no stranger to vulnerability, either. Just as a true chocolate aficionado prefers the pure stuff over a peanut butter cup, dyed-in-the-wool rockers may reject Cook, or at least question his credibility. But anyone with a pop-slanted ear will find it difficult to doubt his sincerity.
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