Revisionist history has cast Taylor Hicks’ win in Season 5 of “American Idol” as a mistake or a joke, but I think it’s one of the only times that America actually made the right decision. Unlike most of the winners, Hicks seemed less preoccupied with being a star than with actually being a successful musician. “Idol” just gave him a platform to bring his sound to a larger audience, but without the show, something tells me that Tay-Tay would still be touring the country in a van, singing his grey-haired little lungs out.
After dissolving his deal with RCA Records, Taylor has resumed the life of an independent musician (albeit a really famous independent musician) and has just released the first video from his upcoming album called “What’s Right is Right”. As expected, it’s by no means contemporary, but that has no bearing on whether it’s good or not. It’s a cool, late-night midtempo offering that has a vaguely Eighties quality to it. If “Idol” had existed a quarter-century earlier, Hicks would have been topping the charts along with Daryl Hall, Michael McDonald and a host of other blue-eyed soul vocalists. Count Taylor Hicks as one of the few “Idol” alumni that I’m actually looking forward to purchasing a second album by.
