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Tag: Taylor Hicks

  • Taylor Hicks’ “The Distance”: True To No One But Himself

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    Taylor Hicks by far received the most derision of any “American Idol” winner in the show’s existence. He wasn’t “young”, he wasn’t “cute”, he wasn’t “pop”, and there was the whole screaming “Soul Patrol!” thing that rubbed a lot of folks the wrong way. But I’ll put my musical reputation on the line and say that Taylor was the most musically sound “American Idol” winner in the show’s history. With years of singing in smoky bars and clubs behind him, Hicks personified a musician’s musician. Which also explains why he butted heads with the major-label suits who didn’t know what to do with him and wound up releasing the worst-selling debut album by an “American Idol” winner in history (although with a not-too-shabby shiny Platinum record, we shouldn’t cry for Taylor too much).

    Despite the relative lack of success of Taylor’s debut, it was still the first album by any “Idol” contestant that I ever bought with my own money, and I enjoyed it a good bit. Hicks would have been right at home on the charts with Steve Winwood, James Ingram and (the singer he most resembles) Michael McDonald, on the charts back in 1986, and since that’s an era of music I’m particularly fond of, his music sounded just fine for me. However-it didn’t sound just fine for his label, and Taylor and the folks at 19 Management and RCA Records agreed to part ways.

    So now Taylor Hicks is an indie artist, which is probably right where he wants to be, making the album he wants to make. That album, “The Distance”, shouldn’t be much of a surprise to those who’ve been following the grey-haired crooner since his “Idol” days. The music is straight-ahead pop/rock, with no trendy bells and whistles. The production, helmed by British pop legend Simon Climie, is solid if a little too clean (and completely recorded on “live” instruments! Barely a synthesizer to be found!), and then there’s Taylor’s husky voice. While he’ll never be the soul singer he fancies himself, it’s fairly obvious that this man has the right set of influences and has listened to his share of Marvin Gaye and Ray Charles.

    So, here’s the thing about Taylor, right? You know the guy’s going for the obvious, hokey cliché, but you go there with him anyway because he obviously believes what he’s singing. Take the track “Nineteen”, one of several songs on “The Distance” with a bit of a country flavor to it. You’ve heard songs like this a million times before-kid witnesses 9/11 and decides to enlist to serve his country. Despite the obviousness of the song concept (and here’s a spoiler-the kid doesn’t die), Taylor infuses the song with such a personal investment in the lyrics that you can’t be mad at him.

    Ultimately, that’s “The Distance”’s saving grace. Taylor takes boilerplate lyrics about topics like racism (the well-intentioned but kinda cheesy title track) and the media’s celebrity obsession (the cheeky rave-up “Keeping it Real”) and, by virtue of his delivery (which nevertheless skates around Michael Bolton aneurysm territory a couple of times) makes them listenable. However, don’t let another soul singer get within sniffing distance. Fellow Season 5 finalist Elliott Yamin shows up for a cover of 2009 Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Famer Bobby Womack’s classic “Woman’s Gotta Have It”, and his warm, Stevie-inflected delivery leaves no doubt as to who should have really won “Idol” that year.

    In a time when we have previous “Idol”s tucking their tails between their legs and kissing corporate butt for a hit (hi, Kelly Clarkson. I’m talking to you), I’m backing Taylor Hicks just on principle. The kid (and I can afford to say “kid” because he’s younger than me) came in with a plan to get himself heard, accomplished it and then went back to doing what he loved best, only with a bit more fame to carry his name. Something tells me he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  • New Release of the Week 3/10/09: Kelly Clarkson

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    OK. We’re going to experiment with a new format here. I’ve been stretching to find new releases to talk about for almost the entire year now, so maybe focusing on one release would be better.

    So, yeah, Kelly Clarkson’s back. If you all remember, America’s Sweetheart went down in flames with her last album, “My December”, although truth be told, the music enclosed within wasn’t a hell of a lot different (or better, or worse…maybe a little less catchy) from the music that had rocketed her to fame a couple years prior with hits like “Since You Been Gone”. Her lyrics may have been a little angrier, but it’s not like being an angry broad didn’t help Alanis Morissette sell fifteen million records, right? At any rate, much was made of her beef with label head Clive Davis, a man who apparently had an issue that Clarkson decided to (shock, horror) write her own material without the help of song doctors. Davis worked his best “I’ll show you, bitch!” magic, and “My December” went on to sell a respectable but not blockbuster-level 800,000 copies.

    Now, if I was Kelly, I’d have been like “Look, 800K is not a bad number, especially in today’s music market. I’ll keep my publishing, downsize my fan base a little bit and keep on truckin’”. However, I’m obviously not Kelly Clarkson, because Idol #1 went back to Clive with her proverbial tail between her legs and rejoined forces with song doctors old (Max Martin) and new (Katy Perry-for true??) for her fourth album, “All I Ever Wanted”, which is out today. So far, the gambit is working: the first single, “My Life Would Suck Without You”, rocketed to #1 on the Billboard charts, even though the song itself is a lazy recycling of “Since You (or was it U) Been Gone”.  The album’s gotten decent reviews so far, which at least gives me a little hope that the remainder of the set is better than the single. Kelly begrudgingly gets my $9.99, as will her “Idol” brethren Taylor Hicks. These two start off the “Idol” release season proper with their new albums-watch out for new albums by the likes of Elliott Yamin, Mandisa, Ruben Studdard and LaKisha Jones, all before the current season ends this spring. People talk a lot of shit about Taylor, but I give him props. He seems like the one “Idol” winner who’s not interested in selling out for success. Good for him.

    In addition to Kelly and Taylor, here are a couple of other quick hits:

    The-Dream is the latest in a long line of R&B artists who are much better songwriters and/or producers than they are singers. The guy behind songs like “Umbrella” and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” is back with his second album, which is called “Love or Money” or “Love vs. Money” or some bullshit like that. Maybe someone should change the title to “Stick to Producing, Bucko”, because The-Dream’s simplistic lyrics and barely-there singing voice don’t give me much hope for this guy being the future of R&B. Then again, his records sell, so what do I know?

    One of the guys The-Dream helped rocket to fame was J. Holiday. If you’ll remember, he had that song “Bed” a couple years ago, which mixed a Prince-style slow jam with that damn “eh” tic that “Umbrella” popularized. It was surprisingly effective, but the success of the song had everything to do with the song itself and nothing to do with the artist. So expect the sophomore slump to eat Holiday whole with his new “Round 2”. Oh, I love imaginative titles. Don’t you?

    Two words you never expected to hear in a sentence together: Chris Cornell and Timbaland. Well, guess what? The greatest rock vocalist of his generation hooks up with Timbo (I’m not going to wrack my brain to come up with a superlative in this case) for the oft-delayed album “Scream”, which is sure to piss off every Cornell fan that Audioslave (who I actually *liked*) didn’t already piss off. I think it’s hilarious when people call moves like this “selling out”. ‘Cause first off, it’s not like Cornell wasn’t already selling googobs of records, right? Second, what rock icon would take the chance of working with a commercially successful pop producer, running the risk of alienating his *entire* audience, and say “Yeah, this is gonna sell me TONS of records!”? Like, are you serious?

    OK. I wrote way more than was my original intention, so I’ll bring this column to a speedy close by saying you can get a complete list of albums that came out today right here. Enjoy.

  • First Look: Taylor Hicks’ What’s Right is Right

    taytayRevisionist 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.