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for April, 2008.
By rascal
These theme nights are for the most part perfectly awful. Since when is the test of a contemporary American pop star that they can perform Neil Diamond songs? This format takes what is already a limited and contrived arrangement and makes it considerably more likely to reveal weaknesses rather than strengths. In this regard, David Cook must be singled out and commended for making stellar lemonade out of thematic lemons in almost every case. Whether that ability is really the one that ought to be used exclusively to determine a performer’s artistic viability, however, is another question entirely.
David Archuleta’s selections were smart, all things considered, and indicative of his growth as a competitor, if not entirely as an artist. I take David at his word when he says that he chooses to view the proceedings not as a competition but as an opportunity to perform and hone his skills, but the fact remains that it is, after all, a competition. Even if one wants only to continue to perform, one must at some level determine how to stay in. And so for what may be the first time, David made more strategic choices, particularly with America. A far more obvious (and powerful) choice might have been He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, but almost certainly would have triggered merciless criticism for being too far inside his comfort zone. His lemonade was a tad sweet, and the cheese factor nearly impossible to reduce when working with such material, but he made the best out of a bad situation.
The one truly gratifying aspect of the America performance for me was the increasing presence of David’s maturing vocal strength. An extremely exciting power is beginning to emerge from behind his already well-known control and dexterity, in yet another indication of an enormous musical versatility that may still be in its early stages. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that this contest has so far emphasized genre and arrangement capability, skills that are in most cases well beyond the scope of the performer. Would we really have as deep an admiration for Frank Sinatra without Nelson Riddle? Or an entire generation of artists without Baby Face?
It’s great to be able to see David Archuleta in performance every week, frustrating as it might be to endure the shackles of such narrow parameters. One can only hope that such restrictions will serve to highlight for David those musical directions that are truly his own to pursue. That will be exciting indeed.
By rascal
Think of Me.mp3
I haven’t written much about the studio recordings because for the most part I don’t really like them. They rotate the kids through the studio as quickly as they can and it always sounds it. The cuts from a technical standpoint are generally professional (although some of my audio engineering colleagues have even questioned that aspect), but they invariably feel rushed and incomplete from an artistic standpoint. You can’t really win with this Idol set up: The live performances are better but too brief, while the studio performances are longer but fall far short of their potential.
In David’s case, my feeling has always been that he just hasn’t had the benefit of the right studio producer, one who knows what he’s capable of and how to get it. The energy of a live audience is enough to drive the dynamics of his performance into a realm of intensity that he has yet to achieve in the studio. David’s current tendency seems to be to “lay back into the lovely,” with his instrument, and although possibly a wise tactic in the midst of a long competition where vocal stress is a constant risk, it nevertheless compromises his power in the studio; on the bigger songs especially.
What we hadn’t really had until Think if Me was a song of such intimacy that David’s current studio tendencies really pay off. It was difficult at first to get past the insanely sentimental arrangement–complete with overdone glissandos, sappy violins, and a freakin’ harp for God’s sakes (I think a hiring criterion for American Idol arrangers must be a predilection for extra cheese)–but gradually I was able to appreciate what David himself had accomplished with this one, and it is quite remarkable.
His voice has never sounded better. Clear, rich, resonant, and in a strange way both round and sharp. There isn’t a hint of labor in this performance. Like Fred Astaire, whose legendary commitment to practice and craft made his flawless performances seem so utterly effortless, David sings as though a pure conduit for the plaintive heart of the song. He channels the music more than he performs it.
Ironically, though perhaps not surprisingly, David’s musical crafting is much smarter than the arrangement. The sophistication of his musical intelligence might be most evident in the melodic variations from “imagine me, trying too hard…” (at 1:43) through to “…think of those things we’ll never do…” (2:01). With all the riffing and melisma going on in popular music today, it is extremely challenging to come up with unexpected choices, but David does it with an unerring ear for restraint.
I was gratified to learn in a recent interview with Dean Kaelin, David’s voice coach, that David and his team were not terribly thrilled with the arrangement, either. They had apparently been lobbying for a jazzier, more contemporary treatment. Doesn’t surprise me in the least, and gives me hope that when the industry gets a hold of him, that he won’t capitulate his instincts to their greed. David must have had at least some impact on the ultimate approach used for the live performance (which comes after the studio recording in the weekly production sequence), because Tuesday night’s arrangement was perceptibly less saccharine than the studio version (note the dissonance added to the guitar intro for starters).
It’s incredibly easy to go overboard with R&B-rooted genre stylings but David never does (even despite encouragements in that direction from notable producers like Randy Jackson). David has what so many gifted entertainers often lack: taste. I’m convinced this is the reason that his detractors find him “boring.” These are the same people who find boring the sumptuously subtle in any artistic form. These are the people, God bless them, who don’t even notice something unless it’s completely over-the-top. There is plenty of bombast in American popular entertainment today. I’ll take my David Archuleta without all the extras, thanks.
By rascal
\”Think of Me\” Live Version
Some of my favorite Archuleta performances are turning out to be the ones that are, for lack of a better word, smaller. David continues to surprise and impress because his interest in capturing the listener is clearly not about ‘bringing down the house’ but about making an emotional connection. That’s a risky thing to try and do on a show like American Idol where the unstated criteria for a winning performance is to take it over the top. The Long and Winding Road was the first time I realized how truly sophisticated David could be. That performance did seem on the first viewing a tad on the safe side. But on subsequent plays, I decided that the musical choices were quite impeccable; that it was a deceptively stunning performance. I feel the same way about Think of Me, only more so.
The control, the choices, the textures and tonalities are all simply breathtaking. And I love the fact that there’s always a moment in a David Archuleta song when the thing just gets lifted. He starts it on the ground, it’s humming and floating, and then the wings emerge and spread, and it soars. Here, we get it twice. First, after “spare a thought for me…” and again at the end of the following stanza at “don’t think about the things which might have been…” Most contemporary singers strive for this jump, where the song takes flight, but few achieve it with such elegance. The layers and levels of nuance David brings to his work bodes well for his potential as an album artist, the kind whose work not only stands up to the scrutiny of repeated listening, but which pays big dividends in new discoveries on each play.
Maybe it’s a little annoying that David wasn’t credited for choosing an arrangement that brought the material to a new and contemporary place (the only one of the night, by the way), but I’ll take solace in an observation of recognition from elsewhere. I’ve started to notice that in the mentor segments, there is a small but discernible difference in how the music industry luminaries talk about David, as compared with how they talk about the others. It’s not as much in what they say as it is in their attitude and composure. Like they know something. They seem to get calmer, to speak a bit more quietly, with what I can only interpret as a kind of reverence. Not a reverence for David himself, perhaps, but a reverence for the recognition of something inside him, something maybe a bit familiar, something fine and rare and glimmering. Lord Lloyd Webber gave it a name tonight. He called it a real musical soul.
Welcome to the club, Andrew. If you’d like to pick up a pamphlet on the symptoms of ODD, they’ll be on the table after the meeting.
By rascal
Even considering the fact that all public personalities have their detractors, it seems incomprehensible to those who marvel at David’s sincerity, humility, and gracious disposition (not to mention his remarkable talent) that there could be those who cringe at the very sight of him. These unfortunate souls I call the Anti-Archies, and they seem to fall into two categories.
The first are those who probably secretly like him but wouldn’t think of admitting it. I have a suspicion that a good portion of the press falls into this category. Fearing the loss of whatever street cred or industry rep they think they have, lemming entertainment columnists feel the need to snark their way through the weekly reviews lest they appear to be impressed by a wholesome, smiley kid from Utah performing on a cheesefest like American Idol. Most buckle under the pressure to seem inured to David. The other category are those indoctrinated cynics who simply can’t bring themselves to believe that David is genuine. They seem to cling almost desperately to the idea that there has to be more to the picture, that shyness and humility are either fundamentally incompatible with a talent for performing, or that it indicates other, even sinister issues. I’m no psychologist, but I can’t help but see a pathological fear of vulnerability in this view.
In general, however, I am oddly encouraged by Anti-Archie fire because the true greats are always under-appreciated, misunderstood, and polarizing in the extreme. Even Frank Sinatra was considered over-praised during his career by critics who accused him of being little more than a ’saloon singer.’
Something no one seems to be mentioning is how easy it would be for someone with David’s skills to simply ape what has gone before. Instead, he is making what would typically be, for example, Sayesha’s or Melinda’s territory, entirely his own. Although I continue to believe that he will have even more impact and versatility when he can imbue his performances with greater depth and power as his voice matures, I don’t think we should underestimate the incredible tenderness David brings to his performances, even to the “diva power ballads.” What David is really doing, in my estimation, is taking what is now a nearly forty-year tradition of soul / gospel stylings and infusing them with a warmth and subtlety that has never really been heard before. He is merely doing what he does, I don’t mean to imply that he is consciously pursuing a game-changing strategy, but it nevertheless amounts to an audaciously courageous undertaking.
The fact that a good number of so-called critics don’t get it, or find him “boring” (that one always makes my head spin) is, I have decided, a very good sign. The combination of such obviously vivid talent on the one hand, and such inexplicably clueless criticism on the other, is precisely the reaction that every truly historic singer has ever had.
By rascal
\”When You Believe\” Live Version
Originally posted on 4/15/08
There can be no argument about who won this night. The unequivocal champion of this episode of American Idol Season Seven was none other than Nigel Lythgoe. Idol wanted a competition and hell’s bells if they didn’t get it. Of course, in order to accomplish such a feat in such a season, they not only had to subjugate David Archuleta to the acknowledged calamity spot, but just to hedge their bets and trounce his odds even further (even if in an unproven, subliminal, yet eerily predictable way), they backed him with the dreaded red lights. It says something about the power of the Archulator that these are the lengths to which the producers must go in order to try and level the playing field.
Cookie and Castro were, in a word, magnificent. I’ve always been a Castro fan and it thrills me to see him gaining confidence and a bit of gravity. He tends to float like a Deadhead in a field of wildflowers, and while that’s delightful on a summer Friday afternoon it doesn’t always translate to Saturday night (luaus notwithstanding). Cookie is cool. Cookie is a standout. Cookie is reaching his prime. Cookie just doesn’t do it for me. The really idiotic thing about the whole hot mess is that it’s going to wind up being a competition between styles, not talents. Like putting Elton John up against Bob Dylan. What manufactured apples and oranges kind of phony contest is that? Oh, right–the American Idol kind.
David Archuleta is not anywhere near his prime. David Archuleta’s prime could easily be ten years out. But David Archuleta is a bona-fide phenomenon. People thought Randy was stuck on some kind of digital loop when he kept marveling at David’s age in audition after audition, but Randy wasn’t marveling at what was in front of him in that moment as much as at what was in all probability to come-–perhaps many years from now. Tonight was thrilling, but as David develops greater ease and assurance, the still-nascent aspects of his instrument become more evident. David’s voice isn’t close to being fully mature. He clearly wants to do things that his physiology can’t quite support. Indeed, his vocal attributes appear to morph by the week. We heard for perhaps the first time on When You Believe a new strength and resonance in the lower register. He powered through the middle as always, and reached into the sky of his range with beautiful, if somewhat diaphanous, high notes. His critics tend to gripe about his supposed lack of versatility, but this is relegated to the somewhat contrived category of song selection. Show me a singer who displays anywhere near as much versatility within the scope of the song itself. Not on that stage, I can tell you.
But there was more to David’s triumph tonight. More, even, than the merits of the performance itself.
Seventeen is a very tough age, especially for an artistic, introverted type. David is bright but he’s not savvy. He is neither experienced nor naturally worldly, and I think the level of attention on him and the magnitude of the circumstances were a enormous shock when the top twelve contestants were all trotted out for the press. I believe things changed for David that weekend. The one-two punch of the media glare and forgetting his lyrics in performance hit him like a tidal wave. He suddenly realized he had to regroup. Be an adult. Get serious. If the critics were right in saying that he started playing it safe, who could blame him?
Even though Maria Carey is in David’s wheelhouse, this was by no means a risk-free performance. We are clearly seeing a new, emerging strength in David. A distinct recognition of his own power–to overcome adversity, perhaps, to trust himself; maybe even to dispense with the whole idea of “little David” altogether. Tonight may in time be seen as the moment David became a man. That he did it with a power diva ballad complete with crazy falsetto high notes and a growl as fierce as anything Christian Siriano could put on a runway is almost as significant as the fact that he didn’t wear a jacket. When you really and finally feel older, there is suddenly less of a compulsion to look it. David mined his reservoir of confidence, the one he needed to dig after the wake-up call of top twelve, and not only reclaimed his fearlessness, but found deeper levels of truth.
By rascal
\”Angels\” Live Version
Originally posted on 4/10/08
After Imagine I was using words like “legend” and phrases like “history in the making” (Justin Guarini also used this phrase for David on his blog). After Another Day In Paradise, I made the comparison to Elton John. What is particularly gratifying to me is not that my own early predictions are now being echoed in the press and by legions of fans, but that David himself is actually beginning to meet these ridiculously high expectations. And–-as if it needs to be said again–he’s still only seventeen. Make no mistake: he could still diminish. Oh, not in this competition, he’ll almost certainly win it, but there’s also every possibility that he could make poor career choices, fail to capture the public imagination on his musical pursuits, or simply peak too soon.
Personally, I think this is unlikely. And it’s because of the gesture.
The realization of David’s potential is as much about his musical prowess as it is about the expression of his soul. Indeed, it is the fact that these aspects of his humanity are so often one in the same that enable him to touch people’s hearts in such a pure and direct way. And if his artistic progress was limited to just that, it would still be rare and magnificent. But there’s more here. It might seem like a small thing, and certainly not unprecedented in the realm of the live performer, but David’s decision to communicate his heart in yet another way–to telegraph to his fans an acknowledgment of support and appreciation–-that’s the sign of a deeply thoughtful individual; one for whom it would be, I would suggest, extremely surprising to see expected or conventional choices of any kind. He certainly hasn’t made them so far.
Throughout all the controversy and speculation about who influences him, what he really decides on his own, and even whether or not he is even operating entirely under his own initiative, I’ve gradually come to believe that David has a lot more to do with what we see and experience from him than anyone is yet giving him credit for. I am beginning to believe that beneath that blushing, humble, kind, generous demeanor is a young man of gentle but steady determination; one who is as vulnerable and compassionate as he is resolute. Can we not can hear this in his song? Indeed, can we not know David most intimately, most fully, in his song? Listen. The entirety of his being is right there.
By rascal
\”Smokey Mountain Memories\” Live Version
Originally posted on 4/8/08
Like great art, fine wine, or sublime composition of any sort, there is an element of discovery in David’s appeal. He is not going to stun you into a deer-in-the-headlights expression with vocal pyrotechnics and bombast. What David offers is a rare dimension of thoughtfulness that is never short on power but nevertheless couched in subtlety. David does something that few performers–even many great ones–-often neglect: He invites you to participate in his performance. He asks you to listen. And he makes you feel.
Despite his obvious skill, David seems too honest to manufacture emotion like some performers. He is genuinely emotional, and this song evidently had real meaning for him. It’s a song of longing, of bittersweet nostalgia for days gone by, of missing loved ones and lost comforts. According to reports from friends, these very feelings have been surfacing lately, as the weeks and months of work and dedication to American Idol take their toll.
Unlike some of the other contestants who either live closer or have the means to travel more easily, David has apparently not been home at all. Anyone who has traveled for business knows that living out of a hotel for any extended period becomes unbearable at certain times. Combined with all the pressure and demands–-not to mention schoolwork and the usual family squabbles–-well, you do the math. David seems an extremely sensitive soul. His heartaches are bared through his music, and he invites us to cry with him.
By rascal
\”The Long and Winding Road\” Live Version
Originally posted on 3/18/08
Some people don’t get it, don’t buy it, don’t respond to it. That’s the nature of diversity. Celebrate it. But an enormous number of people in this country are swooning over this kid, and for very good reason.
The persistent criticism that interests me most is the sense that some have of his being overly prepared, somehow contrived, even “robotic.” Of the number of things I find bewildering and amusing about these views is the fact that working professionals have far more in the way of advisers than David does at this point. Between the stylists, vocal coaches, directors, choreographers, trainers, nutritionists, producers, lawyers and publicists, most performers are prepared within an inch of their life.
But my central hypothesis on this perception is that for some, there is a cognitive disconnect between how young and innocent David seems, and how skilled he is in his performances. The two critical interpretations of this apparent contradiction are that either his innocence is phony, or that he is over-coached. Some people just can’t seem to accept this phenomenon at face value; to the point where they’ll even accuse others of “buying in” to something that is somehow untrue.
There is no doubt that David has studied and learned the skills of his craft. Good on him. But as his voice coach, Dean Kaelin, emphasized in a recent interview, you can’t teach talent. And that extends to inherent musicality. Science has shown that musical aptitude resides in a part of the brain distinct and separate from other functions, including language and memory. Basically, you either have it or your don’t. And David has it in spades. His musical instincts are extremely sophisticated. Much more so than anyone around him could be given credit for. Plus, if he was somehow being fed these choices, it would never come off as so integrated into his being as it is. You just can’t fake that, no matter how much you practice.
For me, as for so many others, it is indeed the very lack of pretense, combined with such beautifully-crafted talent, that makes David so immensely appealing. If any of his critics have an interest in getting to this place of appreciation (not that they should), they’ll need to let down the defenses that help them understand and deal with an otherwise harsh and cynical world, and open up to the pure possibility that is David Archuleta.
