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for May, 2008.
By rascal
Here’s a perfect example of where the impact of a true artist really lies. Take away the multi-million dollar sets, the hundreds of lighting instruments, the sound system and steadicam shots, the stylists and big-screen closeups, and what are you left with?
Absolute brilliance.
David visited the Children’s Hospital of New York Presbyterian at Columbia University Medical Center following his appearance on Regis & Kelly and gave one of his most heartfelt performances of “Angels.” Thanks to kccy for bringing this to our attention (if weeping at work is unsuitable, then this clip is NSFW).[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcroXxHe_9w]
By rascal
I find Cook to be a complex character. He appears intelligent and articulate, perhaps a bit arrogant on occasion, smug even, but he also seems genuine and kind. I can’t help but but admire and appreciate the obviously protective role he has adopted with Archie and, in all honesty, I can’t think of a better arrangement or maybe even a better individual for the job. These are both bright, talented, compassionate guys and I should think they have a great deal in common. It’s amusing to think of how they were probably eying each other just a little suspiciously at the beginning, not from a competitive standpoint per sé, but just the way guys do, and that now they have a personal and professional intimacy that no doubt enriches them both immensely.
The most interesting thing, I think, is how this relationship would have differed–perhaps fundamentally–had the place finishes been reversed. Cook has an ego. That’s not a bad thing. But I wonder if his enormous generosity and affection for Archie would have had quite the same tenor if Cook had come in second.
I went on record nearly two weeks ago with my assertion that runner-up would be a far more beneficial status to Archie, but as I’ve watched the post-finale dynamics I realize how limited the scope of my vision was in the matter. I had not anticipated the range of advantages which are now accruing to him precisely because he did not win. The press, for example, now has license to praise him, to like him, even to root for him. Had he proved the inevitability he was anointed to be, the press would have performed their duty to report it and moved on–most likely to Cook. But there’s nothing the press likes more than an upset–unless it’s an underdog. Archie has never been in that choice position before and it is already doing him enormous favors from a public-relations standpoint.
I suppose I could have seen that coming, but what I never would have predicted was how much of an advantage having someone like David Cook was going to be in Archie’s ability to embrace his role as a public figure and handle the media. All of us who have been so fixated on his journey know that Archie is a sponge, a relentless observer and learner (I had to smile when he caught that shaving foam; flaky people whose minds wander can’t do those sorts of things) who needs more than anything to have role models in the dimensions of life where he is not prodigious. For who Archie is, what he needs, and what is best for him personally and professionally, this is not the consolation prize. This is the best of all possible worlds.
By rascal
Although it might be too late to apologize for all the short-sighted critics who even now continue to forecast David’s niche in Disney drivel or Groban goo, reality has a funny way of proving the fallacy of predictions.
With well over 500,000 views in just four days across all the YouTube uploads of David’s brilliant duet with One Republic, it looks like Archie’s ability to hit with soulful, contemporary pop is already being proven. This in addition to the buzz volume on just how stunning this performance is–folks just can’t seem to get enough of it.
Download the MP3
Play it:
David_Archuleta_Apologize.mp3
Watch it:[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D9cnShTOAI]
By rascal
From his daily notes, voice coach Dean Kaelin has compiled a narrative of David’s vocal and musical trek to the top of the American Idol pantheon and into the hearts of America. This is the other side of the story we all saw unfold on stage, and it is told with warmth, insight, and marvelous detail by one of David’s closest collaborators and confidants.
The numerous alternate song selections are inventoried, many of which David learned and was ready to perform before various circumstances would suddenly require a new selection. Many of the titles are surprising and all of them are intriguing. What would it have been like, for example, to have heard David perform Something to Talk About by Bonnie Rait, or Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’? We can only Imagine. And speaking of Imagine, Dean reports that the incredible success of David’s performance of the song was apparently instrumental in helping American Idol acquire clearance to use the Lennon-McCartney and Beatles catalogs, something they had been seeking unsuccessfully for years.
Dean’s ambivalent relationship to the press is also chronicled, as he tries–with varying degrees of success–to help represent David and his family’s interests in the media during the repeated rounds of rumor-mongering and controversy over Jeff Archuleta’s influence and involvement. Dean also provides ample evidence of how unfounded and exaggerated the press reports were on this issue.
Perhaps most revelatory, however, is the discovery of just how much courage David displayed in bringing to his performances vocal elements and nuances that he had never used before. In addition to the challenges faced by every contestant–polishing their style and technique, bringing versatility to arrangements and different genres–David, at only just seventeen, was dealing with a voice that was still changing (”settling in” as Dean calls it). He was discovering notes he hadn’t had before, lamenting the loss of others, and having to figure out how to optimize the sound of an instrument that was not only still in flux but was in many ways new and unfamiliar on an almost weekly basis. But that never stopped David from taking chances. As Dean describes it, David might have been tentative in rehearsals and uncertain during warm ups; he might express doubts about more dramatic suggestions, but when it came to performance time, Dean would watch and marvel at how David would fearlessly take on every gamble, hazard every flourish, and catapult himself to the top of every week’s heap.
The David Archuleta we meet in these pages is to a certain extent familiar–the gentle nature, the humility and integrity–but there is also a David we could only ever surmise by the results we would see on the stage each week: the determined and careful craftsman, the analyst and planner, and yes, even the strategist. Even with a gift of talent as abundant as David’s, accomplishment and success in the real world does not come without enormous sacrifice and dedication. David may be a sweet and tender soul, but he is also a beast of a hard worker.
The journal will be available shortly in eBook form and can be purchased at www.davidarchuletastory.com. Due to overwhelming demand, there is a slight backlog in the distribution of orders purchased through previous methods.
By rascal
Dear David,
I realize that you were never–or at least almost never–in it for the win. But it may still take some time for you to realize how fortunate you are to have avoided the heavy mantle of “American Idol.” You’ll understand someday that your potential for legitimacy on your own terms is vastly improved without it.
Because your opportunity to work and create in the music industry is for all intents and purposes identical to what it would have been had you in fact won the dubious distinction of a title, it is just as important for you to assess this inevitability with care and measure. I offer the following to you for whatever worth, if any, it may have.
1. Don’t Rush
In regards to the first music you select as your calling card to world, your producers and sponsors will tell you that the most important thing to them is quality, as well as your own satisfaction. Don’t believe them. What they really want is speed. They will want to capitalize on your current success and visibility. Many of them will cynically believe that your teen girl fan base will buy anything you release at this point, and they fear losing the momentum and attention you’ve gained. Don’t be pressured. Stand your ground. Learn to say “no” until you feel something is absolutely right. Your youth gives you an enormous advantage in this respect: You’ve got all the time in the world. Everyone else needs to rush. You don’t.
2. Beware The Sycophant
This is going to be difficult for you, David, because your compassionate nature inclines you toward giving people the benefit of the doubt. You see the good in others and want to trust them. You’ll need to temper this inclination. The entertainment industry is full of great actors, most of whom are not on a stage or in front of a camera. And it’s not even so much that they don’t mean what they say when they say it, as much as that they are capable of saying just the opposite ten minutes later and meaning that, too. Integrity is in short supply in this industry. It doesn’t mean that they are bad people. They just do questionable and selfish things. There’s a Buddhist saying: “Love the bee but beware the sting.”
3. Avoid Categorization
In the course of your discussions with producers, agents, and publicists, you will hear time and time again (so often, in fact, that it will sound like a skipping CD) who or what you should be “like.” Understand that the one thing the entertainment industry is designed to avoid at all possible costs is originality. They can’t explain it, they can’t package it, they can’t promote it. You need to trust your audience more than you trust the industry. Your audience will get it. They will understand you. Don’t let anyone put you in any labeled buckets other than one labeled “David Archuleta.”
4. Play
Successful creative people know that art comes from a sense of play. Your most treasured skills and techniques were probably developed not in practice sessions with Dean or in contests or performances, but in your own room, listening to recordings and experimenting with your voice, or noodling around on the piano. It is sometimes very hard to remember to bring that sense of play into a studio when a lot of highly-paid people are standing around. Don’t let it throw you. If you’re not having fun, call a break. Go play a video game. They will wait for you. Artists are not considered Divas because they require certain ways of working but because of how they treat people. That will never be an issue for you, so don’t shy away from having everyone work the way you want to work. They will respect and appreciate you for it, because they’ll know that it means getting a better result.
5. Live and Write
One of your biggest challenges may be in finding the courage to live who you are more than what you feel is expected of you. And that has everything to do with who you are as an artist as much as it does who you are as a person. If the proposed idea is to trust the God in your heart more than the one on the page or in the pulpit, it is not intended to contradict spiritual teaching but to emphasize the power of a personal connection to the source of all things. Spiritual work involves cultivating an awareness of that connection. If you are here, you were meant to be here just as you are. Don’t let anyone tell you that you need to change. Your contributions to music might well involve writing. Maybe not now, or even in the near future, but someday, and possibly in a big way. Great writing flows from a deep immersion in life and in being human, with all its messy contradictions, its bliss and its terrors, from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Godspeed, David. You’ll never know the depths to which you have touched and connected so many lives.
By rascal
And lo, he looked out over the landscape of the nation, over all the watercooler debates and snarky press dismissals, over all the producer manipulations and judge coercions, the skepticism and rationalizations, and he saw the non-believers, the unfortunate faithless, and he said unto them, “behold, and hear me, and you shall doubt no more.”
Don’t let the Sun Go Down on Me
Dont_Let_The_Sun_Go_Down_on_Me.mp3
In This Moment
In_This_Moment.mp3
Imagine
Imagine-Top_Two.mp3
By rascal
I don’t mean put a damper on the day’s anticipation, but maybe it’s important for us to be a little pragmatic about the big picture. Whether or not David prevails in this thing is almost entirely unrelated to his talents and abilities. The two contestants are so widely divergent in virtually every aspect of their appeal, that the crowning of a “winner” seems utterly pointless. Within the context of the competition, however, we have been able to get a glimpse of what David is likely to encounter in the culture at large as his career unfolds, particularly in the press. So far, it ain’t pretty.
David’s treatment by the news media has bothered me all season. Less so the scandal-mongering about his dad (that’s par for the course) but more the overall condescension he has received not just from sniveling little piss-ants like Michael Slezak of Entertainment Weekly, or the astoundingly lazy and inept Joanna Weiss at the Boston Globe, but across the board in less explicitly insulting ways. The undermining of David Archuleta in the media has naturally intensified over the past week, where the outright favoritism for David Cook (particularly on the Fox O&Os-–those of you with a penchant for conspiracies can mine that ore) has reached a fever pitch.
It is frustrating not because I need anything in the way of validation for my own point of view, or because I have even a passing interest in the outcome of this inane competition, but because it feels incongruous and unfair that David is denied anything resembling an objective, thoughtful, and balanced consideration of his unique assets. I console myself with the knowledge that true originals are always misunderstood by a clueless and callous world, but my analytical nature compels me to identify some of the reasons for this annoying state of affairs.
1. The press can’t abide an inevitability.
Hillary Clinton learned this the hard way. When a competitor begins a race by taking on the mantle of the odds-on favorite, the only possible story opportunity is in their downfall. Even if the press doesn’t intentionally or consciously facilitate this story arc, they support and contribute to it anyway.
2. Reporters on this beat are not music but television critics.
It has been gratifying, though perhaps not surprising, that the more people know about music the more impressed they are with David Archuleta. Television reviewers do not, by and large, know about music (I am not entirely certain what, exactly, they do know about).
3. Those who defy easy categorization are categorized anyway.
The demands of the media machine compel shortcuts to real observation and explanation. Despite the fact that the most superficial aspects of David’s appeal are not the ones that his most thoughtful fans focus on, they are nevertheless the easiest and most available for the media. David is cute and young and has a lovely voice. Of course that can only mean Disney or Josh Groban. Spellcheck, submit.
4. Media mass-appeal is driven on the middle-of-the-road.
It is important to remember that the press is a business with customers just like any other commercial industry. Pandering to the middle is a way of life. David Archuleta is an exceedingly odd duck in this regard, because on paper, he seems to be ideally suited to the mass middle but in practice he is actually much more sophisticated. This state of affairs is far too confusing for a lazy and deadline-driven industry, and I might suggest that there may even be a hint of resentment in the notion that David doesn’t precisely meet these lower expectations.
I can only hope that David doesn’t become convinced to lower his own expectations, because God knows his producers and sponsors will want to please the press more than they’ll want to please David. But before all of that, we get to see him perform once again in the context of this ridiculous show. And somehow it all seems worth it.
By rascal
A nice dedication video.[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQwt7Xcm85A]
