Published on Feb 21, 2007
American Idol is pretty popular these days, but I don't follow it. Honestly, when I first heard about Chris Daughtry's self-titled album, I thought he was just another up-and-coming musician; it was only later that I discovered where he'd gotten his big break. This is what piqued my curiosity and I grabbed his album shortly thereafter. Could an artist from such a background actually appeal to a hard-rocking pop-hating cynic like me?
Well, yes and no. I can't deny that Daughtry's pretty talented, but I had trouble swallowing the derivative content that this album tried to push on me. Rather than keeping my interest, Daughtry sounded so generic that I found myself tuning his crooning out after a while. DAUGHTRY [Editor's note: Yes the title-slash-band name is in fact spelled in all caps and no we won't snarkily speculate here as to why that might be. Though we are, in truth, sorely tempted.] falls into a mistake commonly seen in freshman albums — nearly every song sounds exactly the same, save for one or two singles which are expected to sell the album to radio listeners and fans.
There are some exceptions, of course. The first single and track on the album, "It's Not Over," is solid. It's memorable and has just the right mix of rock and pop that it's difficult to classify; suffice it to say that if the rest of the album was of similar quality, we'd have a winner on our hands here. The problem, of course, is that it is not. "Home," a slower track that emphasizes the soulful qualities of Daughtry's voice, is tolerable; "Feels Like Tonight" is actually pretty good; "There And Back Again" has the most rock on the album, but that ends up emphasizing that Daughtry should be focusing on that instead of trying to mix genres together.
All in all, Daughtry comes off as a watered-down version of Three Doors Down or Fuel. If he concentrated on one part of his music, preferably the rock aspect, he'd be a truly great artist. As it is, he just barely manages average; if he comes out with a sophomore album with a little more variety, I'd be the first to recommend him, but as it is, I'd recommend leaving Daughtry on the radio and television.