Sunday, November 15, 2009

My Amazon Reviews: Daughtry "Leave This Town"

This Town Like a Million Other Towns,
3 Out of 5 Stars

What do you get when you formulate Bon Jovi + Nickleback divided it by 1/8th Nashville? You get the second album by Daughtry. Chris Daughtry, the most successful loser on American Idol, likes his grunge-lite and radio friendly, even while he and his mates pose like bad boys. The little girls may understand, the boys get the faux menace, and the moms raised on Bon Jovi and Bad Company just might dig them, too. As the lead single states, "No Surprise" indeed.

Daughtry likes their hooks thick and melodic, which makes all the songs here easy to digest. And Chris is a solid songwriter, with both "Ghost Of Me" and "Life After You" really good songs. There's just not much here that you haven't heard a thousand times before, done better. I get no sense that Daughtry is themselves, although the ubder-compressed production would probably bury anything remotely subtle. "Leave This Town" is so wretchedly flat-boxed that I was getting ear-fatigue by the time Vince Gill's country choirboy vocal appeared on "Tennessee Line." (Shades of Bon Jovi and Def Leppard's song with Tim McGraw!)

Bottom line: Did you like the first Daughtry, latest Nickleback or Bon Jovi's Nashville outing? If so, you'll be right at home with "Leave This Town."

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