Viva La Mainstream's Obligatory Idol Post

Anyone who reads Idolator, or any other music blog, is aware of the fact that there is overwhelming evidence in favor of the notion that this season's American Idol is gloriously rigged. The benefactors of this fix are former Star Search contestant David Archuleta and grunge-worshipper David Cook, whose album Analog Heart hit #1 on AmazonMP3, only to be squelched by Fox execs wanting to keep the popularity of contestants secret and untainted (read: make sure their guy wins). I've never bothered to watch the show, but if I had to guess how the rest of the season plays out, it would be as follows: Syesha goes home this week, setting up an all-male finale with a million subplots (both have already had success elsewhere, both named David, two totally different styles, and now Archuleta's father is banned from the backstage). Archuleta wins the contest, as hoped for by the Powers That Be, with Cook coming in second. Both get their inevitable record deals, and in a snafu remarkably similar to the Ruben Studdard/Clay Aiken situation (Ruben one, but Clay outsold him by miles), Cook's debut album is a runaway success, while Archie's fizzles out.

Best case scenario, however, has David Cook sent home this week. That way, Cook can still sign a decent record deal where he actually gets to write some of his material on his debut, and isn't stuck with crappy songs that may have been tossed around a few different times. Don't expect me to watch any of the finale, but at least now you have my thoughts.

In keeping with the AI theme of this post, I present to you an EP of stuff from Absent Element, the band fronted by former contestant-turned-rockstar Chris Daughtry. From the looks of it this is pretty exclusive, since nowhere else I know of had it (I got it a year ago from one of my music forums and have sat on it till now). This stuff is much harder than anything on his debut, and a hell of a lot less radio friendly. This might've been what we got had Daughtry not done as well as he did on the show. I'll let you decide whether we're better off or not. For what it's worth, "Break Down" and "Conviction" from this set ultimately became "Breakdown" on the full album. Anyway, have at it, and I'll be back later. Expect a slew of reviews this week now that I have free time again.

Uprooted EP
Absent Element - Break Down
Absent Element - Conviction
Absent Element - Weaker Side
Absent Element - So I Lie Awake
Absent Element - Seven4
Absent Element - Let Me In
Absent Element - Keep Me Close

==TJ==

PS This entry is a test of Blogger's future-post function. I'm typing this 12 hours before the timestamp on this entry. Um, yeah...woohoo!

EDIT: Fixed the goofiness with the links. That'll teach me to be so liberal with my shortcuts :).