KRIS ALLEN > Kris Allen

KRIS ALLEN

Kris Allen

(19 RECORDINGS/JIVE)

[Rating: 3 stars]

The revelation here on this, the debut of American Idol champion Kris Allen, is not that he’s a great vocalist—the world already knows that—but that he’s also a gifted songwriter. Many of the songs here are co-written by Allen and one or two other writers, but “Red Guitar” is the one song here he wrote entirely alone, and it’s the stand-out track of the album. It’s a power ballad, but a poignant one, and suggests that if Allen could be freed from the gaggle of producers who produced this, and allowed to write his own songs, he could be a serious contender. With AI’s Simon Fuller at the helm, however, expectations for mass success are so vast that liberating Allen to realize his own musical vision is not in the cards. The first single, “Live Like We’re Dying”—which was already a hit for the Irish band The Script—seems aimed much more for the charts than for hearts, and despite Allen’s impassioned singing, it sounds like the finale of a Broadway musical. But if “Red Guitar” is any indication of what Allen can do on his own, perhaps someone in his camp will realize that this Johnny Cougar’s got Mellencamp potential, and can be more than an Idol, he can be an artist.