Music To My Ears: Kris Allen's "Moment"

Top of the Ninth, Bases are Loaded and Kris Allen Steals The Show

Kris Allen is currently in a fierce battle with Matt Giraud for the title of 'dark horse' of Season Eight. This past week, in a self-admitted (and successful) attempt to create a "moment", Kris pulled into the lead by making Ain't No Sunshine (When She's Gone), a 38-year-old song that has been covered approximately 236,794 times*, sound original and current, while Matt did a current song by The Fray. Badly.

* ok, I exaggerate. But, a lot.

Kris earned an understated but emphatic approval from Simon ("good job")--capping off a string of subdued approvals and constructive critiques by Simon over the past several weeks. The previous week, when Kris did a perfectly acceptable and squeaky clean version of Marvin Gaye's How Sweet It Is, Simon told him he wasn't "conceited" enough.

Simon looks for killer instinct, and knows that without it one is unlikely to have the star power to ever make it in the music biz. In Simon's world, arrogance is a virtue and egocentricity is not just an important quality, it is an essential one. Kris--the "tender puppy"--is a bit of an enigma to Simon, because aside from being cute as a button, Kris is nice. Nice confuses Simon, almost as much as country music does. Nice guys finish last, certainly in Simon's world. Or, do they?

He may be nice, but what Kris showed us last Tuesday is that he is also a fierce, and very smart, competitor. This tender puppy has TEETH. Kris knows what Matt seems not to know (and Danny is struggling to show): that to advance in this competition, it is not enough to be talented. You must also be relevant; clear-sighted in your artistic vision and solid in your execution; capable of listening, learning and growing from the feedback you receive each week; and able to choose and arrange songs--no matter what the theme--that show off your particular musical skills.

The only thing I can possibly fault Kris on is his wardrobe, which leaves a lot to be desired. :-P (Kris--bold choice to go with the grey T-shirt. Much better than the khaki shirt of last week). LOL

But even in this, I sense a (perhaps unconscious) strategy. Kris is happy to be underestimated, and is using the fact that people's attention is elsewhere to pace himself carefully and slide into the Top 3, having gained tons of friends (fans) and no enemies.

It's a smart play, because it's the ONLY position one can take against the current frontrunner. There is no way to beat Adam at his own game, and it would be insanity to even try. Gokey is going to burn himself out trying to steal the limelight from Adam, instead of creating his own niche. You can almost hear him doing it in his vocals week to week.

The smart money is on whoever (and right now, I believe it will be Kris) can provide a viable alternative: something equally compelling, but different. This week was the week that Danny or Matt could have done it; instead, Kris actually did. (Adam and Kris are roommates--can you think of a better "odd couple"? I wonder how much Kris is learning about Adam's game, and storing up quietly to use against him. hehehe).

I've said it before, I'll say it again: this Idol year is a terrific competition.

Great Song Choice
Kris seems to have a knack for picking great songs--songs that have not been done to death on Idol, and which have great "bones". For the most part, he's chosen songs with great hook-y melodies, in his range and with lyrics that he can sink his musical chops into. Ain't No Sunshine is a fantastic song for him: it's very economical lyric-wise, but also very moody, and it offers a perfect canvas for interpretation. This is the reason, I suppose, that so many have covered it.

It is, at its very heart, a blues song. That rhythmic blues chord progression (Am-Em-G) is simple and classic. Find the cover by Freddy King or the one by Buddy Guy with Tracey Chapman, and you'll hear the song's blues roots brought to the forefront. As a blues song, it also oozes sex appeal; it is very primal. Kris is almost a little too boyish to be sexy (to wit: his self-mocking attempt to put on the sexy face for the camera that we saw last week), but he's smart enough to know that there's a good portion of girlies out there in the voting audience who want to see that from him.

And beyond that, Kris has shown how well he can make a connection to the heart and soul of a song and project that out to the audience. Go back and have a listen to his To Make You Feel My Love to hear another example of this. He's drawing from that same well of emotion, and it's no accident that they intersperse cuts of Kris's homecoming-queen wife during his performances, Simon's earlier cynicism about that notwithstanding.

Strong Vocals
What is surprising about Kris, now that I've gone back and listened about a dozen times to both the live and the studio version of this song, plus his earlier performances, is how good a singer Kris is. I mean, he rarely misses a note! He also uses runs and growls appropriately (Matt: listen up, buddy!), and in ANS, this let him transfer the emotion of the song to the audience with a well-modulated and spine-chilling intensity. Again, go back to To Make You Feel My Love, and you will hear a similar level of control.

He doesn't have the range of an Adam, of course, but he does know his own voice very well, and he can manage things on the fly: he is able to use a number of vocal tricks to get himself out of a jam, as he did during the live performance on at least two occasions, including the very last note. To my ears, that last note--while it wavered a bit--was more or less on pitch, if a bit breathless, and didn't mar the rest of the performance. In fact, it was hearing that roughness that brought home the emotion of the song, and I thought actually strengthened the overall performance. But I am weird like that, as I like to hear vocal imperfections: they bring the interpretation and emotion into relief, and make the performance feel even more real. There is nothing worse to me than a perfect, clean vocal--with no hint of any authentic emotional connection.

Musical Versatility
Now here's where Kris's strategy really paid off, and how with clear intention he vaulted this performance into a "Moment." Out of all the covers I've heard, they are almost exclusively guitar-based. (Trivia tidbit: The original had Stephen Stills on guitar; Stills is ranked #28 on Rolling Stone's List of the Top 100 Guitarists of all time). So doing this on guitar would have been the easy choice for Kris.

Instead, he chose to switch over to keyboards. Very clever move. First, we got to see Kris on a second instrument--a subtle but powerful demonstration of musicianship that automatically racheted up the competition. Since they have allowed instruments on AI, we have seen the artistry on this show go up. Vocal skills are still all-important, but if you can also play an instrument, you can offer the audience another layer of richness in your performance. (Allison, take note: if you're going to play with the big dawgs, you need to play with the big dawgs, y'hear?).

If one is good, two is even better: if you can play both of them well, you are now exhibiting true mastery over your medium. Furthermore, whether Kris did this intentionally or not, he chose instrumentation to set a mood, highlight his skills, and position himself against Matt. Matt had been getting the accolades for instrumental skills; but Kris is no less--and perhaps more--of a musician. He showed exactly how much more this week.

Second, the arrangement itself sounds to me to be completely original. I've now listened to every single cover I can find (all 457,298 of them), and the only one that seems close might be Aaron Neville's. Someone correct me if you've found a similar version out there...but to me, that sounded like Kris's own arrangement. And, what a great interpretation it was: it captured the longing, the sadness, the pent-up frustration of separation. The blues of it. As Adam does with more flamboyance, Kris did here with subtle confidence: he created a perfect storm of staging, arrangement, interpretation, vocal skill and song choice.

One Last Thing: Live versus studio version
I prefer the live version. The studio version is slightly faster, and too string-y for my taste. It's lost the gutsy, bluesy quality. Kris's vocal is beautiful, but the overall arrangement is over-embellished and not as raw. I hate the fade-out at the end, it loses the sadness and poignancy Kris offered with that final falsetto/head voice finish. I am still getting chills re-listening to the live version; not so with the iTunes one.

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Next week: Will Kris keep up the pressure, or has he blown his cover as the dark horse? Will Adam grow complacent and slip? Will Matt get back in the groove and make a final challenge for Top 3? Does Anoop have a hope in heck of catching up? Can Danny regain momentum? Who will be the final gal standing: gritty young rocker Allison or wannabe-diva Lil?

All predictions welcome! As for song choice for birth years, I haven't got a clue, but am looking forward to being surprised...again.