Pardon me if this is not allowed, but I'm bringing this over from another thread:

was

Hmmm. Very interesting.

My extent of Idol mania is not as varied as that of others here, so I'm kind of new on these things. I've never been so cuckoo over a contestant or winner like I am for Cook. So I am kind of wondering how it was for other contestants in the past who went on to great things.

Carrie is Queen of Country now, but how was it when she was on the show and right afterwards? I've seen some clips of her on YouTube and while she didn't exactly slay me I also didn't get the feeling she had no stage presence, either.

I also remember when I heard that Daughtry turned down the Fuel gig I thought we would never see him again. Obviously not. Was there a lot of skepticism about him too?

I am just kind of curious about this, particularly the Carrie thing. I remember reading an EW article way back when that people were really surprised that SH did so well. Was it a shocker to a lot of people?

i can't say much because i was just a fan of the show, when any of the winners finally show up with their albums i just think well good for them. the only two winners i liked way after the show was kelly and carrie, most especially carrie because i didn't like her that much while she was on the show but i really love her songs now.

to be honest i thought daughtry would be done for but it just goes to show how much i really know about these things.

my take is if they do well, that's great. if they don't then i hope they had a good ride. if you ask me, DC will probably do pretty well, judging from the people on this site who will support him.

Note to self: back this post up to my hard drive.

I think trashtalk is just part of human nature.

That said, I didn't watch much of AI in the past. I personally will admit here I've always thought it was a lame show, designed to perpetuate the lowest common denominator of popular culture. DC has been way too classy in his statements explaining why he never pursued this competition. He's a bigger person than I am.

I remember rooting for Bo Bice, but only mildly because I didn't watch it that much. I remember thinking Carrie Underwood was the cookie-cutter Barbie production team favorite and after she won it just further confirmed my suspicion that the show is rigged or heavily influences the voting or whatever. However, I don't remember that I cared enough at the time to mention my opinion to anyone in my life at the time. I just filed it in the back of my mind that AI was lame, the judges were lame, and Carrie Underwood was lame.

I happened to see her perform on a recent episode of Saturday Night Live and I have to say, I thought her first song (All American Girl or something) was kinda lame too. But the second one, (On the Floor or the like) absolutely blew my arse out of the water! I couldn't believe what I was seeing or hearing.

It must be said here that I am not a fan of country music. No surprise - I think it's lame. That said, I respect people like the Dixie Chicks, but only because they got death threats after expressing their opinion of the President and because they did a cover of "Landslide." I also like a bit of Southern-ish rock, but only in limited cases.

That SNL performance by CU led me to *not* FFW through her "Don't know my Last Name" or similar (gotta love those narrative country song titles) on Idol Gives Back night. Again, totally blew my socks off. I ended up staying up way past my bedtime watching almost all of CU's AI performances from the earliest to the last one, trying to figure out at which point she grew those huge cojones. While I saw the vocal chops and a bit of her swaying singing style, I can't say I saw much of a personality, more of a blank slate.

I paid her no mind whatsoever in the 2+ years after she won AI. Not until that episode of SNL. So maybe someone else can tell me. Is this 'new and hardass' - which I much prefer to quaint and demure - CU a result of RCA's influence? Her manager? Production team? Or did she somewhere along the line dig way down deep and discover her own bigger than all expectations Self?

Who is responsible for this massive transformation from insipid small-town yes-sir rube to self-possessed edgy female dare-I-say-it Southern Rocker?

Not saying I'll buy her records. Just that I won't be so quick to turn the channel the next time I see her on TV.

PS - this is what gives me hope about DC's post-AI trajectory. Based on the above, even if he has to toe some market-research-driven line imposed upon him by RCA or whoever, eventually, if we wait long enough, they'll let him have his Voice back. And I don't mean that dark, sexy smokey one; I mean the inner impetus that has driven all of his Wise and Excellent choices up until this moment.

Well, I WAS a fan of Carrie's when she was on American Idol, but not as big of a fan as I was of Bo Bice. I thought that it was rigged when she won, but I thought she was a really sweet girl. But now, and I'm NOT trying to be offensive or start anything because I love her music and I her fans are GREAT, but it just seems like in the interviews she does, she seems like she's a totally different person than the one on American Idol. I don't see any resemblance to the girl I liked on the show. Maybe she was just shy there? I think this NEW Carrie started with "Before He Cheats". That's where the bad-girl Carrie first came out, in my opinion.

Again, I love Carrie's music, I'm just not sure why her personality changed so drastically all of a sudden. It's strange.

As for DC, I think he'll do well as long as people like us on this board who have been following him since the beginning, stick around until that album comes out. It's been one of my fears since Idol ended that some of the fans would abandon him after the show. I think Carrie has done so well because her fans stuck beside her through the whole thing.

Like someone else said, when Chris Daughtry left the show (I was a HUGE fan of his and I cried a lot when he left), I seriously had doubts that I would ever see him again, especially after the Fuel thing. I was completely, wrong though. His album is amazing and I'm so proud of him and his success. I just hope we get the same thing with DC.

~Steph

well i think everyone is guilty of trash talk in one way or another (come on, maybe not to the extreme, but you know you've trashed talked at least one contestant in the past) i just can't stand rumors and the most famous of all for both davids: "HE IS SOOOO GAY!" i meancome on WHAT is that?! you have no right to accuse either of them and so what if it's true?! i also hate those youtube videos that bash them. it gets to be crazy and pathetic. there was a comment on youtube and (i feel horrible just repeating it) the person...well let's just say they wished the worst for cooks family.

i think it had something to do with Before He Cheats and her management is really pushing her to be this sexy/bad ass girl which i don't really mind. i think she's hot LOL but i think it's like most female performers out there right now, they have this really sexy/hot/outrageous on stage self and they have a low key off stage. when i read carrie underwood's interviews i can tell she's still the same sweet girl. i think it works for her and for her career. i LOVE the thigh high boots and the sexy stage outfits, but i'm just weird like that

Steph,

You sort of hit the nail on the head with this part right here:



This was one of the biggest reasons why I think Blake's album didn't do so well when it came out last year. A lot of the fans had moved onto something else by the time December rolled around with the CD's release last year. There was almost a 3-month lapse last year between the end of AI and the announcement of Jordin's record deal with Jive (May 23-August 17) and Blake's announcement coming one week later (August 24th). Jordin's release of her first single from her CD seemed to be timed just perfectly with her record deal announcement. Tattoo was released 10 days after her deal with Jive became official and of course she had momentum from the AI tour on top of it so it was sort of keeping her name out there. I know some aren't too crazy about TOML being the single right now, but what some don't realize is that without the airplay, radio and TV interviews, to the fans with short attention spans, it's like, out of sight, out of mind and they will easy get distracted by something else. I know most of the fans would rather being hearing different material from David, but at least for the time being, it's something because we don't want it to look like David's success is nothing but just a lot of post win hype because he won AI. One thing people need to remember though too is that whether or not TOML is success doesn't in any way indicate that it is in any way setting a benchmark on his career.

I actually don't think that will be much of a problem for them because he is so media-ready and likable. Besides, he already had his transformation during the show. We saw him go from a quirky, goofy, chubby bartender to a humble, intelligent, sensitive heartthrob who could pretty much take any song and make it sound like it would play to a modern audience with his mad vocals and arranging skills. Cookie interviews like he's been doing it for years. They don't need to mold him. He's ready. That part seems to have been taken care of long ago.

Musically, I don't think they'll bother him much, either. Cookie is smart and knew how to play this game. He's pretty up for anything and he's not going to piss off the people who let him write songs with his hero. In the RS BTS video, there's a lot of talk about making the record "accessible" so while it may not please everybody, I think he'll play along with a lot of the stuff they'll want him to do to make the record radio-friendly. It's pretty clear that AI has a revolving team of songwriters and I really don't think they've decided yet who's going to write what for who. Supposedly Diane Warren wants to write for MJ so maybe she'll leave Cookie alone.

Trash talking comes with the territory of being successful. There's an old saying... "you ain't sh*t if they ain't talking sh*t about you".

I complelty agree with this statement. I have been a huge Carrie fan ever since she was on AI. I have seen her eight times in concert and was lucky enough to get a meet and greet with her. During the meet and greet she was very polite and soft spoken. She had a southern charm to her. I didn't get that "Hollywood" vibe from her at all. To me she seemed very shy. But on stage she is totally different. She confident and sexy. I read in one article that she said that she has fun on stage because she can let herself go and be someone different. I think the same is true for a lot of female performers.

I was pretty crushed when Carrie beat Bo because I thought Bo had really delivered throughout the season. At that time I said I would never watch the show again, but here I am still the loyal AI watcher. I don't remember the exact particulars, but the judges were critical of Bo on finale night because one song in particular wasn't widely recogizable (and it wasn't the 'Coronation' song). However, as I recall, I don't even think that was his own song selection - it was one picked out by someone else on the show (perhaps producers?). I was suspicious of whether that was a set-up.

Simon saw something in Carrie though to predict that she would go on to sell the most records of any AI contestant. At the time, I couldn't really fathom that based on her performances on the show but I think it helped her to be in the country genre.

i think Carrie was called "robotic" by people over at TWOP. i wasn't a fan of her during the show. i think Bo did better on the finale performance. but i like her now. i think her voice is fantastic and i love her songs.

I was a big fan of and voted for Carrie Underwood while she was on AI because I thought she had an amazing voice, was very sweet, and I do like Country. I was not into YouTube or any kind of celebrity thing so I was not aware that she was talked a lot of trash about after she won. Interviews or speaking to crowds were not her forte and I think she admitted that but indicated it was something she was working on and she has gotten to where she seems very comfortable now.

What I think is a good thing is that it appears that the songs on her first album were written just for her since it is definitely Country, although a number of the songs would appeal to other than Country lovers. I love every song on there, in fact I love both her albums. That makes me think that they will probably do the same thing for DC with his Rock.

If Carrie was talked trash about and she has made out as well as she has and seems to have kept grounded and kept her sanity, I'm sure that David Cook can handle it. Personally I read/watch/listen to David Cook stuff (love him like a son) as an escape from all the negative stuff going on this world, so I don't even read anything, or watch anything that sounds as if it's going to be negative anymore. There are always going to be rude people who just can't stand to see someone else do well, you just have to ignore them.

I have watched AI from the beginning and voted occasionally for other contestants but never paid much attention to them after the show was over. I always loved Kelly's voice and it was fun to watch her evolve on the show but I wasn't always a fan of her song choices.