http://www.bworldonline.com/Weekender06200....php?id=stayin1

Victory lap for David Cook
It’s the first time songs performed on American Idol have been made available for immediate download on iTunes — and the audience’s ability to make an instant gratification purchase has paid off handsomely for winner David Cook.

Cook’s "The Time of My Life," first performed during the American Idol results show May 21, has since tallied 236,000 downloads, placing it at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Digital Songs chart and helping to land it at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In fact, Cook has 14 songs from throughout the American Idol season on Hot Digital Songs, with "Dream Big" at No. 7 with 110,000 downloads and his version of U2’s "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For" at No. 9 with 98,000 downloads. All told, Cook sold 888,000 downloads of his songs in one week. (Besides the songs from the final two episodes, iTunes offered a limited run of contestants songs from earlier in the season. The older songs are no longer available.)

It has been a similar whirlwind for Cook since his win, as he shuttles between press appointments and photo shoots. He is discovering that being the star of the country’s biggest reality show — 31.7 million people watched the finale on Fox — sometimes has its surreal moments.


American Idol winner David Cook performs "I loved my time on the show, but I’ve been looking forward to just being able to get back to the creative process of writing and recording," he says. "It’s going to be interesting to be able to play a song and not have to wonder where ’camera A’ is."

And now that the grueling weekly production cycle is over, will he miss the regular jolt of acerbic commentary from judge Simon Cowell?

"All the things that they said on air, they repeated to me off air," he says. After Cook performed Our Lady Peace’s "Innocent" and, he says, "somehow made it through to the next round, I had a chance to talk to Simon. He goes [assumes British accent], ’David, are you going to pull it together next week?’ It’s constructive criticism wrapped up in a tart little package." Cook shouldn’t feel too bad about that performance, though — it’s No. 69 on Hot Digital Songs with 23,000 downloads.

For most of June, Cook will focus on rehearsals for the American Idols Live tour, which features the top 10 finalists and runs for almost three months. The trek begins July 1 in Glendale, Arizona, and wraps Sept. 13 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.


on NBC’s Today show in New York, May 29, and interacts with fans later on "It’s going to be more of a mini-concert for everybody," he says. "There will be some group numbers [and] some duets, but for the most part I think everybody gets to do at least three songs. I’ve always loved the idea of waking up in a different city every day, so to be able to do that on this kind of scale is going to be an experience."

And then, after the tour, comes the transition period from day-in and day-out American Idol mania to establishing a voice as a musician separate from the show.

"I lucked out in this whole scenario because I knew going in what kind of artist I wanted to be and what kind of writer I was," says Cook, whose debut is due in the fall. "I don’t see myself straying too far from what I was doing before, which is kind of a rock vibe with some catchy pop choruses. The cool thing now is that I don’t have to worry about taking shortcuts. I have the resources to put together a record that I’m going to be proud of, I hope, for the rest of my life." — Nielsen Entertainment News Wire

Thanks for posting!

Great article, thanks!

That's a cool article with kind of a different take on the business side of the things. I have to acknowledge that the point the article's author makes about the whole instant gratification of having the iTunes available has definitely fed into my obsession with Mr. Cook's voice.

GREAT article, thanks for sharing.Can't wait till october/november for the CD.

Thanks for sharing. I love that man. So articulate and eloquent!

Bring on the tour and cd!

thanks for posting that! i'm so looking forward to what he'll be doing on his own.

Thanks for sharing the article.

Our David really has so much CLASS. I am so glad that we will be able to watch him grow on this journey. The more I hear him sing, the more I read about him, listen to him interview on the radio or TV, you just can't help but embrace him.