The news released on 8 June 2009 confirmed American Idol winner Kris Allen has signed with 19 Entertainment for a debut album to be released this Fall with record label Jive Records. This is the same label which saw David Archuleta and Jordin Sparks sign with, indicating the AI winner will be targetting a similar youth market segment of screaming young girls across Asia and the US. Certainly Allen's image appeal is closer to the younger female set than say, Daughtry or Cook, or for that matter Adam Lambert. There seems to be some hue and cry lingering over "adult male" fans of AI that cling on to Lambert being the real winner. Perhaps that minority segment hasn't realised one of two things: that the pop market in the US and globally is dominated by young female consumers and married mothers, and that listenability is a key quality - which is why Queen or KISS is still niche compared to the appeal of Kelly Clarkson or Celine Dion. Why Joel McHale thinks Lambert is a winner is no surprise either; but I can empathise with his musing that Adam is lucky NOT to have to record "No Boundaries" is met with concensus. For that song, I think Kris Allen needs to get it re-arranged as a gospel rock anthem and leave it as that. Moving on, no matter what the young Idol fans may rant online about how "cute" he is, it remains to be seen if his album will appeal to the adult pop market - which will be more important to this career as an artiste in the long run - because the "little girls" will buy the album and vote for it on MTV for just the few "sugary pop tunes"; as a real artiste, he needs to get his first album to show maturity and sophistication without having to impress with silly high note leaps which the singing competition had a skew towards simply for entertainment shock value. That Adam kept doing those falsetto chord leaping high notes may be impressive vocally; but many professional singers have trained to do just that especially for theatrical performance. It's just not something you want to hear over and over again on the radio, Joel McHale ("The Soup"); but if that's the sort of chronic tinnitus is what he and the Lambert clan fans want, they are welcome to permanently damage their sense of hearing and musicality.
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