Kris Allen may be known to most people as the latest winner of American Idol. Emerging as the underdog winner over judges’ favorite Adam Lambert just proved that anything can happen in reality television. Now, here comes out his first post-Idol single and it does not exactly come out as a very exceptional first single, at least in the eyes of this writer.

The song originally got released by the Irish band, The Script, as a B-Side of their first single, “We Cry” and later as a bonus track of the Japanese edition of their self-titled debut album. One cannot help but see the similarities of Kris’ voice in his rendition of the song and Danny O’Donoghue’s vocals in the original version of the song.

The cover actually works but not that really well. Releasing a cover as a first single has its bad effects and this cover by Kris Allen will always draw comparisons to the original which was done by The Script. One thing going for Kris Allen is that The Script are not yet big in the States and this means that a lot of people may not have heard the original yet.

The song may be inspirational and Kris Allen’s vocals did contribute to the song being catchy and rhythmic. The arrangement, in this writer’s view, would be just fine as the song was sort of danceable.

This was a risk by Kris Allen as the recent Idol winners released original material after winning the Idol competition. The move did not really work. Being compared to the original is something that Allen has to get used to. Add the fact that his voice is not really different from O’Donaghue’s and you have yourselves a problem.

Overall, the song is decent. The song choice is not really wrong but Allen could have gone for original material to start his career after Idol. Still, the effort must be appreciated and the risk taken by Allen is something that must be lauded.

Genre: Pop
Date Released: September 21, 2009
Label: Jive Records