David Archuleta’s new album, The Other Side of Down, has been released on iTunes, following a slightly early shipment of the Fan Edition from the official DavidArchuleta.com site. Fans have waited for months, watching David’s tweets about where he was, who he was writing with, and how excited he was that the album would show his “quirky, dorky” side. We’ve waited with a combination of anxiety and excitement that is unique to a group of dedicated fans. Questions that we asked ourselves were, “Will the reviewers like it?” “Will some of the songs get some good radio play?”  “Will he have a hit single?” and of course, “Will Jive promote it enough?”

During last week’s streaming of the full album on AOL, the reviews began to come in. And now we have a few of our own. So over the next few weeks, we’ll be taking the songs from The Other Side of Down and reviewing them one by one. We hope you’ll join us and give us your perspective. And to help you get started, our own JR has put together all of the lyrics for you to download from the album.

Lyrics – The Other Side of Down – The Album

Song Review – The Other Side of Down

Optimism Personified

The title track of David’s new album, “The Other Side of Down,” could well be his personal anthem, given that the lyrics represent David’s stated current perspective about his life. No matter the difficulties, David will “put one foot in front of the other,” and keep on moving forward.

But one also has to wonder if there are days when David feels overwhelmed by all the changes in his life over the last two years. And perhaps that is what he means by the phrase, “In a whirlwind, spinning, now somehow, it knocked me off my feet, but I know better than to let it get the best of me. I could give up, I could stay stuck, I could move on…”

So many people – fans, DJ’s, TV interviewers – point out David’s inimitable optimism, and we read in Chord of Strength about the tough times that both David and his family experienced, as most families have.  But David doesn’t whine and complain (that’s another song), he looks for opportunities in his circumstances: “I think I spot a silver lining hiding in the gray. I might get tossed around, but am always bouncing back…On the other side of down, it keeps calling me, where I want to be.”

Although The Other Side of Down is not my favorite song from the album, there is something catchy about it. After listening to it, oh, 20 times in the last few days, I noticed a certain shoulder roll taking over my body and the percussion has a distinctive beat that makes my toes tap.

But the pull of this song is not the melody, nor the beat, nor even the Davidesque lyrics; what draws me in is David’s voice – buttery smooth and without any apparent strain and perhaps the mellowest vocals of all of the faster songs on the album – even while he sings the falsetto, “down, down, down.”  The velvet quality that drew us to David’s voice on Idol is still his defining musical characteristic. His complete control over his chosen instrument can make even a so-so song something special.

Give me David Archuleta singing almost anything, and I’ll fall in love with it. And that is what will take David where he wants to be – the voice. As he says so clearly in this song, nothin’s gonna break his stride.

Being a fan during the TOSOD Era^© is a different animal now than it was during American Idol. While on AI, the unique quality of David’s voice hit you like a mallet, but in David’s pop offerings we find that his voice becomes more like an ingredient instead of the main course. But David’s much more extensive involvement in the crafting of TOSOD means that we can see what is uniquely “David” in the songs themselves.

Elevator

Contrary to what seems to be a prevailing opinion on these boards, I would like to come out and admit that Elevator is one of my FAVORITE songs on the album. True to David’s philosophy that this album will reveal more quirky and fun side, Elevator is a unique burst of creativity that bakes a sing-song pop ditty out of a dough of spaciness and confusion. Who da thunk?

The melody goes up and down like a carnival balloon. The rhythm of the notes is infectious. The lyrics paint vivid mind pictures and meld wonderfully with the melody. It’s clear that one way David deals with the ups and downs of his life is to step back from it all and whistle a happy tune, and a catchy one at that.

Mike’s rhythmic guitar hook sets the mood from the beginning, at a somewhat hasty tempo. (I especially the love the guitar lick you hear for the first time right before David sings “I had a dream…”) And then David, always expressive and deliberate with his singing choices, comes in with that flirty quick vibrato in his voice that adds a bit of soul and playfulness into what would otherwise be straight pop. (Compare the first lyric he sings to how it would sound if someone banged it on a piano.)

If we’ve seen Weighty, Mature, Full-Of-Gravitas David in the past, then this clearly must be Playful David. This is “Works for Me” David. This is another refracted view into the mind of a young man with many dimensions, who can write in several musical genres, who sees music as a field for expression and play.

The verses are a carousel ride, with imaginative lyrics, and the melody going up and down is a nice tie-in to the song’s metaphor. But I’m not a fan of the chorus: it delves a bit into generic territory. If the thought was that it might help to make it easier to sing along to, for radio purposes, then I think this was a misstep – it’s the playfulness in the verses that are the actual hook of the song. (Also, in the Regis & Kelly video below, David sings the “High…” line right after the bridge, which I think was a missed opportunity in adding a great hook to the song, perhaps starting with the end of the 2nd chorus.) However, the last chorus is a wonderful mixture of all the melodic lines from the song coming at you at once.

Making It a Single

The first leak of Elevator divided the fan community, and it hasn’t been a hit. But perhaps I can venture as to why the decision to release it was made.

David’s challenge at this point in his career is a more difficult one than it was in 2008. Back then, while riding off his post-AI exposure, he just needed a solid, catchy song to find commercial success.

But today, he has two simultaneous yet contradictory goals: first, to find a solid, catchy pop song (that brings him back from relative obscurity), and second, to find a song that “sells” David as an artist for the long term, that shows how unique he is and makes him “relevant” to a new and young generation. But how to “sell” his “brand,” when his very essence is his eclecticism, both musically and personally?

With Something ‘Bout Love, his management tried to have David “break out” as a dance/pop artist. Now with Elevator, they hope to have David “break out” as a pop/alternative artist. (I’m probably misusing these labels, but you get what I mean.) And now we have the recent press coverage that clearly shows they’re playing up his “silly,” “dorky” side, and Elevator definitely shows this. Elevator is, without a doubt, unique. (Would any other artist have come up with something like this? ) However, that elusive magic combination of popular-but-defining has not been discovered yet.

As for why Elevator song hasn’t hit, the main reason for me is that its message is a bit obscure. One can hear that same melodic, expressive male alternative/folk/pop vibe, a la Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” and Train’s “Hey Soul Sister,” but those songs also had the advantage of being about romantic love. David, though several years these other artists’ junior, is exploring more serious themes, I’m afraid.

The Regis & Kelly Performance

Ahh, but we will see. Although lightning hasn’t struck yet, there is much… ahem, simmering beneath the surface. A look at David’s recent performance of Elevator reveals a leather-clad, markedly older and gosh-dang sexier young man than we haven’t quite seen before. But he’s that same unique, whistle-when-life-brings-you-down, jaunty David that we all know and love. Although David works very hard not to work it, it doesn’t work and he just works it.

Sexiness aside, this is a phenomenon we’ve seen before: once David gets into a song that feels like his own, he becomes another persona. And of course, this song is his own! But more than that, with Elevator we have a song that brings out that confessedly-dorky-and-playful, I-think-it’s-alright-to-just-be-myself David. It brings out his inner extrovert. He is markedly more relaxed and at ease, pumping his shoulder and flirting with the camera. (I especially love 2:26 to 2:30.) And it doesn’t hurt that this more confident David is newly yummy and schmexy.

Although Elevator hasn’t “hit,” it’s nice to see that it is showing the world more of that real David his fans already love. And it stands as another landmark for his own evolution.

The only adviser David will ever need is his own ear.

I don’t know whether this song will hit or not, no one does; it doesn’t matter. It very well could, and it should, but it doesn’t matter. With this frothy, jumpy, deceptively edgy single, David proves his seriousness as a pop craftsman, in range of best-of-breed targets from Abba to Michael Jackson. And I’m not even talking about the performance. David has gone meta.

Despite the overly glossy producer polish, inevitably aggravating those of us who hunger for The Voice (autotune? really?), this feels like more of a David Archuleta production than we’ve had so far in this category. It is interesting that a faction of the fan base are claiming that it “doesn’t sound like a David song,” because I would argue that it actually sounds more like how a pure-pop David Archuleta song should probably sound than any previous production has. No, this is not Salt Lake City soul, or boy balladeer, but it is more successful on its own terms than anything he has previously offered in this genre. David is letting us see just how clever he can be in this game, and he’s not even using his most obvious talents to do it. Oh David, you phenom, you.

Certainly the skills of co-producers Sam Hollander and Dave Katz, with their slick interpretations of emo declarations, offer a uniquely appropriate fit with David’s own sensibilities, and David himself may have capitulated to his more commercial inclinations (nothing wrong with that), but I detect more of David in the mix this time, and not just from the standpoint of singer. You can feel a deeper comfort level, a stronger confidence in the material. Indeed, careful observation of David’s notoriously inscrutable tweets suggest important advances in his role as leader, not just collaborator. This is terribly exciting, especially when the results are so on-the-mark without being completely on-the-nose.

And therein lies the Archuleta genius that is beginning to emerge in his pure-pop confections. There is that strange but unmistakable coolness, something not quite sunny, even in the midst of all the celebration. David knows that emphasizing the brightwork requires shadows. This underlying sense of gravity is becoming an Archuleta trademark; that hint of pathos that David has always had in his favor, and which keeps him from becoming too diaphanous. For as fey as his style may sometimes seem (and for which which many of us treasure him), he is no lightweight. Even in the creamiest of commercial fare David never loses touch with the ground, with the source of the soul. I think that’s where the jumping thing comes from; the Zero Gravity experience is clearly baked into this piece.

The difference here, the evolution of The Archuletor in this instance, is that he is now experimenting with this rich juxtaposition in aspects of music-making other than his voice. The dimensions of David’s own musical intelligence are quite evident in Something ‘Bout Love, from pop prince to soul diva to Texas two-step, all wrapped up neatly and smart in one summery bubble that should bounce awfully easily out of cars and convenience stores all summer long. This is one impressive piece of commercial cargo, and I strongly suspect it is so not because David has succumbed to the likes of Sam and Sluggo, but because he has expanded his role as helmsman of his own work.

– Rascal

Click to listen:

Something ‘Bout Love