The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Clay Aiken, the runner-up of American Idol Season 2 and the most successful runner-up ever, is back with his 3rd release, On My Way Here. It's interesting that he would release an album while he is on Broadway, too busy to promote it. A similar lack of promo lead to his last release in 2006 to cap off at 500k. Hopefully, RCA won't make the same mistake.
The first single off the album is the title track. Written by Ryan Tedder from OneRepublic, it is a pretty standard piano pop ballad. The song is about a person's journey through their life and how events shape it. Lyrically, its a very nice song, but for me, it lacks that kind of passion his songs had in the past. Think of "Apologize", or "Bleeding Love", or even "Stop and Stare". The words of those songs really have some meat to them. They invoke a certain feeling, whether its defiance, sadness, or remorse. "On My Way Here" doesn't really satisfy any emotion. Its just a nice song.
Unless, of course, he wrote a generic song so that Clay Aiken's voice could really shine. It does. He still has that beautiful tone to his voice that won him a legion of fans during the second season. 5 years has brought a lot of changes to Clay (hair, controversy), but that voice has remained solid. That said, he doesn't bring much to the song besides the obvious. He does sing it with a passion, as he always does, but then again, there is really no passion to pull from.
There is nothing wrong with Clay. It's just the song. It would have been better if Clay kick off his new album with a song that was powerful, both lyrically and vocally. Instead, he stuck this blandness to review.
His album "On My Way Here", is released today in stores and on iTunes.
RATING: 6.5/10
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