Holding my breath

To most of you who will read this, you can deduce that I am a fan of American Idol Taylor Hicks and the evidence of that would be the endorsement I made a few months back of his fansite.

Anyhow, while I was browsing at a non-Taylor fansite, I read some posts regarding reviews of Taylor's possible singles (see links below) and most of them really hit a nerve to me. Not only were they overly critical of him, some posts were downright rude and disrespectful to Taylor and the type of music he does. I, together with all of the self restraint I can muster, did not respond to the posts, nor even posted my own opinion in fears of ruining the good relationship I have with the members in there.

That is why I went here, in the comfort of my own blog, to vent out hurt feelings that I have. I don't hate the people at that fansite for saying such things about Taylor, but at the nature and situation of why those things were said. I tried thinking about if it was Kellie Pickler who won and their favorite, I know most of them like the Pickler, but would they say the same things if she released songs from her album? I think it was put in the context of "you stole the AI crown of my favorite, so everything you do shall suck". In my opinion, Taylor's type of music does not readily cater to all types of crowds, but with the charisma he has, I'm sure he'll win new fans once his CD comes out.

All I'm saying is that it's this: I believe he won American Idol fair and square (I know that's a debatable topic, but I'd like to believe otherwise), like all the runners-up, he also deserves a chance to get his music heard and be loved by everybody else. He doesn't deserve to be dismissed with a flick of a finger just like that. I just hope people will give him the chance, especially those who think he shouldn't have won.

Here are the links to the songs previewed a few days back at www.graycharles.com. I'm not sure if you can leave comments there at the moment, but check out the site nonetheless, they have some good commentaries about the singles.

The Right Place:

http://media.bmgonline.com/jrecords.com/various/audio/TheRightPlace_HI.asx

Dream Myself Awake:

http://media.bmgonline.com/jrecords.com/various/audio/DreamMyselfAwake_HI.asx

The Runaround

http://media.bmgonline.com/jrecords.com/various/audio/TheRunaround_HI.asx

The album itself, I believe, will drop on December 12, 2006 nationwide in the US. I'm just not sure when the international (specifically SouthEast Asia) release would be.

For more information about Taylor and everything about him, here are sites that you can visit:

www.taylorhicks.com (official site)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Hicks (biography)

www.americanidol.com (official American Idol site and message boards)