Since bravely changed the classic of Bon Jovi You Give Love a Bad Name, the name of Seattle guy Blake Lewis was disseminated to every corner in America, everyone was eager to know what kind of the future was waiting for this guy who can perfectly connect beatbox and rock ‘n’ roll.
Blake Lewis has never let down others. In the audition of American Idol Season 6, judge Simon Cowell gave a positive comment to this young man. “brave and willing to take risk” is the most phrase Cowell said during Lewis’s journey in American Idol. In the week of 6 to 4, a brave and fantastic arrangement of You Give Love a Bad Name was thought to be “one of the most original performances in American Idol”. Although Lewis was beat by Jordin Sparks in the Final, You Give Love a Bad Name was charted No.18 in the Billboard on May, 2007. He should be proud of this achievement as a rookie in music industry.
In his debut album Audio Daydream, Lewis would not let down his fans as well. Ryan “Alias” Tedder, the apprentice of well-known producer Timbarland, produced most of the songs for this album. This album was majorly in the style of electric hip-hop and R&B, and the format of Intro/Outro matched the most popular CD arrangement. Furthermore, Silence Is Golden…(Intro) and …I Choose Noise (Outro) reflected the whole concept Lewis made the album.
First single Break Anotha was a typical Blake-style. The beginning of the song was Lewis’s beatbox, this proved he did not drop his merit in American Idol which made this song recognizable. Electric synthesizer played a vital role in this song. This also made this song feel like a party song. Although this song was lacking in “wow” moments, it was still sufficient and perfect for those who love dance music to dance with it.
The second song in the album Gots To Get Her (Inspired By Puttin’ On The Ritz) delivered a Spanish atmosphere to the listeners at the intro. Just as the name of the song stated, this song mainly borrowed the idea of Fred Astaire’s Puttin’ On The Ritz, but Lewis’s rearrangement made the song fresh and exciting. What’s more, Lewis’s beatbox in the bridge boosted the song to another climax. We can say that this song was the most outstanding one in the whole album.
As the only song cooperated with rap singer Lupe Fiasco, Know My Name brought the listeners a little bit feeling of street. It was also exciting to have rap and beatbox mashing up in a song and this was the one. Besides, the use of artificially high tone by Lewis made this song come up as a style of urban R&B. This kind of singing method reminded us another beatboxer-singer Justin Timberlake, who was also the template that people compared Lewis to. The last 15-second beatbox was also the exciting moment of this song which fully showed up the beatbox skills Lewis has.
Of course, there have some slow-tempo songs in the album, such as How Many Words, Without You, 1000 Miles, End of the World and I Got U. How Many Words was I think the best among them. Although Lewis used beatbox to open the song, the whole song teemed with special psychedelic atmosphere, like pulling people into a world of visional. The beatbox was not redundant in this song; it appropriately added a feeling of sadness. His artificial voice also matched the song properly. 1000 Miles was a typical slow song. The arrangement was as the title that feels like taking people far away. Although the lyrics were a little bit conventional (talking about misunderstanding in love and pain of being apart), there still have echo you could find in Lewis’s voice if listening carefully.
The most interesting part in this album was BShoty Grabs Mic. 1-minute long sheer beatbox was the first appearance in the history of American Idol-produced albums. For Lewis, this was the only and the perfect opportunity to display his multiple beatbox talent. This 1 minute reminded us the wonderful performance in the Finale of Season 6 between Lewis and Doug E Fresh.
In total, this album was a brand-new attempt to the winner of American Idol. Fans were worry at the beginning that Lewis would give up beatboxing, but it seemed meaningless. Like Lewis said on an interview he put on his Myspace, he would keep being a beatboxer. Furthermore, Lewis made an obvious improvement in vocal in this album, but using artificial voice in the high-pitch range brought Lewis’s narrow vocal range out of the table. Fortunately, Lewis smartly avoided the high notes and abundantly used of electricity improved the quality of this album.
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