It was produced by the Norwegian duo Stargate, and it sounds like a cousin of Beyonce's Irreplaceable, another Stargate production. More often, though, the musical references are unexpected. No Air, with Chris Brown, breathes life into the over-familiar piano line from Coldplay's Clocks. And Permanent Monday is a hybrid so bizarre it's all but impossible to hate.
A couple of inspirational songs are hidden at the end, perhaps to remind listeners of the middling CD this could have been but isn't. If you're so inclined, you can pretend the album ends two tracks earlier, with See My Side, which must be one of the year's prettiest pop songs.
It starts softly and restrainedly, with Sparks murmuring the same note (it's a G) 33 times in a row, accompanied by a chiming music box, a buzzing bass and a few echoey hand claps.
T he acronym came first. That's a helpful bit of background when it comes to Audio Day Dream, the amiably scattershot debut by Blake Lewis, this year's runner-up on American Idol. Apparently ADD - attention deficit disorder, that is - provides a useful model for an artist as effervescent as Lewis. So if the album feels disjointed, even jumbled, that's only natural; check the diagnosis.
In the first few tracks Lewis bops along from flagship pop to lightweight hip-hop to a retro brand of new wave, manipulating his limber voice as needed. Results range from the appealing to the appalling, but on balance this code of eclecticism serves him well. It's as if the process that brought him to prominence stayed with him long after results were in.
Even as he enlists an impressive array of producers - including Ryan Alias Tedder, Mike Elizondo, J.R. Rotem, Sam Watters and BT - Lewis advances a loose but unified style. As unabashedly enamored of 1980s synth-pop as 1990s skate punk, he isn't afraid to sigh or croon. And judging by his songwriting credits on all but one of the album's tracks, he has a capable ear for melody, or at least for hooks that don't overreach.
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