Saturday Rocks - Daughtry

As promised, I was planning to do a Saturday Rocks post on Daughtry , and was toying with giving it the title '4th Place My A$$' but decided to go with the traditional title instead. Back in May 2006, Chris Daughtry was the presumed front-runner to win the fifth season of the show. That left eventual winner Taylor Hicks, runner-up Katharine McPhee, and third-place singer Elliott Yamin in the competition. While many thought this was bad news for the rocker, history proves that to be far from the truth.



In November, the self-titled album was released by the band Daughtry, with front-man Chris Daughtry having been instrumental in picking the members. He chose Jeremy Brady,guitarist; Josh Steely, lead guitarist; Josh Paul, bassist who also played for Suicidal Tendencies; and Joey Barnes, drummer, who was the lead singer of Suicide Darlings. The album debuted at #2 on the Billboard Top 100 chart, finishing behind Jay-Z's Kingdom Come, also released that week. The album hung in the Top 10 for the first 8 weeks, and then secured the top spot in the 9th. It would return to the top spot in the 15th week, and stayed in the top 100 for an amazing 116 weeks, over 2 years. Sales in the US alone were quadruple Platinum, with more than 4.5 million sold.



The first single was released ahead of the album, and did extremely well. It's Not Over was written by Gregg Wattenberg and Mark Wilkerson, with some reworking done by Chris and his buddy from Idol, Ace Young, a favorite on this blog. The debut stormed up the charts, claiming the #4 spot on the Hot 100 chart, #3 on the Pop chart, and #1 on the Adult Pop chart. With the ridiculously catchy hook and harder-edged sound, the song clearly established Daughtry as an act to keep an eye on. The song went on to sell over 2 million copies.



The second single, Home, was a sweet ballad, written by Chris Daughtry. As the story was told, he wrote it as he sat on the sofa at home in North Carolina the day before he left to compete on Idol. It helped him express his love of his family, and the desire to not let music take that away from him. It was released in April of 2007, proving such a long life for the first single. It reached #5 on the Pop Chart, making Daughtry the first former Idol to score two top 5 songs off their debut album. The song also made it to #1 on the Adult Pop chart, lasting for ten weeks. It eventually sold just shy of 2 million copies.



The fourth main single, there were two 'rock' singles in addition (What I Want & Crashed), was a song that was tougher to categorize. Feels Like Tonight was thought of by many as ballad, but the uptempo rhythms made others think of it as anthemic pop. It was written by a team of American writers and a Swede, Dr. Luke, Martin Sandberg (aka Max Martin) and Sheppard Solomon, who had already had hits like Kelly Clarkson's Since U Been Gone. My theory, of course, is that much of popular music in the last 15 years has been done by the Swedes, and they practically own the music industry. Hell, Max Martin alone, really. But the song made it to #24 on the Top 100, #17 on the Pop Chart, and once again #1 on the Adult Pop chart, keeping a successful run for the band.



The 5/7th and final single from the album was written by Ben Moody, David Hodges and Josh Hartzler, two members of the band Evanescence, as well as the man married to lead singer Amy Lee. This song, along with the previous single, were the only two songs on the album not either written or co-written by Chris Daughtry. What About Now is one of those big, anthemic stadium ballads, and Daughtry certainly knew how to play them. The song went to #18 on the Top 100, #21 on the Pop chart, and #3 on the Adult Pop chart. It was release in July of 2008, almost 17 months after the release of the album. This album had such great legs, aided by a strong line of singles that kept Daughtry on the radio and being heard by the world.



Shortly after the release of the album, Jeremy Brady left the band. He was replaced by Brian Craddock. This past April, it was announced Joey Barnes was no longer a part of the band, replaced by Robin Diaz. For more about Daughtry, check out the official website here.