never underestimate the boy who is enamoured with crossword puzzles.
written: 1:52 p.m. on Friday, Mar. 28, 2008

(Note: Scroll down, way down, for the non-DCook portions of the entry.)

More David ramblings: Who's the front-runner now?

1. He's Number One on iTunes' overall chart.
Meaning, not just amongst the American Idol contestants, and here's a screen shot to prove it:

He kicked Mariah Carey's ass, yo! (Speaking of Mariah - what kind of a song is "Touch My Body"? The more pressing question is - who the hell would want to listen to a song called "Touch My Body"?)

Fangirl Yelen found a way around the iTunes-only-availabe-in-the-US nonsense and she is proud to announce that she contributed US$0.99 (plus taxes; the random address I entered was an address in a state that had some weird taxes thing which of course I didn't know about) to the Propel David Cook to #1 Fund. She even purchased all of David's Idol performances in video format that cost her US$1.99 each, but they were well worth the money because David in High Def = Amazingness. Totally puts the quality of the videos on YouTube to shame. And somehow the iTunes videos are filmed from a different camera angle from what's shown on TV, and she's pleased to report that these iTunes angles are totally, totally awesome.

But what I really hate about downloading songs from iTunes is that iTunes, the people behind iTunes, their IP lawyers, ARE A BUNCH OF MONOPOLISTIC RETARDS. Basically I cannot transfer the songs to my mp3 player straight away, unless I own an iPod. Well I don't fucking own a bloody iPod because in a rare spurt of patriotism that lasted for about three seconds, I bought a Creative mp3 player BECAUSE IT IS HOME-GROWN. So sue me for wanting to show my country some support, okay? I don't see why I can't transfer the stupid song to my non-iPod mp3 player when I paid the same bloody price for it as an iPod user. I hate iTunes. I officially hate Apple now and I'm never buying any Apple products. Restricting iTunes to the US is also completely against the current trend of free trade and whatever else, and if I hadn't been told of the loophole, I would've continued downloading David's songs illegally. Is that what they want? Some people actually want to pay for these songs but they can't, because they're not in the US. That is just retarded. Even worse is the fucked up file format of the songs that are downloaded from iTunes.

Okay, yes, there is a way around it, like there's a way around everything nowadays. But it involves burning the song onto a CD then burning it back as an mp3 file and I'm just too lazy to do that. Besides, I've had really horrible experiences trying to burn audio/mp3 CDs lately; did I mention that I went through 4 CDs before I finally succeeded in burning all of David's songs onto one CD for driving usage? So now I have two blank CD-RWs lying around that I have no use for because they're not compatible with either my laptop or my external CD/DVD burner (I suspect it's just a DVD burner because it doesn't read the CD-RWs that the manual claims it read. Piece of SHIT).

Since I still need David's studio recordings in my mp3 player, and since I'm too lazy to do the CD burning thing, guess what I do? I download a normal mp3 version of his recordings to transfer into my mp3 player. So basically the one that I buy is effectively useless. To make myself feel better, I force myself to open iTunes every now and then to play my DCook playlist, just so I can tell myself that I'm not totally wasting my money downloading songs that I can get for free, and paying for something that I cannot transfer to my mp3 player.

I swear, my love for David knows NO bounds.

2. He's Number One TV Guide's Power Ranking.


And he's #1 by a mile. TV Guide's poll gives each registered user one vote, so even if I wanted to stuff the poll with votes for my husband, I couldn't. Two weeks ago David was also #1, but David A. only lost out to him by a few percentage points. Last week David slipped to #2, a few percentage points behind David A. And this week, as it stands currently, David is kicking everyone's asses.

Why do I care about some online poll, right?

David Archuleta, age 17, was the early favourite to win the whole thing. People were saying how there wasn't a competition and how they should just give the title to him. Throughout it all I was in my little corner eagerly anticipating a guy called David Roland Cook to take that stage every week and blow me away with his amazing, amazing voice. I had my sights on him since the first round of Hollywood auditions, but most the world didn't give a shit. When most of the world wasn't giving a shit, I was on his awesomely hilarious fansite listening to his original compositions and falling in love with his songs, his voice, his lyrics, and the pieces of himself that he revealed through his songs. When most of the world didn't give a shit about who David Cook was, I was declaring my love for him, not once, but twice. When the world finally woke up from its David Archuleta-induced snoozefest (okay, this is mean but I really find the kid bloody boring), David had the world at "Hello", and with "Billie Jean", the world propels him to Front Runner Status. Or rather, David propelled himself; the world simply decided to keep up.

So everyone jumps on the David Cook bandwagon and all I can do is sit in my little corner and laugh my ass off and say, "I told you so."

Never underestimate the intimate relationship between the depth of my fangirly-ness/obsession and the innate talent of the person towards whom the fangirly-ness/obsession is geared. The more obsessed I get, the more talented the person is. I know I declared my love for lots of people in the past: Blake Lewis and David Anders are the more recent ones. While I still love these people, David Cook has turned me into a 16-year-old teenybopper. Except I'm a smart teenybopper. What I'm saying is, I'm not sure what it is or why it is, but he's touched something in me that still manages to be touched. His voice, his songs, his lyrics, his well-written blog entries, his nerdiness, his terrific grin, his belly, the fact that he's 25 and balding - whatever it is, David Cook has moved me and affected me personally in a way that no Idol contestants or singers or actors or politicians or writers (barring Julian Barnes) have in a very long time. The last time I was this obsessive, Jay Chou was my target, and despite his recent short-comings and lack of quality regarding new songs, he was a force to be reckoned with on all sorts of levels when he wasn't busy trying to make money.

David is where he is today in the American Idol context purely because of what he's done for himself. His song choices, his performances, his musical instinct - it's all him. He wasn't pimped by the Idol producers like Carly Smithson, David Archuleta, and to a lesser extent, Michael Johns were. He had his fair share of screen time during the audition episodes, but they didn't replay his life story ad nauseum the way they replayed Carly's (which was a huge part of why I hated her from the start. That, and the fact that she doesn't sing high notes; she screeches them), or gave him extra screen time in the Hollywood rounds the way they gave other contestants, and he certainly wasn't an early favourite to win. In the first entry I mentioned him I even said that I couldn't see him making it far, not because I didn't think he was talented, but because I didn't think enough people noticed him.

So hell yeah I'm proud of David for doing a Chris Cornell cover and blowing it out of the water, thereby transforming from a dark horse into a front runner. Of course, he could very well crash and burn over the next few weeks, but once again, the improbability of this happening far exceeds its impossibility. Haven't you got the memo, World? David Cook can sing anything.

***

Here's where I reluctantly stop talking about David and talk about, you know, myself. Wow, I actually remember I exist.

So yeah, I freakishly woke up at 7.15 a.m. today for absolutely no reason and now, at 2.52 p.m. (I can't believe this entry has taken me an hour), I find myself falling asleep.

I was going to cut my hair at the Rail Mall because parking there is free which is Amazing!, but I think I'm a bit too lazy to go out. Er, haha.

I'm really sleepy. I've used up all my awake brain cells gushing about David and I'm like, what the hell do I write about, now that my brain has stopped working?

Aiya, damn sian of school.

***

Edited to add:

My iTunes keeps playing the studio recording of Billie Jean and I keep finding it impossible to get over how amazing David's last note is on that track.

Talk about a fucking glory note, and he held it for so damn long, and every time I hear it I'm all, "Oh my god where is my freaking brain?"

Now I'm listening to Billie Jean live version and I'm going to die in exactly one minute so excuse me while I prepare myself for that.

***

Edit #2:

I was showing off David's #1 spot to my brother on iTunes and we started randomly sampling the top #100 songs. After my brother lost interest, I continued to look through the list and saw that Death Cab for Cutie had a song on the list. I've heard of them but have never listened to them, so I clicked on their song, "I Will Possess Your Heart".

It's awesome! I couldn't stop playing the 30 seconds sample over and over and over again, so I ended up buying the song, never mind that the funds in my iTunes account were solely meant for David Cook.

Ah well. The only downside, though, is that I unwittingly bought the radio edit. The song is supposed to be 8 minutes long; the one I bought is like, half of that. When the CD comes out, I'll be sure to buy it - provided I still remember to, that is.

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010