Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Daughtry
“Leave This Town”

1. You Don’t Belong
2. No Surprise
3. Everytime You Turn Around
4. Life After You
5. What I Meant To Say
6. Open Up Your Eyes
7. September
8. Ghost of Me
9. Learn My Lesson
10. Supernatural
11. Tennessee Line
12. Call Your Name

Here’s a sure bet: The fans who enjoyed Daughtry’s debut album will love ”Leave This Town,” the second album, released Tuesday.

I mean, the albums sound very similar.

You want rockers. Daughtry serves them up in the form of lead-off track “You Don’t Belong,” “Supernatural” and “What I Meant To Say.”

You want power ballads. There are enough here to keep Daughtry music on soft-rock and adult contemporary radio for months upon months, not that the songs from album number one have ever gone away.

Among the best from album number two: “Life After You,” “September,” and, of course, “No Surprise,” the first single.

And, really, why deviate from the formula that resulted in 5 million album sales and a debut album that’s still among the top 100 in the land more than two years after it was released?

Once, just once, the band serves up the unexpected on “Leave This Town.” The song is the country-tinged “Tennessee Line,” with Vince Gill providing backing vocals. And it works in a big way. It’s one of the best tracks on the CD.

Heck guys, release that one to country radio and expand your fan base.

The song list above is for the base album only. There are supposed to be all sorts of bonus tracks out there. And Target is selling a version of the album that includes six videos.

The deluxe version available through iTunes includes bonus songs “On the Inside” and “What We Have Become,” both of which can be purchased individually. By the way, nice touch, guys. I hate it when an artist forces fans to buy mulitiple copies of the same album just to get all the bonus tracks.

Apparently, the band had plenty of songs to choose from when putting together “Leave This Town.” On a Sunday morning appearance on A&E’s Private Sessions, Chris Daughtry said the band wrote 70-some songs for consideration.

“There was a lot of junk we had to weave through,” he said with a smile.

Did they weave correctly?

Time will tell.

Here are links to reviews of “Leave This Town:”

AllMusic.com: Gives Daughtry 3 stars out of 5

Entertainment Weekly: Gives Daughtry a B

Dallas Morning News: Gives Daughtry a B

What do you think? Feel free to comment below.

Meanwhile, if you missed the Private Sessions appearance, you can catch up by going here.