Blake Lewis is thankful that his runner-up status on "Idol" will most likely help to make his debut album a success. As he reports to Billboard via Yahoo!, "Being on 'American Idol' was the lottery ticket. It's one of the most amazing experiences I'll never have again ever in my life. I'm not a big fan of television at all, but it's an amazing way of communicating with people. I tell people that all I was put on this earth to do is communicate my art to people, and what better way to do that (than) on 'American Idol."'

Blake is also very proud of the amount of creative control he had in putting this album together. He co-wrote 12 of the 13 tracks for the CD, Audio Day Dream, which is due out on December 4th. Billboard also reports that Blake created "specialized intros and outros" for each of the songs.

If you're hoping to catch a glimpse of Blake promoting his album, you will be thrilled to know that he will be appearing on quite a few TV shows in December. He'll also be heavily promoting the album on the Internet. He's been excellent at communicating with his fans via the virtual world thus far, and he'll be doing even more outreach during the coming month.

While reaching his fans is a huge goal of Blake's, having fun while making the album was also of utmost importance. He refers to the people he worked with as a "dream team." One of those people was fellow finalist and good buddy Chris Richardson, who co-wrote the song "What'cha Got 2 Lose" with Blake and J.R. Rotem.

"I don't want to be put in a box," Blake said in the article. "If there's any box I could be put in, it's pop music. The surprise is that, hopefully, it's an album you've never heard before, but it's very pop and mainstream. I just go with my gut feeling and my instincts and intuition. I did that on the show, and that's how I approached (the album), too."

Billboard's Chuck Taylor is also confident that the album will make a huge splash in the music industry. As he notes, Blake's first single, "Break Anotha" "is a lightning rod of rock'n'funk, meshing busy, skittish production and enough tempo stops and starts to build one clever three-minute jam. Vocally, Lewis channels Justin Timberlake with fluffed harmonic layers and falsetto as he sings a rapid-fire lyric about a playa..." With Blake's message boards already going crazy for his early work, Taylor goes on to say "the stylish 26-year-old has the looks of a teen idol, and clearly, 'AI' fever has never been more prominent."

Thanks. I hope that Blake's CD does well.

:unsure: I liked many of Blake's performances on the show so will definitely be giving his cd a listen. I hope he does well with it. I did listen to Jordin's but only really liked 2 songs on it so am passing on getting that one. Hopefully, Blake's will interest me more.

Thanks for posting this info! :grin: