Hurtful Truth

For weeks now, David Cook, the 25-year-old husky-voiced rock dude from Blue Springs, Missouri, has ensured his survival on the seventh season of “American Idol” by taking some fairly memorable pop and R&B hits, and putting his own sometimes-unique rock-and-roll stamp on them. It’s been his proven formula for success, and one he’s sticking to as the competition nears its May 21 finale.

Over the course of the last 10 weeks, Cook has turned pop standards like Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby” into bona fide rock cuts. He gave the same treatment to Lionel Richie’s “Hello” and the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” — all songs the general public knows, but not in the way Cook interpreted them.

With the exception of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” which was a blatant (and admitted) cop on Chris Cornell’s cover of the song, Cook has been able to take these classics and make them his own. And the “Idol” audience has repeatedly rewarded him with enough votes to push him through to the next week.

“I think that’s definitely helping him, for sure,” said Michael Slezak, a senior writer for Entertainment Weekly known for his “Idol” coverage. “But I also think he’s a really good singer and performer. I could definitely see him taking advantage of this Nickelback period. This is a time where that type of music is doing well, and fits quite easily into that world of radio play. David Cook seems to have held onto his credibility — about the type of singer he wants to be — throughout the competition. He hasn’t lost any of that. If Mariah Carey week didn’t do him in, what will? The thing is, you don’t expect to see [rock covers of pop songs] during ‘Idol.’ We’ve grown accustomed to people belting big songs. Cook doing something you don’t expect to see on the ‘Idol’ stage — I think that’s given him a real edge.”

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