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| Leisureblogs |
 As Lee DeWyze discovers on his first album after winning “American Idol,” his career is no longer entirely his own. That’s the case with every would-be artist who survives the annual popularity contest. They are inevitably squeezed through a music-industry processor that weeds out all the quirks and eccentricities that once might’ve made a singer compelling. So even a potential radical such as 2009 runner-up Adam Lambert ended up sounding more like Taylor Hicks than Freddie Mercury on his “Idol”-curated major-label debut.DeWyze, 24, grew up in a blue-collar family in Mt. Prospect, Ill., and worked as a paint salesman. Though not nearly as flamboyant as Lambert, he demonstrated on “Idol” that he has a knack for earnest folk-soul, credibly covering Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” and the Cornelius Brothers’ “Treat Her Like a Lady.” Windowdressing’s not his thing. He’s best in coffeehouse mode, simple and direct. Two locally released DeWyze albums, “So I’m Told” (2007) and “Slumberland” (2010), were nothing special. But the better tracks had a brooding, introspective quality that demonstrated a willingness to push beyond pat, pop formula. What he needed is someone to coax that out even more, to further develop the relationship between his acoustic guitar and the hint of sandpaper grit in his everyman voice. But “Live it Up” (RCA) sounds like it was created in a laboratory; it’s designed to be inoffensive, clinically precise, airless, as if those were virtues that would entice radio programmers to buy in, and fans to prolong the “Idol” lovefest. “Live it Up” is less the national debut of an emerging artist than a cautionary tale about how an industry takes over a career and makes it conform to successful formulas....full text |
| Ew |
| Lee DeWyze’s debut album Live It Up suffers from vague production that strips his Adam Duritz-y growl of all humor, anger, and sexuality. It’s also saddled with a batch of tunes that are so totally generic, the font color for this review should be beige. Only one song here, ''Me and My Jealousy,'' truly showcases the coolly disaffected potential rock star who won what’s widely regarded as the weakest-ever season of American Idol. C...full text |
| Allmusic |
| Winner of the ninth season of American Idol, the season that will forever be remembered as Simon Cowell’s last, Lee DeWyze somehow eked out a victory against neo-hippie soulster Crystal Bowersox, charming with a smarmy shyness that never quite seemed to jibe with a guy who kicked around bars in the suburbs for the better part of a decade. Other Idol winners were journeymen in disguise -- think cornball Taylor Hicks or well-coifed rocker David Cook -- but DeWyze’s major-label debut, Live It Up, sounds like the work of a local band that was given a chance to run wild in a professional studio. 19 Recordings team their winner with an army of professionals led by Toby Gad and John Shanks but they don’t dictate the direction of the album; they shape DeWyze’s singsong strum-alongs and MOR pop into something resembling a triple-A chart hit, letting similarities to Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, and John Mayer stand strong. DeWyze can wrangle a pleasant melody, particularly when he’s favoring sunswept SoCal folk-pop, but he can’t resist sabotaging his slight charms with a studied hamminess, adopting a gravelly growl whenever he wants to appear soulful and leaning so hard in his phrasing that he stumbles instead of shuffles. Ironically, these affectations are best heard on the least-produced moments on Live It Up; sure, they’re more apparent when the arrangements are simple, but the shellacked attempts at glassy modern pop dampen whatever personality DeWyze may have. When things are light and simple on Live It Up, DeWyze seems like himself: a threadbare talent who floated in on the vapors of Idol’s empty tank....full text |
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