Candice Glover has dropped her debut album, Music Speaks, but the season 12 American Idol winner is already off to a rocky sales start.
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The album failed to crack the top 5 on iTunes' sales chart on Tuesday morning, which suggests she could suffer the same fate as fellow winner Lee DeWyze's disappointing debut, which only sold 39,000 copies in its first week.
Glover's 12-track offering is littered with love songs and vivacious vocals, plus the track penned by the 24-year-old Southerner called "Forever That Man."
"I think everyone is going to compare that one to [The Cure's] 'Lovesong' a little bit because it's that slow, dark thing at the beginning," she told The Hollywood Reporter of her memorable cover while competing last season. "And then the beat comes in. I really like that one."
Some songs like "Damn" and "I Cried" were penned by songwriters like Jasmine Sullivan and highlight Glover's raw emotion and soulful singing voice, while others like "Passenger" boast banging beats by Mike Will Made It and prove her powerful pipes can translate to radio play. The mild-mannered singer even serves up some sexually-charged chatter on tracks like "Kiss Me," forcing her out of the sugar-coated shell she earned on Idol.
"The recording process with people who have been in the business for a really long time was kind of intimidating at first," she said of recording her debut. "I didn't know how to act or what to do, and I was in the studio messing up and singing off-key because I was nervous...After a while, I kind of warmed up to it and I thought it was a lot of fun."
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Even with a solid track list and top-notch singing chops showcased throughout, there's still a chance Glover's efforts could continue to be thwarted by the show's shadow. Released nine months after her big win due to two delays, the project may have missed its window to launch her solo career into established superstardom, while successful sales could be enough to help restore the singing competition's tanking reputation.
Glover admits that she didn't intend to deliver a ballad-heavy album, but she's not disappointed in the final product. "I think it's just a coincidence that the ones that we loved were the ones that were slower," she explained. "There's a couple mid-tempo ones and 'Same Kinda Man' and 'Could've Been Me.' Mid-tempo is as fast as it gets...I think I'm more of an emotional person who likes to draw people in with that, so it's cool."
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