Just weening.
For whatever reason, the multiple pull quotes regarding Cook’s potential timeframe for a new album (back to the studio by the beginning of the year, with an album possibly out next summer) seem to be causing people to clutch their pearls. How can this be?
I don’t think it’s overambitious at all.
In 2008, Cook came into making an album with two albums of pre-Idol material, but no guarantee (or, probably, intention) that all would be used. In the course of the next few weeks, he and his cowriters knocked out between 20 and 30 songs (I’m extrapolating from the “60 songs” figure bandied about in a few interviews). Half of the next few were spent on tour rehearsals. He then spent 53 days on tour, squeezing in additional cowrites, demo recording, studio tracking, and band selection, until a solid five weeks arose at the end to finalize the album. By my count, that gave him 81 days to develop an album from start to finish. Yes, it was rushed, and oddly sequenced, and the production was lacking in places, but it managed to be a solid effort.
Compare that to what he has now: 4/5 (or maybe even 5/5) of a band with a strong musical chemistry, a very good working/social relationship with some of his cowriters and his producer [even if I wonder if he might look elsewhere], 60/70 song ideas AND the remainder from the first recording session. And, not exactly immaterially, the opportunity to be in one place to supervise the melding of all those elements.
I just don’t see two or three months of solid writing and demoing, followed by two more of culling, tracking, and mastering, as that insurmountable for someone who has already had a trial by fire.
Of course things could change. Of course he’ll want to let ideas marinate. But the band is starting from a place orders of magnitude better than where he was last summer, so I have no concerns about their ability to produce something they’ll be able to put their names behind.
[...] Part I Here. [...]