Review: The New York Times: Critics’ Choice: Danny Gokey “My Best Days”

Last year Danny Gokey placed third on “American Idol,” his transcendent moment coming early in the competition, when he covered Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take the Wheel” in a roaring, pained, audacious performance that almost shattered the original.

So Mr. Gokey is a country singer, right? Not exactly. For this onetime church worship leader (an increasingly present and influential subset of “Idol” competitors), the most important word in that song’s title was the first one.

There are no shortage of Christian pop and rock stars, but none have crossed over to the mainstream since Amy Grant in 1991. After his “Idol” success Mr. Gokey faced the opposite problem: he was already something of a household name, and an explicitly inspirational album might limit his audience.

Country music, with its omnipresent religious streak, is the obvious compromise choice, even if Mr. Gokey, who is from Milwaukee, is twangless: even Rascal Flatts sounds Southern by comparison. “My Best Days,” his debut album, is for better and for worse Christian pop squeezed into Wranglers.

An instrumental version of this album, which was expertly produced by the veteran Mark Bright, would be an apt fit for just about any Nashville singer. But Mr. Gokey, knowingly or not, is rebelling against country’s strictures. His voice is wide and raspy, best on shouted, celebratory refrains and roomy ballads, which are few and far between here. Instead there’s wordy country-rock (“My Best Days Are Ahead of Me”) and awkward Southern demi-funk (“Get Away”), neither of which suits him. (The rollicking “Life on Ya” is the best compromise.) His Doobie Brothers vocals on “Be Somebody” are more successful but stymied by mystifying lyrics, seemingly about gangs. And it isn’t until “Crazy Not To,” the 8th song of 10, that he gets around to a proper declaration of love, a curious and unfortunate gap.

Sometimes here Mr. Gokey’s spirituality is overt, as on the Southern gospel-influenced “I Still Believe” and the curiously morbid “It’s Only.” But mainly it’s inspiration by implication, as on the devastating “I Will Not Say Goodbye.” Part of Mr. Gokey’s “Idol” story line was the death of his wife a few weeks before his audition, and this ballad, by far the album’s best song, feels like his first, raw attempt at channeling that hurt. “The sun comes up each day/Finds me waiting, fading, hating, praying”: not explicitly religious, but full of faith nonetheless. JON CARAMANICA

via: The New York Times | Critics’ Choice | Danny Gokey “My Best Days”