Taylor Hicks

With his aw-shucks charm, premature gray and Southern growl, Taylor Hicks is certainly American Idol’s most confounding champ, neither trifle (Ruben) nor triumph (Carrie). Instead, Hicks began his commercial career quite literally, doing Idol victory laps by using his chicken-bucket baritone to shill for Ford. Yet by calling on songwriting from the likes of Rob Thomas and Bryan Adams, the Alabama yowler’s tardy debut secures some attention on adult-contemporary charts—even if the record’s overblown genre-bending never hits pay dirt. It’s Michael McDonald’s blue-eyed Motown (on a cover of Marvin’s “Wherever I Lay My Hat”) one moment, and a mock-rock growl the next. If the highlight is the final track, “The Right Place,” it’s too little too late; by then we’ve already changed the channel.