Great new Clay article - LiveDaily
Clay Reflects On ATDW
Clay Aiken reflects on 'A Thousand Different Ways'
November 10, 2006 03:47 PM
by Christina Fuoco
LiveDaily Contributor
Though Clay Aiken's upcoming December concerts will have a holiday
theme, the singer plans to get back on the road next year to support
his third album, "A Thousand Different Ways," which debuted at No. 2
on The Billboard 200 album chart after selling 205,000 copies during
its first week in stores.
It was Aiken's third consecutive debut inside the Top 5: his
debut, "Measure of a Man," entered at No. 1 and "Merry Christmas
With Love" debuted at No. 4.
"A Thousand Different Ways" combines 10 cover versions of songs from
the '70s, '80s and '90s with four new songs--though that wasn't the
original plan, Aiken said in an e-mail interview.
"It wasn't our intention to do it this way," he explained. "But we
started noticing that so many of the greatest songs we were finding
were cover songs. Clive [Davis] made the suggestion and thought it
would be a great idea to remake the greatest love songs of all time.
When Clive Davis has an idea, you have to assume it's going to be
great. So we listened to him and gave it a shot."
The album includes covers of Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting,"
Paul Young's "Every Time You Go Away" and Mr. Mister's "Broken
Wings." Choosing the songs was a collaborative effort between him,
Davis and executive producer Jaymes Foster.
"Clive chose songs; I chose songs; Jaymes chose songs," Aiken
said. "Then, from our three lists, we collaborated on the best
picks. We really found that we had a great deal of matches on all
three lists. Not only did we want to pick songs that were excellent
copyrights and stellar songs, we also made sure that each song
really matched me vocally and stylistically. I mean, 'I'm Too Sexy'
was a big hit ... but seriously ... me singing it wouldn't really
fit!"
As it turns out, the original artists and songwriters seem
complimentary of Aiken's renditions of their songs.
"A number of the song writers have been pleased with what we came up
with," he said. "Diane Warren is usually quite picky about the way
her songs are performed and she had only great things to say
about 'Because You Loved Me' and 'When I See You Smile.' Richard
Page [of Mr. Mister] was very complimentary of 'Broken Wings.' He
actually said that he never really thought he would be able to
appreciate a cover of one of his songs, but that he was impressed
with what we did. Bryan Adams was complimentary as well."
For "Broken Wings," Aiken includes an original poem spoken by Erin
Taylor. He said he did so because he wanted "to do something
ethereal with one of the songs."
"'Broken Wings' lent itself to that type of production more than
anything else. I was going to simply have a friend of mine read the
lyrics to the song in the background. But she was in the studio with
us while we were recording and came up with this amazing poem that
really related the message of the song in a whole new way, so we
decided to use it."
Aiken launches his latest holiday tour Dec. 1 in Waukegan, IL. This
year, local orchestras will begin the festivities, with Aiken
joining them for a set of holiday songs, some of which are found on
his CD "Merry Christmas With Love."