... ...

Lee DeWyze: Pre-Idol Recordings

2010 April 29
tags:
by TopIdol

Lee DeWyze. Oh, Lee DeWyze. Today, it was discovered that you used to sing spontaneous original music about paint. Oh, how I wish we saw this side of you every week. I mean, really, Lee? Performing songs about eggshell and ecru for your Sherwin-Williams customers and the best you can do on American Idol is a bagpiper? However, it is interesting to learn that you live with a beloved high school teacher who has been to L.A. to see you perform on the show three times already. Are you like, the Pacey Witter of American Idol?

(Does Lee sometimes dance while singing Maniac so people can ask him if he ate paint chips when he was little?)

Lee’s pre-Idol music — the albums So I’m Told and Slumberland –  are now available for purchase. Slumberland might be interesting. Homeboy always looks…sleepy. (The aforementioned article in today’s Sun Times Online says DeWyze had to opt out of his record deal after the first Idol cut. Hmmm…interesting.)

Here are the track lists:

SLUMBERLAND
1. So What Now
2. All Fall Down
3. Annabelle
4. Princes
5. Flower Child
6. Where You Lie
7. Stay
8. Another Sleep Song
9. Sweet Sweet
10. Goodnight

SO I’M TOLD
1. Mister G
2. Imagination
3. A Song I Wrote For You
4. Love And Misery
5. Dreaming Alone
6. Cast Away
7. Red Rover
8. The Problem Is You
9. Predicament
10. So I’m Told
11. All Right

Independent Chicago label WuLi Records is even giving you a single for free. Download Lee’s cover of Marilyn Manson’s Beautiful People, but if you’re a fan of Lee DeWyze, you might have already done this a long time ago. And if you’re in the Chicago area, check out all the places you can go party on Tuesday and Wednesday in the name of DeWyze. Apparently Lee’s alma mater, Prospect High School, is already planning his parade festivities, which is really funny because he was kicked out of Prospect High School. But if he hadn’t been kicked out of THAT high school, then he wouldn’t have gone to the other one and met his teacher/roommate. Lee, are you more interesting than previously believed?

Spread the word. Do it.
[Facebook] [Google] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Twitter] [Yahoo!] [Email]

from → American Idol

  • Pingback: Today In ‘Idol’: Jordin Sparks Heads To Broadway, Siobhan Covers Beyoncé | Music News, Reviews, and Gossip on Idolator.com

  • erinnthered

    I’m thinking this guy is a Matt Giraud type. Nervous as hell on the show, but will do great on the tour. Too bad the venues are so much smaller. They’re only playing Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in Houston. That’s a huge step down from Toyota Center.

    Lee Dywyze = Pacey Witter ? You are blowing my mind! O_o

    The original stuff is okay. If he can clean it up a bit, he’s got an audience with the jam band fans.

  • TankieGirlie

    TI have you heard any yet?… I have the So I’m told CD

    here’s an official video, let me know what you think

  • Rach

    So he got kicked out of high school because he got into fights? Dang, I was hoping for something more juicy. Anywho, I’m really digging his pre-idol albums.

    • http://topidolblog.com TopIdol

      I know! Screwing up during one’s youth is pretty…normal :)

      • Rach

        Totally. I’m so diappointed with the lack of dirt this year. S7 we had David Hernandez the stripper. This year we have “Lee gets in a fight and “small traces of blood are shed”. SMALL TRACES? Wimp. Ah well, hopefully he and Siobhan got married on that night they got there tattoos. That’s be real dirt. It already looks like he’s proposed. LOL

  • camellia

    did anyone see this? this is apparently why he got kicked out of school:

    http://prospect.highschoolmedia.org/pdfs/LeeD1.jpg

    http://prospect.highschoolmedia.org/pdfs/LeeD2.jpg

  • Jean

    So I guess this makes me a frau or a tween (is there a term for women between 18 and 40 who vote for — God forbid! — the men this season?), but I enjoy his pre-Idol albums.

  • suew

    I’ve listened to his music and I like it. Its actually better when you’re not watching him perform. The guy is not completely without cred – he’s played in Chicago (where I live) at Fitzgeralds, House of Blues, Elbow Room – all places that host up and coming bands. Its not like he was playing at the local coffee shop; these are legitimate music venues.

    Now living with the teacher thing is a little weird – perhaps he wasn’t getting along with his parents or something? There is probably some backstory to it. I thought I heard on one of the interviews that he gave up his lease on his apt. when he went on idol. In fact, I’m sure I heard it, so whats with living with the teacher?

    • Kate123

      Wait…so Lee has played legit venues before with a band?? I always excused away his terrible stage presence and nerves by thinking that he had never performed on a stage in front of crowds before Idol…

  • Trish

    A “spot-on cover of Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” in crisp, hushed tones reminiscent of Dave Matthews”??? You’ve got to be frakkin kidding me! Crisp as in burned? Hushed as in asphyxiated? Because he was HORRIBLE singing that song.

    I never got past that sentence. I’m sure he’s a nice enough guy, but I Just. Don’t. Get. It.

    • Trish

      Was that cop in the video his parole officer? Weird!

  • Dickory Dock

    Ohhhhhhh. Now I get it. The frauen love him because he had a troubled youth and needs to be saved. It fulfills their needs to rescue/nurture and inappropriately lust after men young enough to be their sons. They can imagine themselves in the role of the teacher who takes him in and he becomes so grateful … I can’t even finish that thought. Eww.

    I listened to his cover of Beautiful People. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

    • Dickory Dock

      Totally off topic, but in case you read this TI – your love for Mad Men prompted me to get the first season. LOVE. IT.

    • dresden

      you mean no one is crying ‘thug’ or ‘attitude problems’ or dangerous with this guy, lol… he gets kicked out of hs for beating the crap out of someone, and it’s ok, because he was young, and that’s what young people do – if it was big mike, or todrick, how soon would the cries have gone out that these ‘thugs’ didn’t deserve to be on the show… wow, it’s amazing what can be glossed over or what behaviors can be excused if one has the right complexion for the connection. even from those who profess to be more enlightened than the usual idol viewer.

      • http://topidolblog.com TopIdol

        I haven’t read those articles yet. I wonder how bad the other person’s injuries were :(

      • Mithra

        Dresdan, you have a point, but I sort of looked at it as him being in highschool, probably an at risk youth having dealt with that family tragedy. When did that happen anyway?

        Scott Savol and Blake Lewis are white, and they haven’t been given a free pass on such matters, for example.

        • Mithra

          dresdEn, sorry! Going into the side bars again. I didn’t watch Savol’s season, but did people know about that while he was on the show, or after? I did hear that he punched Constantcrap out on the tour bus, and I don’t think anyone would take issue with THAT :D

          • dresden

            it came out during the show, the domestic violence allegations, but got quickly buried, then sprung back to life at shows end. i’m not trying to be pissy about it, but i’m amazed at the ability for a lot of the idol demographic to excuse certain behaviors and attitudes in some contestants, if they like them, and trash others based on much less – perceptions of arrogance and such. i’d take mike’s perceived arrogance, with no record of violence or assault, rather than someone’s documented record of laying hands on someone, enough so that they’re kicked out of school. i want someone to tell me that if this were mike, or todrick, with reports of assault in his background that his butt wouldn’t be outta there quick, fast and in a hurry. or if mike had been arrested for drugs like bice was that the idol demographic wouldn’t be calling him more vicious name than ‘arrogant’. dunno why i even care, but the hypocrisy and manipulation of late is just too much.

  • Trish

    Hah! Don’t care all that much about Lee DeWyze, but your reference to “Pacey Witter” (never watched Dawson’s Creek, for the record) reminded me that I needed to ask you if you thought Joshua Jackson bore an *uncanny* resemblance to a young Raymond Burr is last night’s episode of Fringe? (Oh, how I LOVE that show!) I knew it was just a matter of time before they “Gleeified” every damn show on Fox, but I kinda dug hearing them all sing last night. (All of them except Joshua. How bad could he have been? Surely not any worse than Anna Torv!) Maybe Joshua can play Perry Mason if they ever do a remake!

  • muzikizmi

    Wait. The Idol people keep telling us that this year’s crop sucks, because they didn’t have the experience of last year’s bunch? Lee had a RECORD DEAL and two albums? Kris had an amateur album that the made a whopping 600 copies of, with two college buddies.

    • pootle

      And that album by Kris is the best music ever associated with Idol, in my opinion :)

    • Trish

      And David Cook was a “plant” because he self-produced his own album and then had to pull it off of Amazon while Brooke and several others were allowed to keep theirs on there. Why the double standards?

    • Pandora

      It boggles my mind that Lee, who cannot sing for shit, had a record deal.

    • mozart4898

      So he actually had a record deal, he didn’t just make the albums? Cause anyone (yes, anyone, if you’re crazy enough) can pay for studio time and have an album made, and then attempt to promote/distribute it personally – without a contract. I can understand past Idol contestants having gone that route and still being allowed in the competition, but he actually had a deal and had produced two albums with that company (regardless of how small it was).

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the original intent of Idol was to discover people who hadn’t been discovered and didn’t have deals yet? I guess it’s turned into “people who haven’t been discovered by a big enough label to have saturated the airwaves nationwide.” There’s a good reason his small label albums didn’t catch on big and get him more attention, so that he wouldn’t be selling paint any more – it’s because he’s NOT THAT GOOD. Ugh, I’m so sick of Lee, I want him off my TV. Like, last week.

      • muzikizmi

        Me too. So, I just downloaded two Casey songs. LOL. My little protest of the pimping of the guy (ringer) who can’t carry a tune. At least Casey does sing in tune, and quite well. I downloade ‘Don’t’ and ‘Jealous Guy’, and I really like them both.

  • Mithra

    Yeah, that high school teacher thing was a little…hmmm…. No wonder he’s getting the frau/cougar love more than gay Casey – they can sense it…

    • mozart4898

      Is the “Casey is gay” thing still going around? I really don’t know about that. I couldn’t care less either, I just hadn’t seen it since what, like a month ago?

      • Mithra

        That was a joke, but yeah, I still see it going around.

      • muzikizmi

        I don’t care if Casey is gay or straight. He is a very good musician and nice looking. So far, he hasn’t said that women’s parts are ‘not as clean’ as they could be, so he is ok with me. I don’t want to marry him or have his children, but if he puts out a decent Keith Urban type album, I will give it serious consideration.

  • Lauren

    Well, the free download was pretty good. Not good enough to make me even consider paying money for his music (pre or post-Idol) though.

    • mozart4898

      Ugh…I was curious just what he would have done with “The Beautiful People” so I downloaded it. Yuck. You talk about taking a song and removing all the life from it – I mean, ok, the original isn’t exactly full of “life” in the typical sense, but I think you know what I mean. It’s like he took all the balls out of the song – my two neutered cats have more balls than that song did. I didn’t even make it through it…deleted, gone from my computer.

      And he’s one of the frontrunners? Ick, that totally did it for me – he wins, I lose all faith in the public in terms of ANYTHING music related. Seriously. Crystal’s gotta win this thing now or my brain will explode.

  • nerdgirl

    Oh, Furry Flynch must be all over this so-called hometown support. It’s way too homephobic and hateful…

  • lostbrigade

    I’ve listened to Slumberland since a Kris fans I’m friends with said it was really good.

    I think the title is apt. The album is a snooze-fest.