Personnel: Tim Pierce (guitar); Rob Cavallo (guitars, piano); Neal Tiemann (guitars); Jamie Muhoberac (piano, organ, keyboards); Paul Bushnell (bass instrument); Dorian Crozier (drums, programming).

Audio Mixer: Chris Lord-Alge.

In the epic David vs. David face-off at the end of AMERICAN IDOL's seventh season, teen pop sensation David Archuleta was decisively defeated by more experienced rock performer David Cook, who issued this 2008 self-titled debut a week after Archuleta's own album. Aided by a veritable army of veteran alt-rock songwriters, including Johnny Rzeznik (Goo Goo Dolls) and Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Cook shines brightest with "Light On," a soaring anthem co-penned by Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave).

Entertainment Weekly (p.118) - "[The producers] give the album's clutch of bombastic verse-chorus-verse rockers an impressive melodic sheen, one well suited to Cook's husky, expressive vocals." -- Grade: B