Chris Daughtry- In Appreciation

I love music. It speaks to me on so many levels and there are so many songs- some make me sad, some make me happy, others make me think and some are the equivalent of a hug. I am going to talk about one artist today who came second on American Idol and started his career. His name is Daughtry.

I discovered Daughtry when I heard his album Leave This Town. No Surprise was the first song I heard. I remember playing it on loop and later getting the whole album from a friend and playing the album on loop. No Surprise is currently playing on Spotify as I write this article.

Leave This Town was an introduction to a different type of alternative rock for me. It paved the way for me to appreciate bands like The Fray and Three Doors Down. One line in that song stood out back then and is relevant even today

"The loving look that's left your eyes

Is why this comes as no..as no surprise"

Suddenly the song changed from being a song about changes happening in life to one about dealing with change in life. At the time I was in high school and me and my brother Sagnik (Satan) Mukherjee and I used to hang out and we would discuss lessons and music and specifically Leave This Town.

Daughtry went on to write other songs and produced an album in 2013 called Baptized which I got hold of in 2015. Somehow it seemed to be different from the Daughtry I was used to. It had good songs such as Cinderella but it seemed to be an experiment. An experiment that worked in some tracks and didn't in some tracks. But it was Daughtry so it was special.

This was the guy who wrote

"All that I'm after is a life full of laughter

As long as I am laughing with you"

Insatiable hunger was born in me. A hunger for Daughtry. Imagine my joy when I found out that he had brought out an album in July 2018 called Cage to Rattle. This album features a grown up Daughtry. He has matured in the five years since Baptized. This album is like wine if Leave This Town was beer. We aren't in high school anymore. We have grown with Daughtry. Tracks like Just Found Heaven, Death of Me and As You Are are a testament to this. (If you haven't heard the album yet, check it out. It's not going to disappoint).

Daughtry is special. Leave This Town is special. It's the soundtrack to my school life when I was a mood swinging teenager barely surviving the hormones in my body. The songs are a comfort. The lyrics are branded in my brain.

The dude is back, with a new set of songs which now appeal to the me who went through college and is a man. Daughtry has appealed to the adult in me just like he appealed to teenage me.

Here's to growing older with more Chris Daughtry.

The Bilge Master