“Idol” Grunge Guy May Be Even More Of A Hack Than Previously Thought

noah | March 19, 2008 4:00 am
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American Idol‘s season-seven “rock dude,” David Cook, has already been accused of ripping off Incubus’ version of Lionel Richie’s “Hello,” and the Beatles catalog is respected enough that every bar band out there has given its own spin to at least one song. So it probably isn’t all that surprising that someone’s crying “ripoff” over the version of “Eleanor Rigby” that he performed on last week’s show, is it? Meet Doxology, a Seattle band with Idol cred–they’re “good friends” with Blake Lewis!–and their own version of the Beatles track that, they feel, hews strangely closely to Cook’s take:

After much deliberation, Doxology is releasing a statement to the press. There are many reasons that the Seattle area band feels it is necessary to shed some light on recent events. First and foremost, Doxology is not angry with David Cook or American Idol. They are, however, troubled by the lack of public acknowledgement that the arrangement of “Eleanor Rigby,” used by David Cook on American Idol’s March 11, 2008 episode and its’ subsequent iTunes studio recording, is a near note-for-note copy of a unique demo arrangement recorded by Doxology in 2006. The band feels that David is a great performer, and they are also supporters and fans of American Idol (Blake Lewis, a good friend of the band, was last season’s American Idol runner up). Secondly, Doxology is in disagreement with Idol’s decision to post David Cook’s performance and studio recording on iTunes. This allows American Idol to profit from the David Cook, March 11th performance and studio recording, without crediting the source for the recording’s arrangement. This is not the first time American Idol has had to deal with this type of issue. During season 5 of Idol, Chris Daughtry used an arrangement from a band without crediting his source. To listen to Doxology’s original demo recording of “Eleanor Rigby” and additional original song selections visit www.myspace.com/dxband.

rickey.org has MP3s of both the songs, and yes, there are some similarities, much like there probably are similarities between Cook’s take and the “Eleanor Rigby” cover by every Finger Eleven wannabe’s version in existence. Maybe this is why he went the Whitesnake-homage route this week?

David Cook – “American Idol” Plagiarism Scandal [rickey.org] Doxology [MySpace] [Photo: AmericanIdol.com]