Gutsy ‘Idol’ Allison Iraheta Shows Her ‘Scars’

Douglas Boultinghouse
Managing Editor

Photo by Douglas Boultinghouse

A is for Allison - Allison Iraheta performs in Little Rock as part of the 2009 “American Idols Live Tour.” Iraheta released her debut album “Just Like You” in Dec. 2009 and recently debuted her new single “Scars”on “American Idol.”

   With the 2010 season of “American Idol” in progress, clearly this year’s crop, especially the girls, will not match the talent of 2009’s leading female.

   The feisty rocker with flaming locks of red, pink, purple and blue may not have won the title of “American Idol,” but she proved early on she could belt as strong as pop-rock icons P!nk and Kelly Clarkson. She finished fourth out of thousands who auditioned. Not too shabby.

   Allison Iraheta returned to the Idol stage Thursday, Feb. 25 as a guest performer to debut her new single, “Scars.”

   She used her raspy, rock-tinged voice and impeccable abilities of working a stage to sing the lines, “Don't send me to your therapists / Deep down, I know what you mean / And I'm not sure that's what I wanna be / No / Take me / This is all that I've got / This is all that I'm not / All that I'll ever be.”

   She may sing about having scars, but face it, to sing those lyrics, she has guts too.

   After her performance, Ryan Seacrest, Idol’s host, said he sat with this year’s top 12 girls during the performance. According to him, they all gasped making comments like “What a voice!”

   They’re right. She does have a voice. She put that voice to work too, on her debut album “Just Like You.”

A Hot ‘Holday’ for Iraheta

   She crafted a solid album full of radio-friendly hits waiting to happen, rock ballads and a little Spanish magic. The raw edginess Iraheta showcased on the Idol stage breaks through every track on the album.

   The album, released in Dec. 2009, did not soar to the top of the charts, but do not write it off as a flop. Album sales sometimes overlook works of art.

   The album kicks off with the first single “Friday I’ll Be Over U,” a fun track with catchy lyrics reminiscent (in a strange way) of the “Happy Days” theme: “Monday, Tuesday, we were cool / Wednesday I found out ‘bout you.”

   As catchy as the song may be in English, she included an even catchier Spanish version of the song titled “El Viernes Te Olvido Yo.” 

   The song actually sounds better in Spanish. “Me tuviste, me olvidaste / Ah oh ah oh ah oh se terminó / Me tuviste, me olvidaste / El viernes te olvido yo,” she sings as the equivalent of “Cause you got me to forget me / Oh Oh Oh you know that's true / Yeah you got me to forget me / So Friday I'll be over you.”

   The album includes songs full of power like “Holiday,” “Pieces,” “Don’t Waste the Pretty,” “You Don’t Know Me” and “No One Else.” 

   She also included electronic influenced tracks capable of dominating the radio. She’s “Stomping on your phone, busting up your laptop” in “Robot Love.” She’s fueling the hot fire on “Beat Me Up” by singing “Cause baby even though you beat me up, beat me up / I still love you 'cause you heat me up, heat me up / And that's why every time you hit me up, hit me up / I come running 'cause you fix me up, fix me up / Oh baby just beat me up, beat me up.”

   Even more so, she throws everything in your face with the racy “D is for Dangerous.”

   If “A is for all I want / B is for badly / C is for can't you stay long cause I want you so madly / E is for no escape cause I don't wanna leave you / F is for fallin' to fast with no parachute” does not grab you in the intro, the chorus will.

   “You're taking me under / Stolen my thunder and I think I'm all out of fight / I want you to win / All that I ever was is burning in this lust / Your love is a weapon and it's turning me to dust / D is for dangerous,” she sings.

   From that point on, the alphabet only becomes more …. dangerous.

She’s ‘Still Breathing’

   In addition to “Scars,” the album features three power ballads busting at the seams with emotion and incredible vocals.

   On “Trouble Is,” she sings the chilling lines, “Don't forget  the promises that we made / When I got on the plane  / We'd be back together once again and we would stay the same / Sometimes I think love can last / But sometimes I think forever is the thing of the past.”

   The song continues to build into a booming chorus, just as still “Still Breathing” does.

   Remember those guts she used before, take a hold of this:

   “I need an aspirin after you / Until you left I never knew what my heart was going through / And I never wanna go back but if there's some sick twist of fate / I would rather rest in peace, please do not resuscitate,” she sings.

   Not enough? Try this:

   She later sings, “Suffocating and I didn't know why / Until I realized you were standing in the way of my air supply / Clear the air, I was about to die / I wondered why I didn't leave you way before,  so I though I was insane / But it was you who kept the oxygen from getting to my brain.”

   And during the chorus, she could break down walls with the belting of “The air is so much clearer over you.”

   She lets out every bit of her pain in the acoustic ballad and title-track “Just Like You.”

  “Roses are dry, violets are black / And I can be cruel, just like you / The tables have turned, can't help but laugh / For saying we're through, just like you,” sing sings.

   Though she may have an album titled “Just Like You” and sing about being just like you, she’s not. And to the girls on the current season of “American Idol,” she’s not just like you, she’s better. Learn from her and maybe you can put a song out called “Just Like Her.”

©The Voice 2010