Ask the employees at Clay Aiken's record label, RCA, if they would listen to Aiken's debut album, Measure of a Man, by choice, and the response is almost uniform: a lengthy pause followed by laughter. RCA was the home of Elvis Presley, and its current roster includes critical favorites like the Strokes and the Foo Fighters. It's a rock label. Aiken, who came in second on the most recent installment of American Idol, is not only not a rocker, but, as he says in his aggressively self-deprecating way, "I'm not an artist. I'm just a guy who was on a reality show--and I didn't even win!" Humility aside, Aiken, 24, doesn't mind being doubted because he believes in his bones that his detractors are wrong. "There are many people at the record label who are afraid of me," he says. "They don't understand the reasons that someone as uncool as me is here. In a way--and this is a horrible word to say, and once I say it you're going to print it--it's a revolution."
The revolution of which Aiken speaks is a TV show. In two seasons on the air, American Idol has snatched the notoriously vague process of selecting musical talent away from music executives and put it in the hands of ordinary Americans. In a convenient syllogism, Aiken believes that since everyday people chose him as their hero, those at RCA who don't like him or his music are biased against everyday people. He may be right. It's also possible that his denigrators love music--and the process of making music--far more than Aiken can imagine and that they resent having their passion marginalized by anyone with a telephone and a taste for Bee Gees medleys. "I don't know why people relate to me," says Aiken, "but my guess is that they're tired of beautiful, cookie-cutter pop stars. They don't believe them, and they don't trust them."
With Measure of a Man's Oct. 14 release around the corner, it is now an incidental fact that Aiken did not actually win American Idol. Thirty-four million people watched last May as Ruben Studdard edged out Aiken by less than 1% of the votes. Studdard was the more polished singer, but Aiken was the better narrative. Week to week, with the help of a hair iron and contact lenses, he was transformed from a complete geek who sang show tunes into a better-looking geek who sang pop ballads. After the Idol finale, interest in Aiken surged, and his startlingly sincere first single, This Is the Night, trounced Studdard's to become the best-selling single since Elton John's reworked Candle in the Wind. Modern rock radio, which is dominated by hip-hop, nu-metal and irony, was overwhelmed by a wave of requests and was forced to play Aiken's song. Rolling Stone put him on its cover and had to increase the print run to meet demand.