Kris Allen Heartless

Fans of the 2009 season of American Idol are surely fans of Kris Allen Heartless. The Idol winner's stunning performance of this song was one of the reasons why he claimed the top prize at this year's contest. This article will provide a background of the song and will then take you to places on the Internet where you can watch Kris Allen Heartless and even buy a copy so you can listen to it whenever you like.

Kris Allen performed Heartless on the second to last evening of the 2009 contest. The choice of this song was very significant. It has even been said that this was one of the most experimental song selections any contestant has ever made. Allen thought he needed to make a splash that night in order to earn a spot in the finals to compete against Adam Lambert, and he decided to roll the dice and make a bold choice.

The song Heartless was originally written by the Grammy Award winning rapper Kanye West and was still a hit on the charts when Allen performed it. West himself had performed the song on American Idol just a few weeks earlier. Most Idol contestants choose to play covers that are not so contemporary, because the audience is thought to be still attached to the original song and might not be ready for a new version. But Allen decided to scrap conventional thought and take a risk.

The other large part of Allen's gamble was that Kanye West's version of Heartless was so drastically different than the version Allen performed. West's song featured a very mechanical groove and featured West singing through an Auto-Tune effect that made the song sound even more robotic. Kris Allen stripped the song down to a single acoustic guitar and played a Bossa Nova type of feel that sounded like something the Brazilian guitar player Antonio Carlos Jobim might have written.

The gamble paid off big time for Allen. His reworking of the song highlighted the heartbreak that West was singing about and increased the song's emotional impact. The audience went crazy, and even the stubborn Simon Cowell declared that Allen's performance was strong enough to earn a trip to the finals.

Check out the following links to see and hear different performances of Kris Allen Heartless.

• American Idol – Here's the official link to Allen's live performance of the song on American Idol. You can tell from the reaction of the crowd and the judges that Allen was on his way to big things.

• YouTube – This link takes you to Allen's performance of the song on the daytime talk show Ellen. Because the crowd is smaller and more subdued, this performance feels a bit more intimate than the American Idol performance. It's amazing how much the setting can influence how a song is received.

• Last.fm – Last.fm is a great online media site where you can listen to a studio recording of Kris Allen's version of Heartless.

• iTunes – Apple's MP3 store iTunes is the biggest music store on the Internet. If you have iTunes installed on your computer, you can purchase Heartless and other songs by Kris Allen whenever you want.

To really appreciate what Kris Allen did with the song Heartless, you might want to check out the original Kanye West video.

• Kanye West – This video is done completely in animation, and the beat and vocal stylings of the song are a far cry from Allen's version. Both takes on the song are fantastic, however, and it's a testament to the strength of the songwriting that Heartless can be interpreted in such disparate ways.

Kris Allen's career has just gotten started, but he has shown great promise and he is obviously going to benefit from being the American Idol winner. Who knows where this talented musician will go next? Keep following his career to see what surprises he has in store for the future.

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