''Baptized'' is the fourth studio album by American
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Daughtry, released on November 19, 2013, by
RCA Records
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also A ...
. It was preceded in September by
electropop-influenced lead single "
Waiting for Superman".
It is the final album to feature drummer Robin Diaz and first album to include keyboardist/guitarist Elvio Fernandes. The album departs significantly from the group's
hard rock sound present on their first three albums, instead introducing a more
pop rock
Pop rock (also typeset as pop/rock) is a fusion genre with an emphasis on professional songwriting and recording craft, and less emphasis on attitude than rock music. Originating in the late 1950s as an alternative to normal rock and roll, earl ...
musical style with strong
synthpop influences.
Background
The band worked with many other songwriters and musicians on the album. Some that they worked with include
Martin Johnson of
Boys Like Girls
Boys Like Girls is an American rock band from Boston, Massachusetts. Formed in 2005, the group gained mainstream recognition when it released its self-titled debut album which went on to sell over 700,000 albums in the United States earning a ...
,
Sam Hollander
Sam Hollander is an American songwriter. He has collaborated with the likes of Panic! at the Disco, One Direction, Fitz and the Tantrums, Train, Weezer, Blink-182, Ringo Starr, Def Leppard, Katy Perry, Carole King, Jewel, Pentatonix, Daug ...
,
Blair Daly,
Espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
,
Rock Mafia
Rock Mafia is an American record production team, consisting of Tim James and Antonina Armato who have been active since the early 2000s. They have written and produced 38 top ten singles, and have sold over 50 million records worldwide. They hav ...
, Ali Tamposi,
The Monsters and the Strangerz
The Monsters & Strangerz are an American production and songwriting team from Miami, Florida. The team features The Monsters: Alexander " Eskeerdo" Izquierdo, Stefan Johnson, Jordan K. Johnson and Oliver "German" Peterhof and The Strangerz: Marcu ...
, Scott Stevens,
Kara DioGuardi
Kara Elizabeth DioGuardi (; born December 9, 1970) is an American songwriter, record producer, music publisher, A&R executive, and singer. She writes music primarily in the pop rock genre. DioGuardi has worked with many popular artists; sales o ...
, Jake Sinclair,
Claude Kelly
Claude Kelly (born December 27, 1980)Shirley Halperin and Bob Love"THR Names Music's 35 Top Hitmakers,"''The Hollywood Reporter'', February 6, 2013. is an American singer, songwriter and music producer. He is a four-time Grammy Award nominee, a ...
,
Johnny Black, and
Matthew Thiessen
Matthew Arnold Thiessen (born August 12, 1980) is a Canadian-American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer known for being co-founder, lead singer, guitarist, pianist, and primary songwriter for the Christian rock band Relient K. Wit ...
. Daughtry stated that he worked without his bandmates and instead went with the new producers. Daughtry has stated that the album features a new,
poppier sound and would also include
folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Folk Plus or Fo ...
influences.
Singles
The first single from the album is "
Waiting for Superman", written by Chris Daughtry, Sam Hollander, and Martin Johnson. The song was released on iTunes on September 17, 2013.
"
Battleships
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type o ...
" impacted
hot adult contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet ...
radio on May 12, 2014 as the second official single off the album.
Other songs
"Long Live Rock & Roll" was released digitally on October 22, 2013 as the first and only
promotional single
A promotional recording, or promo, or plug copy, is an audio or video recording distributed free, usually in order to promote a recording that is or soon will be commercially available. Promos are normally sent directly to broadcasters, such as ...
off the album. It was also released as the lead single in the UK market on February 24, 2014
A new "stripped" version of "Witness" was released to digital retailers February 20, 2015.
Reception
Critical
The album has been met with mixed reviews from most critics. Chuck Eddy of ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' gave the album a 2.5 out 5, saying "Seven years after he placed on ''
American Idol
''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to Ap ...
'', Chris Daughtry and his band are opening up their would-be grunge to more nuance: folk instruments and synths, smoother high notes tempering Daughtry's bellow, "boom-b'boom" vocal-bass hook lightening the gender war in "Battleships." The sound on ''Baptized'' somehow links
U2 to
Rascal Flatts
Rascal Flatts is an American country music band founded in 1999. The band members were Gary LeVox (lead vocals), Jay DeMarcus (bass guitar, background vocals), and Joe Don Rooney (lead guitar, background vocals). DeMarcus is LeVox's second cou ...
, adding
Springsteen stances in "Wild Heart." More unexpectedly, there's also a banjo shuffle where Daughtry chooses
Van Halen
Van Halen ( ) was an American rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972. Credited with "restoring hard rock to the forefront of the music scene", Van Halen was known for its energetic live shows and for the virtuosity of its lead gu ...
over Van Hagar, catalogs some of his other heroes and wonders who wrote Hole's songs. "Long Live Rock & Roll," it's called – a defense, perhaps, against anybody claiming guys like him helped kill it."
Glenn Gamboa of ''
Newsday'' gave the album a grading of B−, saying "Daughtry takes some cool chances on his fourth album." He then commented positively on "
Waiting for Superman," calling it "a sleek change of pace, rolling together bits of
The Fray
The Fray is an American rock band from Denver, Colorado, formed in 2002 by schoolmates Isaac Slade and Joe King. Their debut album, '' How to Save a Life'' released in 2005, was certified double platinum by the RIAA and platinum in Australia ...
and
Bon Jovi into the patented Daughtry sound;" and gave "Long Live Rock & Roll" a positive review, saying "he cleverly reminisces about
Billy Joel and grunge in a country-style rave-up."
However, he commented negatively on "Battleships" "with the stunningly weird chorus of "We love like battleships ... And the cannon goes, 'Boom boo-boom boom boo-boom boom boom,'" which is, well, crazy, and you wonder if he's gone too far."
He then concluded by saying "Daughtry broadens his sound with mixed results."
Ken Capobianco of ''
The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' also gave the album a mixed review, saying "Daughtry strips his sound to more acoustic textures and even ventures into electro-pop. At times, the change is refreshing, yet too often he seems to think the world needs more songs evoking
Train
In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...
or
Lifehouse. Only the powder keg rocker “Traitor” diverges from the new approach. Luckily, Daughtry has one of the more expressive voices in rock, so he still breathes some life into the overload of corny lyrics."
Jon Caramanica of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' delivered a more negative review for the album, saying that he felt Daughtry felt limited with the stripped-down music. "But even though Daughtry’s music has softened, there’s not much Mr. Daughtry can do with his voice, which has an appealing, powerful growl with no sultriness to it. It wants badly to roar but is given almost no opportunity."
Commercial
The album debuted at No. 6 on the ''Billboard'' 200, No. 1 on Top Internet Albums, and No. 3 on Top Rock Albums, selling 55,000 copies in its first week. It has sold 270,000 copies in the United States as of January 2016.
In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at No. 42, selling 4,978 copies in its first week.
Track listing
Personnel
;Performance credits
*Background vocals – John August, Johnny Blk, Martin Johnson, Rock Mafia, Jake Sinclair
*Primary artist – Daughtry (Brian Craddock,
Chris Daughtry, Robin Diaz, Elvio Fernandes, Josh Paul, Josh Steely)
;Instruments
*
Bass – Martin Johnson, Brian Paddock, Tim Pierce, Jake Sinclair
*
Cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...
– Glenn Fischbach, Jennie Lardieri
*
Drums – Robin Diaz, Victor Indrizzo, John Keefe, Jack Sinclair
*
Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
s – Chris Daughtry, Martin Johnson, Brian Paddock, Tim Pierce, Jake Sinclair
**Lead guitar – Josh Steely
**Rhythm guitar – Brian Craddock
*
Keyboard
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
– Elvio Fernandes, Jake Sinclair
*
Mandolin – Tim James, Martin Johnson
*Musician – Johnny Blk
*Percussion – Victor Indrizzo, Martin Johnson
*
Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
– Elvio Fernandes, Chuck Harmony, Martin Johnson
*
Ukulele
The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings.
The tone and volume of the instrumen ...
– Martin Johnson
*
Viola
; german: Bratsche
, alt=Viola shown from the front and the side
, image=Bratsche.jpg
, caption=
, background=string
, hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow
, range=
, related=
*Violin family ...
– Davis Barnett. Jonathan Kim
*
Violin
The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...
– Dayna Anderson, Eliza Cho, Emma Kummrow, Olga Konopelsky, Luigi Mazzocchi, Charles Parker
;Production
*
A&R – Rani Hancock
*Arrangement:
**String arrangements – Larry Gold
*Assistant – Karl Peterson
*Coordination:
**Production coordination – Christopher Hunte, Kayla Lee
*Editing:
**
Digital editing
Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...
– John August, Chris Bernard
*Drum technician – Chris Bernard, Gersh
*
Engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...
– busbee, Adam Comstock, Elivo Fernandes, Steve Hammons, Martin Johnson, Kyle Moorman, Brian Paddock, Mike Piazza, Steve Shebby, SmH, Speed Ninja
**Assistant engineer – Marcus Johnson
**Mixing engineer – John Hanes
**String engineer – Jeff Chestak
*Instrumentation – Martin Johnson
*
Mastering – Chris Gehringer
*
Mixing – Serban Ghenea
*
Producer – Chris Daughtry, Martin Johnson, Johnny Blk, busbee, DreZa, Elivo Fernandes, Toby Gad, Onree Gill, Martin Johnson, Claude Kelly, MDL, Rock Mafia, Jake Sinclair
*
Programming – Martin Johnson, Kyle Moorman, Brian Paddock, Steve Shebby, Jake Sinclair
**Additional production – Johnny Blk, Aaron Dudley, Kyle Moorman, Brian Paddock, David Schuler
**String conduction – Larry Gold
;Imagery
*Art direction – Chris Feldmann, Michelle Holme
*Band photo – Michael Muller
*Creative director – Erwin Gorostiza
*Design – Alice Butts
*Photography – José Enrique Montes Hernandez, Jasper James
Charts and sales
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Sales
Release history
Notes
References
{{Authority control
2013 albums
Daughtry (band) albums
RCA Records albums
19 Recordings albums